I'm needing a little midrash help. Jump in to give any guidance.
At the end of last week's prison bible study one of the inmates asked for my opinion about a curious little story in Exodus 4 where God tries to kill Moses.
Yes, God tried to kill Moses. Here's the story:
Exodus 4.21-26You got to love the Bible! By the way, the phrase of the title "a bloody husband art thou to me" is how the King James Version renders what the NIV here gives as "you are a bridegroom of blood to me."
The LORD said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.’”
At a lodging place on 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 Moses’ feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. So the LORD let him alone.
Some background to the story. In Exodus 2 Moses marries Zipporah, a Gentile, who gives birth to Gershom. We can make the assumption that Gershom is the uncircumcised son of Moses in Exodus 4 (yet, 4.20 states that Moses had "sons" so we can't be sure).
So what happened?
As we read, Moses was set to go off to liberate the Jews from Pharaoh. But the savior of the Jews, it seems, had an uncircumcised son. This seems problematic for God who seeks to kill Moses for this oversight, failing to circumcise his son. Not that Moses could be blamed too much. Moses wasn't raised as a Jew and Zipporah, Gershom's mother, wasn't a Jew.
So, to save Moses from being killed by God Zipporah springs to action and performs a quick circumcision with a "flint knife"--Ouch!--on Gershom. She then flings the bloody foreskin at the feet of Moses and, well, problem solved.
(Incidentally, it might not have happened exactly like that. The word "feet" in the Old Testament is often the Semitic euphemism for "penis." So when Ruth uncovers Boaz's "feet" in the book of Ruth she was actually uncovering...well, you get the idea.
Let's see that in a Veggie Tales show.
If the euphemism is being used here, and many scholars think it is, then Zipporah takes the bloody foreskin of Gershom and covers Moses' penis with it. A sort of symbolic circumcision. Moses might not be circumcised but the bloody foreskin of his firstborn son upon his own penis appears to function, here, as an acceptable substitute. So God doesn't kill Moses.)
Last week, when asked about this text (yes, I was familiar with this story--I've looked into just about every odd story in the bible, I'm kind of like a butterfly collector in this regard), my answer was simply that it's a story about how circumcision was important to the Jews and how Moses, coming in as an "outsider," needed to comply with Abraham's covenant with God.
That's obvious enough. But it still doesn't explain the Divine whiplash. Why did God send Moses out with such enthusiasm and then, soon after, try to kill him at a roadside inn? Why not bring this issue up with Moses when they were talking earlier? Why didn't God simply tell Moses what he needed to do to prepare himself and his household for the work God had called him to do? Why ambush and try to kill Moses on the road?
That's the part that perplexes.
Well, that and the feet stuff...Bet you'll never think of the story of Ruth in the same way again.
The "whiplash", so to speak, appears to be an issue with editing. :)
Ex. 4:20b–23 was written by the Elohist source. It is a continuation of v. 18 and picks up again in v. 27. If you read just the E source, it reads smoothly without any breaks in the narrative or other oddities.
Ex. 4:24–26 was written by the Jahwist source. It is probably a continuation of 4:19–20a, which in turn is a continuation of 3:19–22, which is a continuation of 3:5,7–8. Reading just the J source also yields a smoother narrative.
All that said, Yahweh's desire to kill Moses still feels out of place. One of the translations I'm looking at is very ambiguous, 4:24–26 being full of pronouns with ambiguous referents. It seems like there was a larger story there that got excised. One possible reading is that Yahweh wanted Moses to kill Gershom.
This story seems to fit in with various other OT stories where God appears as an enemy to his people. Abraham being told to sacrifice Isaac and the angel wrestling Jacob are other examples. I think that the interpretation that James Jordan gives of this passage is interesting (
http://www.entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/a_pdfs/jjlc.pdf
- Appendix F, 243ff.): God is trying to kill Gershom NOT Moses, and the blood is smeared on GERSHOM'S legs. The event is a proleptic Passover, much as the rest of Moses' experience in the early chapters prefigures the later Exodus.
There are a number of other parallels that can be drawn with other Passover-like events, such the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, and the later circumcision following the crossing of the Jordan and immediately prior to the celebration of the Passover and meeting with the commander of the army of the Lord in Joshua 5. Such passages (along with the connection drawn between circumcision and participation in the celebration of the Passover in Exodus 12:48) suggest that circumcision is bound up with divine presence and judgment. Circumcision prepares one to survive the wrath of the divine presence and YHWH's avenging angel. Circumcision is instituted in Genesis 17, and immediately afterwards the three angels visit Abraham in preparation for bringing judgment upon the land in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. In order to come under the protection of the original Passover celebration you first had to be circumcised, in order to protect you from the destroying angel of the Lord. With the arrival of divine vengeance upon Canaan, the Israelites had to circumcise themselves and celebrate the Passover in preparation for the work of the avenging angel/commander of the army of the Lord (Exodus 23:20-23). Perhaps the themes of liminality that occur in all of the passages of encounter/conflict with the Angel (meeting at the 'tent door', by the ford of the brook Jabbok, at the 'encampment on the way', the smearing of the 'door posts', at the border of Jericho) are also significant.
We are dealing with the same pattern in Exodus 4. You must cut off your flesh in circumcision, or risk being caught up in the cutting off of all flesh in the divine judgment (whether the holocaust of Sodom, the slaying of the Egyptian firstborn, or the ban on the Canaanites).
Yes, I've read that some think, given the pronoun ambiguity, that God was seeking to kill Gershom, not Moses.
The insight about the E and J sources is helpful.
Thanks.
As always, I love your iconoclastic humour, Richard.
There seems to be a correlation between the most strikingly seemingly-unfair incidents in the Bible and times when God is revelaing some new aspect of himself to his people. Nadab & Abihu in the temple, Uzzah and the ark, Ananias & Sapphira and community living... Moses and life under law? Whatever, I'm convinced by Macdonald that we must start with God's loving purpose and work out the rest from that assumption.
I'm no theologian, but I was struck by the role of Zipporah in this story. It's interesting to me that she she seems to understand what action is called for so decisively, as welll as the nature of the threat posed. Moses himself seems to be blissfully disengaged (perhaps even asleep?!) from the whole story.
Perhaps, like a Bruegel painting, the key is in the peripheral details, the seemingly irrelevant, the overlooked and the ignored.
How often the female story has been considered irrelevant. I wonder what thoughts, experiences, prayers, encounters led Zipporah to act as she did. I wonder if God knew that this threat to Moses was the only way to move Zipporah on in their relationship and was secure in the outcome. I wonder if this was the real story.
Here's to stories that shake up our theology and make us wonder.
When the first woman was created she is called ezer/help meet, which has a long tradition of being interpreted into an inferior servant (click my name for a quote from John Gill). But if you look up the occurrences, is used of God when the situation is life or death. ie the wife is a LIFESAVING help to her husband!
The passage demonstrates the authority and importance of his wife. Moses would have been dead without her intervention.
It's about respecting and valuing the wife's input/ministry/ezer.
Zipporah is his ezer/help meet in the truest sense of the word.
He would be dead without her.
http://hupotasso.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/i-will-make-him-an-help-meet-for-him/
Oops. I double posted. Thought the first one was lost in cyberspace.
Alasster,
Thanks for the link to Jordan. The material in Appendix F is fascinating.
I found this part, about the bridegroom of blood, to be particularly interesting (p. 257-
258)
In polite society, we do not usually discuss the blood of the
wedding night, but what other possible meaning is there for the
phrase “bridegroom of blood”? Somehow, the blood of circumcision is equivalent to the blood of the wedding night. How shall we
understand this?
The answer is that God demands His bride be a virgin...
The bride has
played the harlot.
The bride, thus, can provide no blood on the wedding night.
She is condemned to death, by the law of Deuteronomy 22:13-21,
which states that a woman must have a token of virginity, a blood-stained wedding sheet, to prove that she is not a whore. What will
be done for such a woman, if her husband truly loves her? He will
provide his own blood to stain the sheet, to provide her with
tokens of virginity. Just as it was blood from her “private parts”
which would have been her token, so it must be blood from his,
for it is at this part of their bodies that they become “one flesh.”
The blood of the wedding night is the visible token of their
oneness, blood which flows from the very place at which they
become one flesh. Since the woman cannot provide it, the circumcision of the man does. The groom circumcises himself on the
wedding night, painfully, in order to provide legal covering for the
bride he loves, and as a token of their union.
Thus, one of the (many) meanings of circumcision was this:
Since Israel was a harlot, her Husband would give His blood for
her covering and as a sign of their union. The circumcision of
each male child provided a continuing reminder to Israel that she
deserved to be put to death for playing the harlot in her father’s
house, and that a substitutionary atonement was the only way she
would find judicial righteousness. Also, circumcision provided
not just a reminder, but an actual covering until the crucifixion of
her Lord would provide the final circumcision, and her definitive
justification.
On this reading, the death of Jesus is the "wedding night" between God and the church. But the church--sinful humanity--has played the harlot and is not a virgin. So God provides his own blood on the wedding night, becoming the church's "bridegroom of blood."
Jesus, in this sense, is the blood on the sheets of the church's wedding night, signifying the consummation of the marriage.
It seems quite possible that Moses fell very sick on the way back to Egypt, and this sickness was attributed to God. Perhaps Moses (or Zipporah) decided that, because of this grave sickness, God needed appeasing and hence the circumcision. In other words, God may not have changed his mind at all, but Moses misinterpreted his illness as such.
Depending on how we read the pronouns, there is no reason to believe that Moses was personally present at the incident.
The relationship between the mother and the child is stressed by the event, as in other appearances of the Angel of the Lord: to Samson's mother (Judges 13), to Hagar (Genesis 16 and 21), to Sarah (Genesis 18). The child is the seed of the woman. The woman is the one through whom the promised seed comes and the promised seed is the one through whom the woman (and everyone else after) is saved.
Indeed. Within this whole typology we also see some further reasons why the movement from circumcision to baptism is so significant following the death/circumcision of Christ (Colossians 2:11). Baptism is a unisex and bloodless nuptial bath (Ephesians 5:25-27), because the blood has already been provided. Also to continue to cut off the flesh to save one from God's cutting off of all flesh is to fail to appreciate that the entire age of flesh has been decisively cut off in the cross of Christ.
as with many things in Genesis...
I.have.no.idea.
Wittgenstein once noted that "The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena." (Tractatus, 6.371) There is a sense in which the bible can function as a stand in for the laws of nature to "explain" the ways of God. So I'd like to ask, what, really, did God seem to be up to here, apart from the textual analysis.
Assuming a simple-minded realism (as a tactic) here: God made a covenant with his people, incorporating circumcision. Moses ought to have known this, as Zipporah clearly did. Since Moses did not circumcise himself or his son, as he ought to have (and as Zipporah clearly knew).
Thus, the simple answer: God wanted to impress the gravity of the situation on Moses.
Having a 17-year-old in my home gives me practice in looking for unstated motives in relationships...
Thanks for this and your other contributions, Alastair. Most illuminating! Blessings.
I've heard about the Boaz thing (heh) before, but could never find a source. Is this just something that's "well known" or is there something I can read to back that up?
The language of 'covering feet' is found elsewhere in Scripture as a euphemism for relieving oneself in private (Judges 3:24; 1 Samuel 24:3). One wonders what we should make of Isaiah 6:2 in light of this, though: do seraphim have genitalia? Isaiah 7:20 is another occurrence, as a reference to pubic hair.
Interestingly enough, somebody asked this exact question to Maximus the Confessor and he took a shot an answering it. The passage is in Ad Thalassium 17. If you're interested, we have a copy here at our ACU Library (call number: 232 M464O pg. 105-108).
Maximus's answer is in the form of an allegorical reading. But it's really good.
This post sparked an interest in me about the story of Ruth. I am very familiar with the encounter between her and Boaz on the threshing floor, having practically memorized the book of Ruth fir a bible bowl competition, but this provided me with primarily factual understanding and limited at that since we only referenced one version of the text (NIV) I went back and reread it in three different English translations (NIV, ESV, KJV) and am still confused by the inference that when the text reads feet it means penis. In all three places it says something along the lines of "she lay at his feet" the AT part keeps me stupt since all three text seem to imply she was literally at his feet as in location. Are there multiple definitions being you'd here? I wish I could understand Hebrew, maybe the original text could provide more clarity.
Thanks Ben. Maximus keeps popping up in my reading. I think it's time to read him.
While it is interesting (and harmlessly naughty) to speculate about what "feet" meant for Boaz and Ruth, it is just that: speculation. As mentioned earlier, "feet" are indeed sometimes a euphemism for penis and related unmentionables, but sometimes feet are just feet. For example, we probably wouldn't interpret Isaiah 52:7 that way, despite the metaphorical use of the word there. The verses quoted by Alistair earlier refer to "covering the feet" as a euphemism for relieving oneself. That making interpreting "uncovering the feet" somewhat problematic. Shaving the hair on the feet is pretty obviously not about feet (unless there were hobbits in Isaiah's day), but Ruth is not so obvious, since the literal meaning is quite plausible.
Even if true, I don't think I would propose any doctrinal revisions based on a single passage with a speculative interpretation.
This is why I love your blog :-) I rarely comment, but I am a dedicated reader! I just love learning from all your commentors and I'm especially partial to your Calvin and Hobbes series :-)
This section of Exodus is a favorite of grad/rabbinical school professors the world over - they live to stump their students with this one :-)
Rashi (a medieval Jewish commentator) explains this event as Moshe being
in mortal danger because Gershom is uncircumsized, which Tzipporah
recognizes, and immediately corrects the situation.
Rashbam (another medieval commentator and grandson of Rashi) explains that the Hebrew here "charon af" (literally: "nose anger") is only used when there is a resulting punishment from God's anger. Moshe is Tzipporah's bridegroom who is causing the potential for bloodshed, and has angered God by not
being worthy of the role of savior because he hasn't fully accepted
Gods' mission.
So many modern commentators have attempted to explain or explore this as well, and to almost no one's satisfaction!
Whatever the explanation, modern or medieval, this section of Exodus is frustrating not only in English - the Hebrew isn't any more clear, and it's a weird, weird passage. There are several midrashim about this - most notably one where Satan is planning to kill the baby and the name "Bridegroom of Blood" is meant for the baby himself.
I find the comment drawing the parallel of Jesus as "bridegroom of blood" absolutely fascinating - what an interesting interpretation.
"Let's see that in a Veggie Tales show".
That comment REALLY made me smile, just to imagine it happening :)
I'm going by memory, since I have to go out and don't have time to chase it up. Flint knives are mentioned again somewhere in Judges. It's easy to make a sharp edge from a flint (that's if you know how to knap it!), but bronze doesn't hold an edge - hence the use of flint scrapers in the Bronze Age - so it's easy to see how a tradition that flint knives were once used might have originated. Maybe they were kept for ritual use. That much is easy, but it looks like a fragment of a longer story, and I haven't yet come across an explanation that really satisfies me.
I am not sure that every reference to feet must bear the euphemistic meaning.
The reference to 'feet' is not the only subtle sexual allusion within the chapter. The threshing floor is a place with symbolic significance. 'Threshing' was an act with sexual connotations (Job 31:10). The threshing floor was a place associated with sexual congress (Hosea 9:1) and, more importantly, with worship. It was at the threshing floor of Ornan, which David purchased when the destroying angel stopped at it, that the temple was later built. The threshing floor is thus a trysting place between God and his people.
Don't forget that practically our first introduction to Christ in the New Testament is as the one who winnows at the threshing floor (Matthew 3:12). In our worship we meet with Christ our kinsman redeemer on the threshing floor where the wheat and the chaff are separated by the Word of God. Like Ruth (Ruth 3:3) the Church is called to be washed, anointed, and dressed in our best garment (accomplished in Baptism, Galatians 3:27; also, don't miss the priestly allusions - Exodus 40:12-14) and meet with our bridegroom.
It might also be worth mentioning another possible, and far more subtle, allusion here. Paul twice uses the obscure Old Testament law 'You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain' (Deuteronomy 25:4) to refer to the duty to pay ministers (1 Corinthians 9:9-11; 1 Timothy 5:17-18). Surely some other commandment would seem to have more immediate relevance! The point is that such commandments concerning animals (not boiling a kid in its mother's milk, unequally yoking, dietary requirements, etc.) are primarily to be read as symbolic for human beings: the animals themselves aren't the real point.
The intriguing thing to notice here is that the original command seems to be placed with no relation to any of the surrounding material. The preceding command refers to the limit placed on the number of blows a guilty man can receive, the command that follows refers to to the marriage duty of the surviving brother or near kinsman, the command that we see in effect in Ruth 3.
Is there the hint of a connection between this verse and the levirate, in light of the connection between the act of threshing/treading and sexual intercourse and the work of one who has to raise up seed for the dead kinsman? This pattern would be seen within the movement in Ruth 3-4 from the threshing floor to the elders at the gate of the city, which parallels the movement in contexts from Deuteronomy 25:4 to 25:5-10. It would also suggest that the command of Deuteronomy 25:4 does not, at its most important level, refer to animals, as Paul observed (1 Corinthians 9:9-10). Its deeper reference may be to the man performing the duty of the near kinsman: while raising up seed for his dead kinsman he should be free to benefit from his deceased relative's property.
Paul's use of this verse to refer to appointed ministers in the church would draw upon this background: priestly workers on the threshing floor are God's oxen (cf. Leviticus 4:3), and are also tasked with guarding the inheritance and raising up seed for the absent Husband (the priest is aligned with Christ as the husband). While doing so it is right and proper that they should be permitted to receive a reward for their labours. Of course, this case is a very tentative one, but I find it an intriguing possibility, especially given Paul's surprising use of the verse and suggestion that the text's primary meaning isn't concerned with animals.
So Jesus washed the disciples "feet"?
You may be aware of the recent monograph by ACU OT professor John T. Willis, Yahweh and Moses in Conflict: The Role of Exodus 4:24-26 in the Book of Exodus (Peter Lang, 2010). Here is the publisher's synopsis:
The interpretation of Exodus
4:24-26 is very controversial. Scholars have treated this text from various
viewpoints on the basis of divergent methods or approaches. Two fundamental
problems cause uncertainty about the origin and meaning of this text. One problem
has to do with the nature of Exod 4:24-26. Another problem is the identity of
the persons mentioned in Exod 4:24-26. This book arranges forty-two documented
interpretations under each approach or approaches, presenting the view of each
scholar proposing his/her interpretation of Exodus 4:24-26 in chronological
order. The author presents his own view in the concluding chapter, essentially
adopting a redactional, canonical, narrative, rhetorical methodology.
I assume the ACU library has a copy. I have not had a chance to look at this book myself.
> Why ambush and try to kill Moses on the road?
p, li { white-space: pre-wrap; }
'Ambush' is a little strong, no? Also, God doesn't 'try' to do anything. Anyway, and for what it may be worth, here is a non-scholar's take on this passage. Clearly, God picked this point in Moses' progression (just as he was about to return to Egypt to begin his work) to deal with this sin (not circumcising a son of his). Is it a surprise that Moses, a man, had sinned?Moses, by the way, had two sons by Zipporah, Gershom and Eliezer.
At least one of his sons was apparently not circumcised. Not obeying God with regard to the Abrahamic covenant was a serious thing to God. He was not going to let His servant, Moses, begin the work of redeeming the nation of Israel, while he was allowing sin in his family.
Since Moses wrote Exodus, apparently he knew that God was angry with him at this point and he most likely knew the reason. (The Isralites had practiced circumcision while in Egypt and his father was a levite. So he had probably been circumcised himself.) My speculation (and that is all it is) is that he had not been able to convince his wife to let him do this. She was a medianite and would probably not have been familiar with the Abrahamic covenant. The way she handled the issue and how Moses treats her after this incident, leads me to conclude that she was at best a reluctant participant in the circumcision. It appears to me that she went through with the rite only to save Moses' life.
At any rate, it looks like Moses understood her rebellion and so he sent her and their sons back to Jethro, his father-in-law, after this event. She and her two sons did not go with Moses as he went to release the Israelites. She joined him later. Again, Exodus 18:1-7 explains this.
qb can think of at least one class of things God "tries" to do, with varying degrees of success: persuasion. Come to think of it, that's a pretty big class of things.
Thanks Ken. I'd not heard John had published on this subject. We go to the same church. I'll hit him up about this on Sunday if not Wednesday night.
I understand what you are thinking about. The God I know does not 'try' to convince humans to 'decide for Him.' That is just how it looks to us as we observe people 'coming to God.' It has to do with sovereignty.
I've been thinking a lot about Stark's book and the prevalence of child sacrifice in the Bible. This could be another instance where Yahweh wanted a sacrifice (Gershom) and Zipporah refused, offering her son's blood through circumcision instead. (Though I have to say, the sacrifice mentality in general weirds me out.)
Hmmmm... Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar?
I don't know a scholarly reference. But a good study bible should have a footnote about this. My Harper Collins Study Bible NRSV (considered by many a gold standard for study bibles) has this note for the story in Exodus:
Moses' feet...possibly a euphemism for the genitals (e.g., 2 Kings 18.27; Isa. 6.2; 7.20)
And the NLT Study Bible has this note:
The Hebrew word for feet may refer here to the male sex organ. See Gen. 49.10.
Hi Deb,
I'm still trying to get my head around this as well. It's still less than 24 hours since Alastair blew my mind.
Here's what I like about where your thoughts are going. While I think it is very cool this the idea of the bridegroom providing the blood, via circumcision, to "cover" his un-virgin bride, and how that functions in the Christian story, my deep worry is the misogyny involved in that view. The whole notion that women are the source of sin and infidelity and that it's the man who saves her. The cultural demand for females to be virgins, while boys can be boys, bothers me. So while I get this reading I don't like the gender stereotypes that make it work.
Which is why your focus on Zipporah's actions helps me here. Her actions save Moses. She's the one who sybolically circumcises him. Female agency is salvific.
I don't know what to do with that other than recognize it as an observation about the story that attenuates the latent misogyny of the text.
If this
weren't a biblical question, or if I were better qualified as a biblical
scholar, I might suggest that the symbolism is simply in severing one's former
ties, and broader, perhaps, a question of nature vs nurture.
If I'm not
mistaken, Judaism is a matrilineal tradition—if you have a Jewish
mother, you're Jewish. That simple. So Moses's birthright is Jewish, but he not
grow up with Jewish traditions. He grew
up Egyptian. So he has a dual identity,
and he must give up one to become the other.
Going along
with this line of reasoning, I also find it intriguing that of the two—birthright
vs rite—it is the rite that is required of Moses. Despite being born to a Jewish mother (and
thus automatically a Jew, whether he identifies himself thus or not) God
demands action of him. He is saying 'You
can't just plop into this world and be part of my covenant by virtue of your
mother's placenta—you have to do something.'
In that sense, it is fitting that a woman
takes the action to ensure that her son (and/or husband) is acceptable to the
lord. Zipporah not only knows what God
requires, she delivers it, closing the gap between Moses' birthright (Jewish)
and upbringing (Egyptian).
I see this story, like so many in the Scriptures, as one where the outsider (Zipporah) understands the covenant practices of God better than the insider (Moses). Moses is the bloody bridegroom because he hasn't fully taken his family under the covenant sign and his wife has to do this for him to protect her child.
It is thrown at Moses for he should have, by this time, understood what it meant to bring his family into covenant. The application for us is that we should realize that the outsider often has better insight into our faith than we do but, even further, when we don't bring our children under the protection of the covenant we risk losing them.....both literally and metaphorically.
As a pardons tidy, this story has even more powerful meaning for me when we connect circumcision to baptism.
Spell check is problematic. Pardons tidy should read paedobaptist. Sorry about that......
Well. Alastair. I just returned from our PCC meeting tonight. After that two hours, the last two reading your thoughts have been a treat! Fancy popping in for a cuppa sometime? My husband and I would enjoy your visit. Seriously, though, you have given me more to ponder. If I had not gone to the PCC I might have had the brain power to tool some more dialogue but it's presently stupid o'clock and I need to sleep away the PCC dialogues so I can think afresh on your in-depth comments, and how I might respond. Believe it or not, our thinking does actually converge on some of the issues I threw out there. Much appreciated, thanks!
Just one point, if Moses was past 8 days old when his mother placed him in the ark and set the ark on the Nile, isn't one safe to assume that His mother had circumcised him. Zipporah did the right thing then, saving Moses from death. My daughter thought that maybe Moses was a type of "Christ" and this may be a fore-shadowing of Jesus and the "blood of the bridegroom".just a thought.
One first has to know that there were schisms, since the beginning of man. As someone who has had a personal experience with God in the summer of 2011, or it could be called the story of Job, or it could be that God has two personalities, as it says in my NIV Study bible, God creates all the evil in the world. Know it. Also studying the Qur-an and Gita. However, God for some of us, gets angry at what is going on in the world, the US, countries, states and then we are selected. Or reincarnated. My NIV speaks of reincarnation also. Preacher's kid here. So God is all about love, however, Jesus who came as man and was the Son of God... Wikipedia, God...he has many names, chooses some of us for battle. In order to do that He comes and kills...or takes everything earthly away, so that all you can rely on is Him. All the books have been revamped. There are still the Gnostic's and and there are many books of the life of Jesus that have not been written. A man who lived for 33 years, must have a bigger history than what has been written. I am just speaking of my own encounter with him. Only, I am doing court cases. One against the state of AZ, one with Ford and one with Citibank. Just looking for a Righteous brother to take them on. I am a long story....but God touched me in the sumer of 2011. His presence has greatly increased in my life. Fearless now. A woman with a Golden Retriever, Benjamin and his kitten cat brother, Bob. If God has need of you, you don't get asked if you want to participate. He just comes. I know it. One day I was one woman and the next, someone driving into my NIV Study bible. That book, with Wikipedia and Google has been intense in getting to know him. I have taken a lot of court battle down on my own. I just speak Loud and clearly about God My Father. Born...November 10 @c2802cc97cb7f96dc648dd3a973d58cc:disqus 10:10 pm and my birth year equals a ten. His words are all over numerology. Just speaking to say that I have met Him....well not face to face, but He comes if he has need of you and you have no choice. I can speak of the 666. Know it. You can contact me anytime. I am not hiding. Cecilie Evans... birthname....Cecile Ehlers...and Cecile means bllindness....or a light. My Hispanic brothers and sister 623.329.6585, me as Cecilia...live in AZ....and I have come to take it down. Working hard on the evil here. I am a long story...However, anyone just has to take my Google history down from my computer. Some of it might now be there, but I have a numerologist and an astrologer and working with a Hyno gent to try to figure out what is going on. Something changed that Sumer. Now all I have been doing is battle against evil. We will see. Still searching about how God works. In Mysterious ways. YAWAH.
In HimSes
did GOD want to kill Moses or his son?
Pardon that I did not take the time to read the thread so if this question seems redundant. I apologize. One detail I think is amiss. If Pharoah was born to a jewish mother, I think he would've been circumcised...on the 8th day like all the others. Boys were being killed in the day Moses was an infant, not jewish boys, therefore I really think Moses was circumcised. But I have always wondered why the whole, "bloody husband thing happened". You gave me a lot to think about. hmmm.
that sounds about right to me.
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