Gershom (Gershon)

Meaning: expulsion [other authors include these meanings: “exile,” “an alien there”, “a stranger there,” “a sojourner there”]

This is the name of four Biblical men.

  1. The eldest son of Levi (1 Chronicles 6:16,17, 20, 43, 62, 71; 15:7) . [He is also called “Gershon.” His descendants were called Gershonites (Numbers 26:57). His brothers were Kohath and Merari (Genesis 46:11; Numbers 3:17).]

  2. The elder of the two sons of Moses born to him in Midian (Exodus 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 (Judges 18:30), in Revised King James Version “of Moses.”

Author: Matthew G. Easton, with additions by Paul S. Taylor.

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