Exodus 4:24

[Rob]

So I was reading to my daughter the other night the story of Moses from her bible and I cam across a very odd passage that I didn't remember reading before.

It reads:

24 On the trip, at an oversight campsite, it happened that the Lord confronted him and sought to put him to death. 25 So Zipporah took a flint, cut off her son's foreskin, and threw it at Moses' feet. Then she said "You are a bridegroom of blood to me!" 26 So He let him alone. At that time she she said, "You are a bridegroom of blood," referring to the circumcision.

There are some footnotes that read:
4:25 Lit his feet; some interpret "feet" as a euphemism for genitals
4:25-26 Perhaps Zipporah appeased God on Moses' behalf by circumcising Gershom.

Does anyone have any insight to share on this one? It confused me mightily when I read it.

[Katabole]

Hello Rob.

Essentially, it goes back to Genesis 17:14. God's eternal covenant that was given to Abraham. Moses had gone up on the mount Sinai, he talked with God at the burning bush and was instructed in detail as to how he would bring the children of Israel out of Egypt. He packed up his wife and two kids, mounted his donkey, and here at the (campsite)inn, Moses finds out that he did not tend to the most basic instruction that God has given to His people. Moses himself had been circumcised. Moses has two sons and neither of them had been circumcised, therefore even though the sons were worthy of death, Moses was responsible for his sons (evidently his sons were young at this time), so the threat of death fell on him.

Moses had indeed kept the law but had broken God's covenant by neglect, either by ignorance or forgetfulness within his own family. He is going to do the Lord's work but by not circumcising his children, when he as an Israelite was supposed to, he has broken all ties that he had with God. So God is out to kill him. So what is Zipporah going to do about circumcising her two sons? She was a Midianite also from the seed of Abraham. She evidently knew about the covenant with Abraham just as Moses did, for her father, Jethro, was the chief Midianite priest of God. Zipporah did the dirty work of cutting off the foreskin of her sons, and she, from her response, didn't like doing it. She just did not understand how important that was to God, but it was done.

On a deeper level, the teaching or purpose of these verses is in my opinion to show, that even if you are a follower of God, remember to follow complete instructions; not partial instructions. God after all, wanted to kill Moses AFTER Moses had been chosen by God and not before. Granted, circumcision is of the heart today since Christ did away with the ceremonial laws (ordinances) at the cross (Col 2:14), so for us as Christians, it would be a matter of circumcising our heart, even if we are believers. That circumcision is for both male and female, for it happens when you take Christ into your heart.

Hope that helps you.

[Rob]

Yes, it did help!
Thanks muchly for the reply!

[cheezerrox]

I saw an interesting interpretation by Jewish Hebrew scholar Richard Elliot Friedman in his translation and commentary on the five books of Moses. People argue about what the second "he" in this verse is, but all assume the first one is "the Lord." In the Hebrew, it doesn't actually say "the Lord confronted him," it says "he." Friedman says that it could be that Moses was the one who confronted G-d, and asked for Him to kill him, seeking to end his own life, because he was overwhelmed and scared of the mission he was bidden to undertake (as can be seen by his responses to G-d at the burning bush at Exodus 3). Zipporah's action and words could be taken in this interpretation as her passionate response to his plead, and as her way of saying, "You have a wife, a son, a family; you need to think of them, too." This interpretation always seemed really interesting to me, and while it might seem a bit of a stretch in English, the Hebrew is a bit more allowing of it.

Just for thought.