The relationships of Zipporah, her father Jethro (also known as Reuel) and her husband Moses are interesting and complex, perhaps fittingly since Moses is such a significant Biblical figure.
Jethro was a priest of Midian, thought to be modern-day Ethopia; Zipporah was one of his seven daughters. According to Swedenborg, Midian represents those in the “truth of simple good” – those who have a basic understanding of the Lord and live according to a desire to be good. As a priest, Jethro represents the desire for good in that church; his daughters represent holy things of that church.
Moses, however, represents what Swedenborg calls the “Law of God” – the commandments in various forms given by the Lord through the Bible. When he marries Zipporah, her meaning and her father’s become elevated. Jethro then represents the Divine Good, or the Lord’s love in action, and Zipporah represents the good things that flow from the Lord’s love. This makes sense, as abstract as it seems. When we want to do good things, we need information, knowledge, wisdom to figure out what to do and how to do it. So “good seeks out truth, and is conjoined to it,” as Swedenborg might put it — just as Zipporah is conjoined to Moses.
There is yet another twist, though: in the brief story in which Zipporah circumcises their son, she represents the remnants of the Ancient Church clearing the way for Moses to lead a church which would maintain ideas of the Lord and proper forms of worship.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 6793
6793. ‘And he gave Zipporah his daughter to Moses’ means that he linked the good of his Church to it. This is clear from the meaning of ‘giving’ – that is, giving in marriage – as linking to; from the meaning of ‘daughter’ as good, dealt with in 489-491, and also as a Church, 2362, 3963, 6729 (‘Zipporah’ means the essential nature of the good of that Church); and from the representation of ‘Moses’ as true factual knowledge, dealt with in 6784.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 7044
7044. ‘And Zipporah took a flint’ means that the representative Church used truth to demonstrate the actual nature. This is clear from the representation of ‘Zipporah’ here as the representative Church; and from the meaning of ‘a flint’ as the truth of faith. The use of knives made of flint to carry out circumcision meant the use of the truths of faith to carry out purification from filthy kinds of love, 2039, 2046, 2799; for circumcision was an act that represented purification from those kinds of love, 2799. The reason why purification is effected by means of the truths of faith is that these truths teach what good is and also what evil is, and so what ought to be done and what ought not to be done. And when a person knows those truths and wishes to act in accordance with them, he is being led by the Lord and purified by the Divine means that are His. Since the truths of faith teach what evil is and what good is it is evident that ‘Zipporah took a flint’ means the use of truth to demonstrate the actual nature. The fact that ‘Zipporah’ represents the representative Church is clear from the things that follow in these verses.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 8647
8647. ‘And Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, took Zipporah, the wife of Moses’ means the good from God which had been joined to God’s truth. This is clear from the representation of Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses’ as Divine Good, the source of the good joined to truth, in this instance God’s truth, which ‘Moses’ represents, dealt with above in 8643, 8644; from the representation of ‘Zipporah, the wife of Moses’ as the good from God. Marriages represent goodness and truth joined together. In the celestial Church the husband represents good and the wife the truth coming from it; but in the spiritual Church the man represents truth and the wife good. Here ‘the wife of Moses’ represents good because the spiritual kingdom is dealt with, see 2517, 4510, 4823, 7022.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 8661
8661. ‘I your father-in-law Jethro [come to you], and your wife, and her two sons with her’ means levels of God’s good in their order. This is clear from the representation of Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, as Divine Good, dealt with in 8643, 8644; from the representation of Zipporah, the wife of Moses, as good originating in that Divine Good and joined to God’s truth, dealt with in 8647; and from the representation of ‘her sons’ as forms of the good of truth, dealt with in 8649 8651. Thus they are levels of good in their order. Levels of good in their order are interior and exterior forms of good that come in order one after another – in degrees, about which see 3691, 4154, 5114, 5145, 5146, 8603.