Gershom

(a stranger or exile).

• The first-born son of Moses and Zipporah. (Exodus 2:22; 18:3) (B.C. 1530.)

• The form under which the name Gershon—the eldest son of Levi—is given in several passages of Chronicles, viz., (1 Chronicles 6:16,17,20,43,62,71; 15:7)

• The representative of the priestly family of Phinehas, among those who accompanied Ezra from Babylon. (Ezra 8:2) (B.C. 536.)

Expulsion. (1.) The eldest son of Levi (1 Chr. 6:16, 17, 20, 43, 62, 71; 15:7)=GERSHON (q.v.).

(2.) The elder of the two sons of Moses born to him in Midian (Ex. 2:22; 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 (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.

(3.) A descendant of Phinehas who returned with Ezra from Babylon (Ezra 8:2).

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