During the previous class, we spoke on Exodus. However, there was a verse in chapter 4 that we didn't mention that really blew my mind.
"24 And it came to pass on the way, at the encampment, that the LORD met him and sought to kill him. 25 Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses’ feet, and said, “Surely you are a husband of blood to me!” 26 So He let him go. Then she said, “You are a husband of blood!”—because of the circumcision."-Exodus 4:24-26 (New King James Version)
I read these verses and went..wait, what!?! I went back, and read them in several different translations, but they all came out to say basically the same thing. God was about to kill Moses! Why!?! God, after choosing Moses as his speaker, was about to strike him down on the way to fulfill the commandment given to him by God! I was, and still am, completely baffled by this. These simple verses, so easy to skim over, could have completely changed the story that we know today.
What if Zipporah hadn't acted? What if God had chosen to smite Moses? would we then have another chapter with God choosing someone else? Perhaps Aaron could have done it alone? Could the message to the people be the same without Moses? And, what about all of the future acts of Moses? Would they not come to be, or would they simply have been completed by someone different? These are questions that I don't have the answer to, but that I have been contemplating deeply since reading these verses.
The question I pose to you is this: Why was God so insistent that Moses be the one to go and free the Israelites, but also so quick to seek out Moses' death?
P.S. I commented on Alexandra (a.k.a. Captain Awesome)'s post.
I had the same response when I read that verse. At the bottom of the page in my bible it says that it could also have been referring to Moses' son, but it wasn't confirmed.
ReplyDeleteI'm also very confused by these verses. I've read them over and over and still don't understand what they mean. My Bible also suggests that it may have been referring to Moses' son. It also says that Zipporah cut off their son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it. I definitely don't understand why doing this would prevent God from killing Moses (or their son), but apparently it did.
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