This one has come up a lot recently and I believe due to the Torah Portion last Sabbath. You see, in that portion, which includes Numbers 12, there is 1 sentence that says Moses married a Cushite woman (or Ethiopian depending on your translation). Because we know back in Exodus that Moses married a Midianite, the assumption is that this must be a different woman. Seeing as God gave the commands to Moses and Moses was teaching them, God must not have a problem with having multiple wives However, this is reading this verse in a bubble and causes several issues.

I am not going to dig too deep into the multiple wive subject here. I started another commentary on my computer and it is essay length already. In this particular instance though I want to look at a few of things.
1) The word for Cushite used here is only used here. Everywhere else Cushite is used, it is a different word. The root of the word used here is “their blackness”, as Miriam’s punishment involves her skin, this looks to be an example of racism and a derogatory term being used against Zipporah.
2) If marriage is more than one woman to a man, God made a mistake at Creation. There is no getting past this. Perfect marriage was created in the beginning. Just like God married ONE bride, and in the future will join the two houses that split up to have ONE bride again.
3) Jethro was still with them just two chapters before. He is the only person mentioned as Moses’ father-in-law and wouldn’t he be more upset than Miriam and Aaron about the fact Moses chose another wife?
4) Moses would have been the FIRST righteous person to choose a second wife. Abraham and Jacob, they didn’t choose, they were given wives, and Jacob was tricked into taking someone he didn’t intend.
5) Even if the long shot that this is a second wife, which there is never any other mention of her, we can’t use the sin of someone to justify our own desires. David is often used to defend multiple wives, but as I included in the Scripture reference, as a king, he has a plain text “no multiple wives” command. He also had a guy killed for one of those wives. Should we start murdering people just because David did it?

The other verses all relate to marriage and how it speaks of one man and one woman. Compare the Hebrew in the Leviticus and Ezekiel passages. Exact same wording, yet one is translated to “sister”, and the other is translated as “another”. Titus is there as someone who is considered blameless, faultless, sinless has one wife.