January 24th
January 24, 2010
This weeks readings are Genesis 48:1-Exodus 12:13, Matthew 15:29-20:28, Psalm 20:1-25:15, Proverbs 4:20-6:11. Feel free to post any thoughts, comments, questions, etc. about these readings as a comment to this post.
What’s the deal with the Lord about to kill Moses and the cutting of foreskin and touching to feet? Is there some historical reference to this? Could someone please do some essplaining or point me in the right direction so I could find out the meaning.
Thanks
James,
After reading this same passage over and over and then looking at a few comments from people who are WAY smarter than me, here is a synthesis of some comments that make the most the sense:
The circumcision of Moses’ son (either Gershom or Eliezer) does seem strange. In his years in Midian Moses had neglected to obey God’s command (Gen. 17:10) to circumcise one (or both?) of his sons. It seems that God was about to kill Moses, perhaps by causing him to be gravely ill.
Zipporah reluctantly circumcised her son with flint and then God healed Moses. Her touching Moses’ feet with the son’s foreskin was possibly a symbolic act of substitution, in which obedience was seen as replacing disobedience.
In regards to Zipporah calling Moses a bridegroom of blood, the meaning of this phrase is unknown. Some say it was used in a derogatory way to suggest that she did not favor the rite. (Yet she did it to save her husband’s life.) Others propose that she saw in the act a sort of redemption by which the blood of the youngster restored Moses to the Lord and also to her as a new bridegroom.
Umbro Cassuto explains that she was saying, “I have delivered you from death, and your return to life makes you my bridegroom a second time, this time my blood bridegroom, a bridegroom acquired through blood.”