Zipporah ציפורה

They met at a well in Midian. The priest's seven daughters came to water the flock, shepherds drove them off, and the fugitive from Egypt stood up for them and watered the flock himself. The father called him home, and Zipporah became his wife.

Then comes an episode of three verses that every commentator wrestles with. Moses is returning to Egypt; at night at the lodging place "the LORD met him and sought to kill him." And then — without a word of explanation from Moses — Zipporah acts: "and Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched his feet, and said: a bridegroom of blood you are to me." The danger passed.

What exactly happened the text does not explain, and translators note that the sense is obscure. One thing is clear: the only person who understood at that moment what had to be done, and did it at once, was she.

Later Jethro brings her and their two sons, Gershom and Eliezer, back to Moses in the wilderness — it is said that he had "sent her away" before that. She does not appear in the Tanakh again.