The Bloody Bridegroom (4:24–26)

Translation

24It happened on the way at the inn that the LORD encountered him and sought to put him to death. 25And Zipporah took a flint and cut away the foreskin of her son and made it touch his feet. She said, “A bridegroom of blood(s) are you to me.” 26And he backed away from him. Then she said, “A bridegroom of blood(s) by the circumcision(s).”

Grammatical and Lexical Notes 4:24. mālôn (“inn”) is presumably a place one would stop for a night’s rest while on a journey (Gen. 42:27), but not necessarily so. In hotter climates one might stop at such a place to escape the blistering, hot sun in the daylight hours. 4:24. The Septuagint softens the first part of the verse by saying, “An angel of the Lord met him.” It does the same with two later passages in Exodus: 19:3, “Moses went up to God” (MT); “Moses went up into the mountain of God” (LXX); 24:10, “And they saw the God of Israel” (MT); “And they saw the place where the God of Israel stood” (LXX). 4:24. Biddle (2002: 632) says that pāgaš (“encounter”) appears fourteen times in the Hebrew Bible, and in most of these the reference is to a dangerous, disastrous encounter (Exod. 4:24, 27; 2 Sam. 2:13; Job 5:14; Prov. 17:12; Isa. 34:14; Jer. 41:6; Hosea 13:8), or to a meeting where one of the two parties expects the worst (Gen. 32:17 [18]; 33:8; 1 Sam. 25:20). For these passages he suggests the translation “to (be) ambush(ed), fall upon, fall prey to.” I am not sure if Exod. 4:27 fits into this (Aaron meeting Moses). Both 4:24 and 4:27 use exactly the same verbal form, wayyipgĕšēhû. 4:24. When bāqqēš (“sought, tried”) appeared earlier in Exodus with Moses as the object of the verb and Pharaoh as subject of the verb, NIV rendered “tried to kill Moses” (2:15) and “wanted to kill you” (4:19), but here with God as the subject of the verb instead of Pharaoh, NIV shifts to “was about to kill him.” 4:24. Exodus 4:23 uses the Qal participial form of hārag for God’s intention to kill Egypt’s firstborn, but 4:24 uses the Hiphil infinitive construct of mût for God’s seeking to kill Moses. Another place where wayĕbaqqēš hămîtô (“and he sought to put him to death”) occurs is Jer. 26:21, “And he [Jehoiakim] sought to put him [Uriah the prophet] to death.” Also, 1 Sam. 19:2 (“My father Saul is looking for a chance to kill you”) and 1 Kings 11:40 (“Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam”) are similar, except that they have the preposition lĕ before the infinitive construct “kill.” 4:25. Biblical information about instruments used in circumcision is scant. Here it is a “flint” (ṣōr), and in Josh. 5:2 it was “flint knives” (ḥarbôt ṣurîm). 4:25. For other references to the Hiphil of nāgaʿ used with a following preposition to refer to the touching of some part of the body, see Isa. 6:7 (“with it [the hot coal] he touched my mouth. . . . This has touched your lips”: both Hiphil of nāgaʿ followed by ʿal), and Jer. 1:9 (“Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth”: also the Hiphil of nāgaʿ followed by ʿal). In Exod. 4:25 it is the Hiphil of nāgaʿ followed by lĕ. 4:25. It is a matter of some dispute whether in the Bible “feet” is sometimes a euphemism for the genitalia, male or female. Passages that have been cited to support this reading include: Gen. 49:10; Exod. 4:25; Deut. 28:57 NRSV; Judg. 3:24 KJV; 1 Sam. 24:3 KJV; 2 Sam. 11:8; 2 Kings 18:27 (= Isa. 36:12); Isa. 6:2; 7:20; Ezek. 16:25 KJV. It is claimed that other parts of the body are referred to euphemistically: “hand” (Song 5:4; Isa. 57:8); “knee” (Ezek. 7:17; 21:12); “thigh” (Gen. 24:2, 9; 46:26 KJV; 47:29; Exod. 1:5 KJV; Judg. 8:30 KJV). Some of these passages clearly point to “feet” or to some other part of the anatomy as a euphemism, but for others it seems quite a stretch. See Pope 1994a: 281; 1992. Some have argued that “foot” (pous) in Mark 9:45 (“And if your foot causes you to sin . . .”) is also a euphemism for penis, but this is unlikely since the verse goes on to say, “It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet Copyright © 2011. Baker Publishing Group. All rights reserved. rights All Group. Publishing Baker 2011. © Copyright and be thrown into hell.” Mark’s linking of sins involving the foot (9:45) and sins involving the eye (9:47) recalls Job 31:1, 5: “I made a covenant with my eyes. . . . If my foot has hurried after deceit. . . .” 4:25. Clearly the Septuagint is not any more sure than modern writers are what “bridegroom of blood(s)” (ḥătan-dāmîm) means. In both vv. 25 and 26 LXX reads, “I have stopped the blood of the circumcision of my child” (estē to haima tēs

Hamilton, Victor P.. Exodus : An Exegetical Commentary, Baker Publishing Group, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/moore/detail.action?docID=913831. Created from moore on 2018-01-04 15:07:25. peritomēs tou paidiou mou). 4:25. The Hebrew word for “blood” is written in the plural, dāmîm, hence my rendering “bridegroom of blood(s).” Whether it is a normal plural or some other kind of a plural is debatable. Frolov (1996: 520) observes that elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible the plural of “bloods,” with a noun standing in construct with it and denoting a person or a group of people, always suggests something negative, something evil: “man of bloods” (2 Sam. 16:7–8, the language Shimei used of King David; Ps. 5:6 [7], “bloodthirsty and deceitful men the LORD abhors”); “men of bloods” (Pss. 26:9; 55:23 [24]; 59:2 [3]; 139:19; Prov. 29:10, all of which NIV translates as “bloodthirsty men”); “house of bloods” (2 Sam. 21:1, [NIV, “Saul and his blood-stained house”]); “city of bloods” (Ezek. 22:2; Nah. 3:1). 4:25. Adding to the confusion of the meaning of dāmîm is that the word in construct before it (ḥātān) can mean “bridegroom” and also “son-in-law” (Gen. 19:12, 14; Judg. 19:5; 1 Sam. 18:18; 22:14; Neh. 6:18; 13:28). Should we then translate “bridegroom of blood(s)” or “son-in-law of blood(s)”? Moses is hardly a bridegroom, and Gershom is a son, not a son-in-law. 4:26. “Circumcision(s)” (another plural, mullâ/mûlōt) appears only here in the Hebrew Bible.

Commentary [4:25–26] David Penchansky (1999: 67) begins his study of this incident with these words: “Biblical scholars love this passage because it is totally incomprehensible.” And if it is incomprehensible to the scholar, what about the other 98 percent of Bible students and readers? Similarly, part of the title of Walters’s 2002 study of this passage is “The Devil Is in the Ambiguities.” Here are some of the “incomprehensibles”: First, whom does God seek to put to death, Moses, or one of his sons, and if one of his sons, which one, Gershom or Eliezer? Second, if Moses is the target, why would God want to end the life of his servant whom God has just recruited and finally persuaded to go to Egypt on a divine mission? Third, what has Moses done that has so angered Divinity, or has he done nothing amiss? Is it a sin of omission or a sin of commission? Fourth, why does v. 25 say the Lord “sought” or “tried” to kill Moses? Cannot God, being God, do what he desires to do? Can God be stopped in his tracks? Fifth, how does Zipporah, a Midianite, immediately size up the situation and do what is necessary to avert divine wrath against her husband or one of her sons? And since the Midianites are itinerant metalworkers, does that explain how Zipporah has the skills to wield a cutting instrument to perform surgery on the delicate anatomy of another (Wyatt 2009: 414n29)? Sixth, whose feet does Zipporah touch (Moses’s? a son’s? the Lord’s?), and why, or is “feet” actually a reference to the membrum of Moses or one of her sons? Seventh, what does the phrase “bridegroom of blood,” peculiar to vv. 25 and 26, mean? Eighth, who is the “you” in Zipporah’s “A bridegroom of blood are you to me”? Whom is she addressing: Moses? Her son? The Lord? Ninth, why does the Lord stop his assault only after Zipporah says what she says at the end of v. 25? I cannot claim to answer all (or any?) of these questions with certainty. In a nutshell, I interpret the story as follows. The object of divine attack is Moses (but see Howell [2010: 68– 69], who argues that it was Gershom the Lord sought to kill). One would think that if it was

Copyright © 2011. Baker Publishing Group. All rights reserved. rights All Group. Publishing Baker 2011. © Copyright the son whose life was in danger, Moses would have been the one to leap into action instead of being passive. The reason for the attack? Moses’s failure, for whatever reason, to minister paternally to his son by circumcising him. In the words of the woman of Song 1:6, Moses has

Hamilton, Victor P.. Exodus : An Exegetical Commentary, Baker Publishing Group, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/moore/detail.action?docID=913831. Created from moore on 2018-01-04 15:07:25. been taking care of everybody else’s vineyard but in the process has neglected his own vineyard. The shedding of blood via an act of circumcision averts divine wrath, as does the “touching” of the blood to the Hebrews’ houses in Egypt during the night of that first Passover (Exod. 12). I am aware that a major objection to this time-honored explanation circles around several questions: “Why would God wait so long to hold Moses accountable for his sin of omission? Does God not know of this oversight when he first appears to Moses at the bush, but never once raises it during the call narrative?” All true, but is not Scripture replete with instances of an enormous chasm that often exists between sinful acts and their day of reckoning? Does not the God of Scripture repeatedly say, “Yet forty days . . .”? If there is an incident in Scripture parallel to this one, it involves Balaam in Num. 22 (see Embry 2010). In Exodus, Moses is journeying to Egypt; in Numbers, Balaam is journeying to Moab. The Lord is upset over something Moses has or has not done and meets him on the way; God is angry that Balaam went to Moab (Num. 22:11) and meets him on the way. The only two places where the Lord is said to be angry with somebody (wayyiḥar-ʾap) but the reader is not sure why are Exod. 4:14 and Num. 22:22. Zipporah was the means of Moses’s deliverance; the donkey (ʾātôn, a female animal, “she-ass”) was the means of Balaam’s deliverance. One cannot miss the connection between Zipporah and “Balak, the son of Zippor.” Finally, although the Hebrew word for the “staff” with which Moses struck the water is maṭṭeh, and the Hebrew word for the “staff” with which Balaam struck the donkey is maqqēl (Num. 22:27), the LXX translates both maṭṭeh and maqqēl with rhabdos. “Staff” does not appear in Exod. 4:24–26, but it is present elsewhere in the chapter (vv. 2, 4, 17, 20). In addition to the Exodus commentaries (esp. those of Cassuto 1967; Childs 1974; Greenberg 1969; and Propp 1999), I have been much stimulated by the studies of Lindstrom (1983: 41–55); B. Robinson (1986); Frolov (1996); and Kirsch (1997). I would like, however, to highlight two brilliant observations by Fretheim. First, Fretheim (1991: 79) teases in-depth meaning out of the text by saying “the Lord ‘tried’ to kill.” Says Fretheim, “This softens the divine action. . . . God only seeks and does not make a ‘direct hit.’ . . . God leaves room for mediation, allows time for Zipporah to act, even implicitly invites it. . . . Zipporah moves into the temporal spaces allowed by God’s seeking. The divine move is thus a threat, not an attempt to kill that God fails to pull off.” Again, Fretheim (1991: 80) notes that unlike the women in chaps. 1–2, who save Moses, or his kin, from the wrath of Pharaoh, Zipporah saves Moses from the wrath of the Lord. To that degree her interceding, mediating ministry that spares her husband from divine wrath anticipates Moses’s own later intercessory ministry of prayer that will spare (most of) his golden-calf-building people from divine wrath (chap. 32). This is a cogent and healthy observation, one that honors the role of Zipporah. One wonders if in the following paragraph (vv. 27–31) Moses shares any of this incident with Aaron. One wonders if he thanks Zipporah. Does he say anything like, “Man, just think, I

Copyright © 2011. Baker Publishing Group. All rights reserved. rights All Group. Publishing Baker 2011. © Copyright came within spitting distance of Sheol, but thanks to you, I am alive to tell about it”? I have noticed a trend among some conservative commentators who, by contrast with Fretheim, tend to paint Zipporah as the villain! For example, among older conservative

Hamilton, Victor P.. Exodus : An Exegetical Commentary, Baker Publishing Group, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/moore/detail.action?docID=913831. Created from moore on 2018-01-04 15:07:25. writers, Keil and Delitzsch (1865: 459) put the onus on Moses for not circumcising Gershom, but suggest that he has omitted circumcising him “from regard to his Midianitish wife, who . . . disliked this operation.” In other words, if only she had gotten on board, this would never have happened. Among more-modern conservatives, Kaiser (1990: 332–33) takes a similar view. He speaks of “her revulsion and disgust with this rite of circumcision” and of Moses’s neglect to circumcise their son “out of deference for his wife’s wishes.” Her “You are a bridegroom of blood to me” is Zipporah’s way of unleashing a verbal vendetta at Moses. Allen (1996: 268) also speaks of Zipporah’s distaste for circumcising children or youth, but interprets her “You are a bridegroom of blood to me” as directed at God, a way of cussing out God (maybe