Free Kindle Zipporah, Wife Of Moses: A Novel ebooks Download
From the internationally bestselling author of Sarah comes the riveting story of the remarkable woman who walked beside Moses. Although she is a Cushite by birth—one of the people of the lands to the south—Zipporah grew up as the beloved daughter of Jethro, high priest and sage of the Midianites. But the color of Zipporah’s skin sets her apart, making her an outsider to the men of her adopted tribe, who do not want her as a wife. Then one day while drawing water from a well, she meets a handsome young stranger. Like her, he is an outsider. A Hebrew raised in the house of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Moses is a fugitive, forced to flee his homeland. Zipporah realizes that this man will be the husband and partner she never thought she would have.Moses wants nothing more than a peaceful life with the Midianites, but Zipporah won’t let Moses forget his past—or turn away from his true destiny. She refuses to marry him until he returns to Egypt to free his people. When God reveals himself to Moses in a burning bush, his words echo Zipporah’s, and Moses returns to Egypt with his passionate and generous wife by his side. A woman ahead of her time, Zipporah leaps from the pages of this remarkable novel. Bold, independent, and a true survivor, she is a captivating heroine, and her world of deserts, temples, and ancient wonders is a fitting backdrop to an epic tale.
File Size: 444 KB
Print Length: 288 pages
Publisher: Broadway Books (July 5, 2005)
Publication Date: July 5, 2005
Language: English
ASIN: B000FCK9MM
Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
X-Ray: Not Enabled
Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Enhanced Typesetting: Not Enabled
Best Sellers Rank: #535,231 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store) #47 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Religious & Inspirational Fiction > Biblical #65 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Literature & Fiction > Biblical Fiction #1713 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Religious & Inspirational > Historical
The topic of Zipporah, Moses' black African wife, fascinated me, so this book supplied a want. What we know from the Bible is Moses married a black African woman and had two sons (Gershom and Eliezer) by her. She and her sons pretty much disappear thereafter.That could be the basis for a happy story, a heroic story - heck, even a comedy. Author Marek Halter, however, inexplicably chose to turn what might have been "Much Ado About Nothing" into "King Lear meets Titus Andronicus".On the one hand, you have Halter's excellent story telling ability. On the other hand, you feel that Halter perversely abuses his protagonist, Zipporah. Halter breathes considerable life into Zipporah, a sensitive Dickensian underdog character, and then, instead of exalting her with triumph for her moral integrity - as Dickens would do - Halter instead has her husband abandon her, destroys her children in front of her eyes, and disembowels her. If you feel there is something grossly perverted with Halter's conception, then you and I concur.This Marek Halter story fails aesthetically on multiple levels.1. Rather than a loyal submissive wife (standard for that time, I'm surmising), Zipporah is an endearing shrew.2. Zipporah's death and the death of her two sons was totally unnecessary; indeed, the unnecessary bloodiness reminds you of the black comedy of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.3. Moses is depicted as vacillating and weak, when in fact he was a prince of Egypt who "was trained in all the wisdom of Egypt, was great in his words and works", and had encountered God personally.4.
I will first state that I listened to this book on CD, and that probably made the book flow a lot better.When you study the Hebrew Bible, you learn that every place where there is a non sequitur (2 lines that don't necessarily seem to go together, but are next to each other anyway) in the Bible, there is a story behind the story (called a Midrash in Hebrew). I was curious to learn this author's interpretation of who Zipporah was. The first part of the book had some worthwhile background material, but some side stories didn't seem to be necessary.I really enjoyed the middle part of the story where the author followed the Bible closely: the story of how Moses helped Zipporah and her sisters at the well, the burning bush, the birth of their sons. It was hard to read about the suffering of the Hebrews, but when the book followed the Bible, it was enjoyable, and it made the Bible as well as the characters come alive. (Note: there are scenes of a sexual nature in this portion that other reviewers have found inappropriate. I personally don't think these scenes added much to the book.)Other reviewers have mentioned being disturbed about the prejudice shown to Zipporah, and I am no different. While I believe that the Hebrews would definitely have mistrusted an outsider, I sincerely doubt that her color was an issue. Many Jews today are white skinned, but that has more to do with where they have lived rather than where they are originally from. There are Jews on every continent, and they have every skin color. I don't know what color the Hebrews of the book of Exodus were, but I would be willing to believe that they were dark-skinned. It seems that this author had an agenda, but I think it would have been better served in a different book.
Zipporah, Wife of Moses: A Novel Where the Two Seas Meet: Al-Khidr and Moses—The Qur’anic Story of al-Khidr and Moses in Sufi Commentaries as a Model for Spiritual Guidance The Sixth and seventh books of Moses: or, Moses' magical spirit art, known as the wonderful arts of the old wise Hebrews, taken from the Mosaic books ... and the Talmud, for the good of mankind The Aviator's Wife: A Novel The Traitor's Wife: A Novel Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York Grandma Moses (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists) The Year with Grandma Moses Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom (Caldecott Honor Book) Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Moses (Classics of Western Spirituality) The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (The Schocken Bible, Volume 1) The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary Great Lives: Moses: A Man of Selfless Dedication Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York Great Lives: Moses: A Man of Selfless Dedication (Great Lives Series) Moses: The Lost Book of the Bible Mediators Between Human and Divine: From Moses to Muhammad Go Down, Moses: Celebrating the African-American Spiritual MOSES VOLUME 2 (SING the Bible!)
