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Ethiopia in the Bible

Moses, Jethro and Zipphora

Even Moses testified the prophetical relevance of Ethiopia as motherland of Mankind. He is the greatest prophet of old, about whom it has been said in the Scripture:

And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face” (Deuteronomy 34, 10)

When Moses realized his own calling and racial identity as child of Israel, he departed from the idolatric and oppressive court of Egypt: he killed an egyptian man, as symbolic denial of that system, and took refuge in Midian, at that time an Ethiopian colony ruled by the Ethiopian Priest and King Jethro (Yotor):

Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock…” (Exodus 2, 15-16)

Jethro was a descendant of Melchisedek and Ethièl: in fact, he was priest and king in the same time, and the validity of his priesthood was acknowledged by the children of Israel, who participate into his rite and sacrifice (Exodus 18). This valid priesthood, existing before the Levites, was the Order of Melchisedek, he had inherited from his forefather. Similarly to Abraham with Melchisedek, Moses bowed down unto Jethro the Ethiopian in submission:

“And Moses went out to meet his father in law, and did obeisance, and kissed him” (Exodus 18,7)

Having dismissed the pagan robes of the Egyptians, Moses rebuilt his own identity following the authority and education of Jethro the Ethiopian, that taught him all the secrets of Priesthood and Kingdom also. It is a good example of this when he told Moses to rationally organize the administration of justice, establishing subordinate judges to solve the disputes of the people (Exodus 18). This is said in the same chapter where Jethro leads the liturgy of the children of Israel.

Moses married the daughter of Jethro, that thus became his father-in-law. Therefore, Moses was completely adopted by an Ethiopian family and was filled with Ethiopian knowledge to face his prophetical ministry. There, among the Ethiopians, God revealed Himself:

Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed (…) God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.” (Exodus 3, 1-4)

Zipphora, his ethiopian wife, became the queen of the nation of Israel, companion of His greatest prophet and Law-giver, as symbol of the divine motherland and physical racial essence of the kingdom of God.

When the Levitic family of Moses saw his Ethiopian wife, they became jelous and hostile, for Moses had taken as wife a stranger. But it was not a stranger indeed, therefore Egziabhier sent a terrible punishment of leprosy against those ones without understanding (Numbers 12). Their doom is allegorically the same of all those trying to deny Ethiopia her rightful divine place as original biblical motherland.

And talking about Christ, the second Law-Giver, Moses prophecied about the coming of a Prophet of Ethiopian Knowledge and Order, like himself, saying:

“The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken” (Deuteronomy 18, 15)