Under attack – Part I (Exod 4:24-26)

As we continue the story of Moses, we come to one of the most obscure incidents in Scripture. Although translations often identify the characters in order to make sense of the events, the original leaves much of it vague. This is what the Hebrew looks like if translated woodenly.

4 ²⁴ It happened along the way at the lodging place that the LORD met him and sought to put him to death. ²⁵Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and made it touch his feet, and she said, ‘You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me’. ²⁶ So he let him alone. She said ‘bridegroom of blood’ at that time with reference to circumcision.

The best way forward in interpreting such a tricky passage is to keep in mind the larger context of the story. We may not understand the finer details of this incident, but it will help us see the links to the overall narrative. In a previous post I already noted Moses’s ambiguous behaviour regarding his mission. Here, we encounter another issue: at least one of his sons has not been circumcised. This rite was a sign of God’s covenant with Abraham expressing his and his descendants’ commitment to the Lord (Gen 17:9-14). Moses would probably have been circumcised by his parents (we are told that the generation coming out of Egypt was – Josh 5:5), but omitting to do the same for his son(s) is further evidence that Moses has unfinished business, which may become a liability in the showdown with Pharaoh. Nonetheless, we can understand how this happened. After fleeing Egypt and losing his sense of identity, faithfulness to God’s command regarding circumcision was probably not high on Moses’s priority list. It is also possible that marrying into a Midianite family and living in his father-in-law’s household made adhering to Israelite custom difficult. Pressures from family may create divided loyalties in our heart. 

Who then is being attacked by the Lord? Moses or one of his sons? If the latter, then it is more likely to be the firstborn since it would link in with the previous paragraph about the death of Pharaoh’s firstborn. Pharaoh resists God’s will and will lose his firstborn; Moses is reluctant to do God’s will and is threatened by the loss of his firstborn, which creates a symmetry in the story. Despite the appeal of this solution, the majority of interpreters agree that the object of the divine attack is Moses (the NIV even supplies the name in its translation). The previous paragraph (Exod 4:21-23) addresses Moses, so the reference in Exod 4:24 more naturally denotes him. If he is under attack and incapacitated it would also explain why Zipporah steps into the breach with action. Moses’s life being under threat fits into the larger context equally well in that the Lord shows him the dangers of his half-hearted commitment, if he goes in this state to deal with Pharaoh.

This situation reminds me of a friend who was struggling with infertility and considering treatment but also wondering if she could cope with the challenges of raising children. On hearing her prevaricate, her no-nonsense sister said to her, ‘You’d better make up your mind, sis, if you really want this. Once you have them, you can’t hand them back!’ Like our passage, Jesus often warned against the dangers of not counting the cost of discipleship in advance and compared it to a tower unfinished for lack of money (Luke 14:28-30) or to an army’s forced capitulation in the face of the enemy (Luke 14:31-32). Whether we are considering committing our lives fully to the Lord or the implications of a new direction that the Lord is leading us in, or even just carrying on in His service, it is important that we don’t have a divided heart or unfinished business in the background.