Gershom

From BibleEncyclopedia.Net

gûr´shom (גּרשׁם, gēreshōm, from gārash, “to cast out,” or "expulsion"; explained, however, in Exodus 2:22 and Exodus 18:3 as from gūr, “For he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land”):

(1) Firstborn son of the two sons Moses and Zipporah born in Midian (Exodus 2:22; Exodus 18:3). On his way to Egypt with his family, in obedience to the command of the Lord, Moses was attacked by a sudden and dangerous illness (Exodus 4:24-26), which Zipporah his wife believed to have been sent because he had neglected to circumcise his son. She accordingly took a “sharp stone” and circumcised her son Gershom, saying, “Surely a bloody husband art thou to me”, i.e., by the blood of her child she had, as it were, purchased her husband, had won him back again.

The only details of his life contained in the Pentateuch are the account of his circumcision (Exodus 4:25), and his remaining under the care of Jethro, while Moses was in Egypt leading the Exodus. His descendants were numbered among the tribes of Levi (1 Chronicles 23:14). One of them apparently was the Jonathan who officiated as priest of the idolatrous sanctuary at Dan, and whose descendants held the office until the captivity. The Massoretic Text inserts a suspended nun, “נ, n,” in the name of Moses (משה), causing it to be read מנשה, Manasseh, for the purpose, according to tradition, of disguising the name out of respect for the revered Lawgiver. Another descendant described as a “son” was Shebuel, a ruler over the treasuries of David.

(2) The eldest son of Levi, so called in 1 Chronicles 6:16, 1 Chronicles 6:17, 1 Chronicles 6:20, 1 Chronicles 6:43, 1 Chronicles 6:62, 1 Chronicles 6:71 (Hebrew 1, 2, 5, 28, 47, 56); 1 Chronicles 15:7; elsewhere Gershon (which see).

(3) A descendant of Phinehas, the head of a father's house, who journeyed with Ezra from Babylon to Jerusalem in the reign of Artaxerxes (Ezra 8:2).

(4) The son of Manasseh (Judges 18:30), in R.V. “of Moses.”