Exodus 18:3

3 The name of the one son was Gershom [a foreigner there], for Moshe had said, "I have been a foreigner in a foreign land."

Exodus 18:3 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 18:3

And her two sons
Those also Jethro took along with him and his daughter:

of which the name of the one was Gershom;
which seems to be his firstborn, ( Exodus 2:22 ) , his name signifies a desolate stranger, as some, or, "there I was a stranger": the reason of which name follows agreeably thereunto:

for he said, I have been an alien in a strange land;
meaning, not the land of Egypt, where he was born, and had lived forty years; but in the land of Midian, where he was when this son of his was born; and which name was given him partly to keep up the memory of his flight to Midian, and partly to instruct his son, that Midian, though his native place, was not his proper country where he was to dwell, but another, even the land of Canaan.

Exodus 18:3 In-Context

1 Now Yitro the priest of Midyan, Moshe's father-in-law, heard about all that God had done for Moshe and for Isra'el his people, how ADONAI had brought Isra'el out of Egypt.

2 After Moshe had sent away his wife Tzipporah and her two sons, Yitro Moshe's father-in-law had taken them back.

3 The name of the one son was Gershom [a foreigner there], for Moshe had said, "I have been a foreigner in a foreign land."

4 The name of the other was Eli'ezer [my God helps], "because the God of my father helped me by rescuing me from Pharaoh's sword."

5 Yitro Moshe's father-in-law brought Moshe's sons and wife to him in the desert where he was encamped, at the mountain of God.