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"Bridegroom of Blood" - The Odd Text of Exodus 4:24-26
The story of Exodus is one of the more well-known in the Bible, and even children often can summarize what takes place in the first few chapters: Egypt enslaves and oppressed Israel, Moses is told by God to go tell Pharaoh to let His people go, and Moses and Aaron proceed to unleash the plagues of God against Egypt as a sign of God’s great power. In the middle of chapter 4, however, there is an incredibly odd collection of three verses. In verses 24-26, after God has just told Moses to go to Egypt, given him miraculous powers, and sent him on his way, the author records for us that “Now it came about at the lodging place on the way that the Lord met him and sought to put him to death.” Wait, what? The Lord tries to kill Moses? That doesn’t make it into a lot of the children’s stories! What is going on in this text, and why did the author include this text (especially if the author is Moses, as is traditionally asserted!)? Let’s look and try to make sense of this baffling text.
A brief note here: I don’t have confidence that I have this 100% right. This is a difficult text for any scholar to fully understand, particularly because the narrative flow of Exodus 4 would almost make more sense without these three verses. God commissions Moses to go to Egypt with Aaron in vs. 23, and then in vs. 27 Aaron and Moses meet up and head to Egypt. These three verses are also difficult because the Hebrew text of this passage is maddeningly devoid of proper nouns: the word that English translations often has as “Moses” in this passage is actually simply “him,” and the second instance of “the Lord” in vs. 26 is “he.” This makes it even harder to know exactly what’s going on, and scholar heavily debate and disagree with what’s going on here: one source I read thought that vs. 24’s victim of the Lord’s wrath might even be the firstborn of Pharaoh from vs. 23! It is helpful to address this with the reminder that St. Augustine of Hippo gave his readers: difficult texts, even if we don’t fully grasp them, help to remind us of the need for humility. The Bible is simple enough for children to understand, yet complex, rich, and deep enough to outlast even the most diligent scholar’s lifetime of work. With difficult texts like this one, patience is the virtue that will be most in demand.
Something to note is that there are a couple of textual issues to bring up for clarity’s sake. The first is that the word often translated “lodging place,” or “inn,” is more accurately translated as a camp site. These places, typically located by a source of water, were common stopping points on long journeys or caravans. This means that Moses was not in a crowded hotel lobby when this incident took place, but in the middle of nowhere. Second, the phrase “the Lord met him and sought to put him to death,” often sounds like God himself shows up and prepares to physically kill this person, but the Hebrew text actually gives the impression of the victim being stricken with a deadly disease. The text is unclear about who is actually struck by illness – it could be Moses, or it could be one of Moses’ sons (Gershom, who has been mentioned before, or Eliezer, who will be mentioned in later passages) – but it is certain that this is a dangerous situation, and the anger of the Lord has been provoked.
As far as identifying what is going on, the text seems obviously concerned with circumcision: the response to the Lord’s action against Moses is Zipporah (Moses’ wife) taking a sharp stone and circumcising their son, and then calling Moses a “bridegroom of blood.” Circumcision was obviously a big deal even at this early stage in the development of Israel’s history. Genesis 17 had seen circumcision given as a sign of the covenant promises made to Abraham, and all of Abraham’s descendants were to be circumcised as a demonstration of their loyalty to this covenant. Moses, despite his Egyptian childhood, was born to a Hebrew household and lived there for three months. Genesis 17 establishes that circumcision was to take place on the eighth day of a male child’s life, so there is no reason to believe that Moses’ parents would not have fulfilled their duty as Israelites and circumcised Moses per custom. It is noteworthy, however, that Moses has not circumcised his son to this point. While Moses had been raised Egyptian, it does not seem a stretch of the text to say that he was aware of his Hebrew heritage: his mother served as a nursemaid for at least the early parts of his life, and Moses was aware of his heritage enough to defend the Hebrew slave being beaten in chapter 2 of Exodus. Indeed, Moses seems to be aware of who YHWH is when he identifies himself as the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” It would seem, then, that Moses was aware of the importance of circumcision, yet for some reason had not circumcised his son in fulfilment of these covenant promises. It is striking then that Zipporah is the one who understands the situation and fulfills the covenant promise despite being a non-Israelite (albeit being the daughter of a Midianite priest who seems to know Yahweh). She even uses a sharp flint stone rather than a metal knife, which would conform to the Israelite idea of using “uncut stones” for their altars in honor of God’s act of creation.
Much attention has been paid to Zipporah’s action of “throwing” the foreskin at Moses’ feet (official scholarly side note: gross). The text literally reads here “made it touch at his feet,” which has less of an aggressive connotation than “threw at his feet.” Her comment of “You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me,” could be read as a reproach against Moses, and many commentators have made Zipporah out to be the villain of this account: Moses had neglected to circumcise her son due to Zipporah’s disgust at the act, and after being forced to perform the act herself Zipporah insults her husband by calling him “a bridegroom of blood.” This seems to be unnecessarily excusing Moses in this situation. Moses, as an Israelite, should have been the one to circumcise his son as required. Indeed, how could a man who is supposed to lead Israel in keeping the Covenant with God be himself unwilling to exercise the Covenant in his own house? Indeed, the consequences seem to be obviously negative for Moses: while his (or his son’s) life is spared, Zipporah and his sons do no show up in the story again until Moses returns to Mt. Sinai; the implication is that after this episode, whether due to frustration with Moses or a desire to protect her sons, Zipporah had returned back to her father.
So, what can we take from this odd episode? Again, the most obvious seems to be a proper dose of humility: even in our wisdom and knowledge, sometimes the Bible is just difficult. We can respect that reality while still trusting in the veracity of the text and the goodness of its Author. Yet from a textual standpoint, the emphasis seems to be on the deadly seriousness of respecting and keeping God’s commandments. Moses had failed to uphold his covenant relationship with God, and this text comes after repeated efforts by Moses to get out of his duty to God to lead Israel out of bondage. It seems, perhaps, that this life-or-death scenario was the jolt that Moses needed to take his duties seriously and understand the gravity of God’s decrees. For us, then, it should serve as a reminder to take our covenant obligations seriously: God will not be mocked, and we should not proudly proclaim what the Lord requires people to do and then fail to do so in our own households! God calls for us to be consistent in our faith, and even a great leader such as Moses had maturing to do in this respect. Indeed, this low point of Moses’ faith makes his faith at the Red Sea and Mt. Sinai even more amazing: this coward who had doubted every word of God is now the one leading Israel in faithfulness and trust in the saving power of God. If God can work such a transformation in Moses’ life, he can surely do the same for us!
