Exodus 18:3

3 and her two sons--the one whose name [was] Gershom, for he had said, "I have been an alien 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 And Jethro, the priest of Midian, the father-in-law of Moses, heard all that God had done for Moses and for Israel, his people, that Yahweh had brought Israel out from Egypt.

2 And Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, took Zipporah the wife of Moses after her sending away,

3 and her two sons--the one whose name [was] Gershom, for he had said, "I have been an alien in a foreign land,"

4 and the one [whose] name [was] Eliezer, for "the God of my father [was] my help, and he delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh."

5 And Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, came and his sons and his wife to Moses, to the desert where he was camping there [at] the mountain of God.