Question
Why did God try to kill Moses in Exodus 4?
Analysis
The passage
"Now at a lodging place along the way, the LORD met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin, and touched it to Moses' feet. 'Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,' she said. So the LORD let him alone. (When she said, 'bridegroom of blood,' she was referring to the circumcision.)" (Exodus 4:24-26, BSB)
⭐ The Hebrew never names Moses
In the Hebrew of these three verses, the name Moses does not appear at all. The tagged text shows only pronouns:
| Hebrew | Means |
|---|---|
| vayifgeshehu | "and He met him" |
| hamito | "to kill him" |
| leraglav | "to his feet" |
| mimmennu | "from him" |
Source: TAHOT, Tyndale House Cambridge / STEPBible.org, CC BY 4.0. The name Moses (H4872) occurs zero times in Exodus 4:24-26.
So three things English versions state are not stated in Hebrew:
- Whom the LORD sought to kill. Most read Moses. The nearest males are Moses and his son, and a minority reads the son.
- Whose feet were touched. Moses', the son's, or, some suggest, the one who attacked.
- Who was let alone. Again a pronoun: the Hebrew has only "from him" (mimmennu).
What the text does state
- It happened "at a lodging place along the way" (Exodus 4:24, BSB), as Moses returned to Egypt.
- Zipporah acted, not Moses: she circumcised her son with a flint.
- She called him "a bridegroom of blood" (Exodus 4:25, BSB), and the text adds that she was "referring to the circumcision" (Exodus 4:26, BSB).
- The danger ended after the circumcision: "So the LORD let him alone." (Exodus 4:26, BSB)
The covenant background
"But if any male is not circumcised, he will be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant." (Genesis 17:14, BSB)
Moses was on his way to lead the people God had bound to Himself by that covenant sign, and his own son was apparently uncircumcised.
The context just before
The verses immediately before speak of firstborn sons:
"'Israel is My firstborn son, and I told you to let My son go so that he may worship Me. But since you have refused to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son!'" (Exodus 4:22-23, BSB)
Some readers see Exodus 4:24-26 as connected to that theme, because in both places blood averts death, at the Passover it was put "on the sides and tops of the doorframes" (Exodus 12:7, BSB).
Where readers divide
| Reading | What it says |
|---|---|
| The uncircumcised son | Moses had not circumcised his son, breaking the covenant sign (Genesis 17:14); the leader of the covenant people could not neglect it. Zipporah's act removed the offence. The most widely held reading. |
| A foreshadowing of Passover | Coming straight after the words about firstborn sons (Exodus 4:22-23), the episode anticipates the Passover: blood averts death. |
| The son was the one in danger | Since the Hebrew never names Moses, the "him" may be the son, who was the one uncircumcised. A minority reading. |
| Deliberately left unexplained | The passage is intentionally brief and strange, and its point is that God's holiness is dangerous even to His chosen servant. |
Common ground
Across the readings, all agree that the text itself gives no explanation, that Zipporah's circumcision of her son ended the danger, and that the passage is one of the most difficult in the Torah.