Deadly Forgetfulness

“At a lodging place on the way the LORD met him and sought to kill him.   Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' feet with it, and said, "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!"   So he let him alone. Then it was that she said, "You are a bridegroom of blood," because of the circumcision.”  (Exodus 4:24 -26).  Here we have what Dr. Reid calls a “huh” verse something we look at and wonder to its meaning but really don’t have a plausible answer, just a lot of guess work, which to be honest are my absolute favorite verses to read and look at, maybe it is the mystery that gets to me, who knows.  But really in context to what else is going on in Exodus this is almost assuredly just randomly thrown in there to someone just passing through Exodus’ text.  You know, here we are hopping along getting ready to lead the Jews out of Egypt miraculously and boom! All of suddenly God comes swooping in to kill Moses!  I mean really where did that come from?  As I read it over and over I got the feeling that there is a stronger meaning to it than just randomness.  They are literally gearing up to leave Egypt, that is the Jews, in dramatic fashion and with God’s help to set out on their own to establish themselves as a nation.  In this there has to be a preparedness for the people, but even more so there has to be a remembrance of who they are so they can boldly set out on their own and at the same time know who they belong to, that being God and no one else.  Apparently, Moses’ child is not circumcised and this above all else is what physically sets the Jews apart and reminds them of the covenant that they made with God.  I don’t really think God set out to kill Moses just for the fun of it, to prove he could, or just on a random whim.  I believe it was to send this message of making sure that all of the people, especially including Moses and his family who would be leading the Jews, knew who they are and know who they belonged to; circumcision being a reminder of both of those things.  So God swoops in to kill Moses one night and Zipporah’s only response is to immediately circumcise her and Moses’ child and once she does, making a dramatic scene of it as she does, God leaves them be and the story just keeps a rolling along as it did prior to this little episode.  Very very interesting set of verses.  Logically one would have to look at Zipporah’s response to maybe see where this is all going, but of course, it is just guess work.  Although God is so not above using very dramatic means to get and keep our attention.  It just seems to me that Moses and all of his household should be as prepared as much as possible in not only leaving Egypt as Jews, but making sure that he and his people and family know who they are, a people set apart; a people circumcised in their being set apart.  The more and more I read and reread these set of three verses I get this very powerful feeling about it; about remembering who I am and what I am supposed to be doing.

Kalos Elpis

Kelly M. Doolittle