No. Cushite by birth and Midianite by residence.
Or the Midianites and the Cushites were the same people.
From Wikipedia:
Cushites were of the ancestry of Kush, a.k.a. Nubia, in northeast Africa. The Book of Genesis identifies the nations of Africa as descendants of Ham son of Noah. The Midianites themselves were a dark-skinned people often called Kushim, the Hebrew word used to describe dark skinned Africans.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipporah
Moses had two wives. Zipporah was Midianite and Tharbis the second wife was Cushite.
As per Dr Claude Mariottini - Professor of the Old Testament:
"Numbers 12:1 is the only passage in the Old Testament where Moses’ wife is identified as a “Cushite.” Throughout the Pentateuch, Moses’s wife is identified as Zipporah, a Midianite woman and the daughter of Jethro, the priest of Midian (Exodus 2:21; 3:1).
The expression “Cushite woman” is used disparagingly against Moses because he had married a non-Israelite woman. The text in question raises several issues: was Zipporah the Cushite woman? Does Cush in this context refers to Ethiopia or to another place? Thus, the most important question related to our discussion is: Did Moses have one wife, Zipporah or did Moses have two wives, Zipporah and the Cushite woman?
In his book, Antiquity of Jews, Book 2, Chapter 10, Josephus wrote that while Moses lived in Egypt, he commanded the Egyptian army in a war against Ethiopia and that he married an Ethiopian woman. The following are a few excerpts from Josephus’s narrative about Moses in Ethiopia:
(239) The Ethiopians, who are next neighbors to the Egyptians, made an inroad into their country, which they seized upon, and carried off the effects of the Egyptians, who, in their rage, fought against them, and revenged the affronts they had received from them; but, being overcome in battle, some of them were slain, and the rest ran away in a shameful manner, and by that means saved themselves;
(240) whereupon the Ethiopians followed after them in the pursuit, and thinking that it would be a mark of cowardice if they did not subdue all Egypt, they went on to subdue the rest with greater vehemence; and when they had tasted the sweets of the country, they never left off the prosecution of the war; and as the nearest parts had not courage enough at first to fight with them, they proceeded as far as Memphis and the sea itself; while not one of the cities was able to oppose them.
(252) Tharbis was the daughter of the king of the Ethiopians: she happened to see Moses as he led the army near the walls, and fought with great courage; and admiring the subtility of his undertakings, and believing him to be the author of the Egyptians’ success, when they had before despaired of recovering their liberty, and to be the occasion of the great danger the Ethiopians were in, when they had before boasted of their great achievements, she fell deeply in love with him; and upon the prevalency of that passion, sent to him the most faithful of all her servants to discourse with him about their marriage.
(253) He thereupon accepted the offer, on condition she would procure the delivering up of the city; and gave her the assurance of an oath to take her to his wife; and that when he had once taken possession of the city, he would not break his oath to her.
This narrative about Moses fighting in Ethiopia as the commander of an Egyptian army and his marriage to an Ethiopian princess is not in the Bible. It is difficult to believe that Josephus would create a fictitious narrative about Moses’ marriage to an Ethiopian woman, even though some scholars say that this narrative is fictitious.
Zipporah, Moses’ wife, was a Midianite woman. The Midianites were descendants of Abraham through his wife Keturah (Genesis 25:1-4). The Midianites lived in the Sinai region and in northern Arabia. Since the word “Cushites” or “Ethiopians” refers to black-skinned people. Some scholars have identified Midian with Cushan. The synonymous parallelism between Cushan and Midian in Habakkuk 3:7 suggests that the words Cushite and Midianite are identical. Both views try to affirm that Zipporah was the Cushite woman and that Moses had only one wife.
When Moses returned to Egypt from Midian, Moses brought Zipporah and his sons with him (Exodus 4:19-20). But, for unknown reasons, Moses sent Zipporah and his two sons back to Midian with Jethro (Exodus 18:2-3). Some scholars believe that Zipporah died in Midian and that after her death, Moses married the Cushite woman. Others believe that while Zipporah was away in Midian, Moses married a second woman, the Cushite woman mentioned in Numbers 12:1. These two views are attempts at saying that Moses had two wives.
Thus, the derogatory use of “Cushite woman” in Numbers 12:1 by Miriam is either an expression of contempt against Zipporah because she was not an Israelite woman or a racial slur used by Miriam to demean Moses’ Ethiopian wife."
