(22)
Gershom.--Almost certainly from
ger, "a stranger," and
sham, "there." So Jerome, who translates it
advena ibi. (Comp. Josephus and the LXX., who write the name Gersam.)
Verse 22. -
Gershom. An Egyptian etymology has been assigned to this name ('Speaker's Commentary,' vol. 1, p. 488); but Moses in the text clearly indicates that his own intention was to give his child a name significant in Hebrew. "He called his name Gershom, for he said, a stranger (
ger) have I been," etc. The only question is, what the second element of the name,
shom, means. This appears to be correctly explained by Kalisch and others as equivalent to sham "there " - so that the entire word would mean "(I was) a stranger there" -
i.e. in the country where this son was born to me.
CHAPTER 2:23-25
2:16-22 Moses found shelter in Midian. He was ready to help Reuel's daughters to water their flocks, although bred in learning and at court. Moses loved to be doing justice, and to act in defence of such as he saw injured, which every man ought to do, as far as it is in his power. He loved to be doing good; wherever the providence of God casts us, we should desire and try to be useful; and when we cannot do the good we would, we must be ready to do the good we can. Moses commended himself to the prince of Midian; who married one of his daughters to Moses, by whom he had a son, called Gershom, a stranger there, that he might keep in remembrance the land in which he had been a stranger.
And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom,.... Which signifies a "desolate stranger"; partly on his own account, he being in a foreign country, a stranger and sojourner; but not by way of complaint, but rather of thankfulness to God for providing so well for him in it; and partly on his son's account, that when he came to years of maturity and knowledge, he might learn, and in which Moses no doubt instructed him, that he was not to look upon Midian as his proper country, but that he was to be heir of the land of Canaan, and which he might be reminded of by his name:
for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land; so Midian was to him, who was born in Egypt, and being an Hebrew, was entitled to the land of Canaan; this looks as if he had been at this time some years in Midian.
