Several years ago I wrote a brief article on the interpretation and application of a strange account of circumcision found in Exodus 4:24-26. This passage falls between Moses’ departure from the land of Midian and his return to Egypt. He had fled Egypt forty years prior after killing an Egyptian (murder or self-defense, who can say?) and becoming subject to Pharaoh’s wrath. Now Moses found himself married to Zipporah, daughter of the priest of Midian, and father to a son, Gershom. As a devoted son-in-law he cared for Jethro’s flocks (also Reuel, cf. Ex. 2:18), yet as a son of Jacob he felt keenly the weight of his peoples’ hard labor and bondage in Egypt. When the Lord called him to return to Egypt and bring his people up from slavery, Moses was willing to go.1
So how are we to think about what happened next? The text itself is quite cryptic: “Not it came about at the lodging place on the way that the LORD met him and sought to put him to death. Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and threw it at Moses’ feet, and she said, ‘You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me.’ So He let him alone. At that time she said, ‘You are a bridegroom of blood’ – because of the circumcision.”
The primary interpretive questions are:
- Whom did Yahweh meet along the way?
- Why did Yahweh want to put him to death?
- Where was Moses in all of this?
- Why did Zipporah circumcise her son rather than the boy’s father?
- Whom did she touch after performing the rite?
- To whom was she speaking when she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood to me”?
- What did she mean by “a bridegroom of blood”?
- Why were Zipporah’s words repeated in v.26?
There are a few other questions that present themselves, but these seem to be the key ones that demand to be answered. Unfortunately, it is not possible to answer any of them with certainty. Still, let’s consider the possibilities and see if we can draw any reasonable conclusions.2
Questions 1 & 2
After receiving a blessing from his father-in-law, Moses took his wife and sons and left Midian for Egypt (v.20). Until this point we knew only that Moses’ wife had given him Gershom (2:22), but the text signals that Eliezer had also been born by using the plural “sons.” This leaves us with at least three options in answering the first question, Whom did the Lord meet along the way? Most interpreters seem to assume that it was Moses the Lord met and intended to put to death. Some English versions make an interpretive judgment, inserting the name Moses into v.24; these include the NASB, NET Bible, NIV, and NLT. And there are some good arguments in favor of it being Moses. For one thing, he is the one male who seems to be of accountable age, so it would make sense that the Lord would execute judgment on him rather than on either of his sons. Also, the fact that Zipporah circumcised her son would make sense if Moses were somehow incapacitated during the ordeal. Still, the text never actually identifies this person as Moses, using the pronoun “him” instead.
What other options do we have? It could be either one of Moses’ sons. How old were they? We don’t know. Why wouldn’t Moses have already circumcised them? We don’t know. Could it be that Eliezer was newly born and not yet old enough to be circumcised before they left? Possibly, although we don’t have any evidence for that in the text. If there is an argument for either of the boys, the most likely one is Gershom. He was Moses’ firstborn, and v.23 ends with the Lord’s threat to Pharaoh that he will kill his firstborn son, if he refuses to allow Israel to go free. In fact, the emphasis in the second half of Exodus 4 is all on the firstborn son. The Lord calls Israel his firstborn (v.22) and threatens to kill his firstborn (v.23), so it would be consistent if Yahweh sought to kill Moses’ firstborn for his failure to circumcise his sons.
God says the one who is uncircumcised would be cut off from the people.
We also have to examine why the Lord sought to kill Gershom (or Moses, if you prefer that answer). It cannot be denied that Moses’ son or sons were not circumcised, and that this was an act of disobedience to the Lord’s command. He had told Abraham that every male in his household must be circumcised as a sign of Yahweh’s covenant with the patriarch (Gen. 17:10-11). This ritual was to be performed on the 8th day for every newborn male (v.12), and the penalty for neglecting the sign was being cut off from among the people (v.14). While some may conclude that this makes Moses the likely target of God’s wrath and deadly judgment, I do not think so. Abraham is not threatened with being cut off for failing to circumcise his son or servant, but God says the one who is uncircumcised will be cut off from the people. This would make Gershom (or Eliezer) a more likely target of Yahweh’s judgment as a consequence of Moses’ disobedience.
Can we decide between the two? I lean toward Gershom for two reasons. First, there is a kind of poetic justice in God nearly killing Moses’ firstborn after having just told Moses that he would kill Pharaoh’s for refusing to let Israel go. Second, until now we did not have any indication that Moses even had a second son. He is not mentioned directly or by name in this passage, and he may have been a newborn, not yet even to the 8th day on which he was commanded to be circumcised. Admittedly, these conclusions are tentative, but I think they are consistent with the context and yield a coherent reading of v.24. We will examine v.25-26 in future installments and try to answer the remaining questions as best we can.
1This does not mean that Moses did not have any fears or objections to the plan which the Lord laid out for him. But in spite of his personal fears and insecurities, Moses obediently sought his father-in-law’s blessing and went.
2While studying this passage recently, I did read my 2017 article linked above and found myself in agreement at least with the basic application. However, further study has made me realize how many more of the details are obscure than I had previously thought. This is why I write about it now.
