BIBLIOTHECA
SACRA 153 (July-September 1996): 259-69
Copyright © 1996 by
THE "BLOODY BRIDEGROOM"
IN EXODUS 4:24-26*
Ronald B.
Allen
EXODUS 4:24-26 comprises possibly the most
perplex-
ing passage
in all the Torah, surpassed perhaps only by the puz-
zlement many
feel concerning "the sons of God" and "the daugh-
ters of
men" in Genesis 6:1-4.
The Book of Exodus begins in chapter 1
with a brief recital of
the plight
of
in chapter 2
the story records the birth of Moses, whose protection
in his
infancy was a most remarkable instance of divine provi-
dence,
including humor.1 The balance
of chapter 2 through
nearly all
of chapter 4 focuses on Moses' early life, as Yahweh
prepared him
for his lifework of being the human agent for God's
deliverance
of His people from
vealed
Himself to Moses in terms of His divine name Yahweh
(2:22-3:15),2
and then He told Moses of His choice of him to be
His
agent. Moses was reluctant at first, but
finally was convinced
that his
purpose in life was this grand task. So
at last in Exodus
4:18 Moses
prepared to leave Midian, where he had lived for forty
years, to
return to
As Moses was on his way to
Surely these
three verses (Exod. 4:24-26) are among biblical
Ronald B.
Allen is Professor of Bible Exposition, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dal-
las,
* This is
article three in a four-part series, "On Paths Less Traveled: Discovering
the Savior
in Unexpected Places in the Old Testament," delivered by the author as
the W. H.
Griffith Thomas Lectures at
1995.
1 It is interesting to note the comic
justice of Pharaoh's daughter hiring Moses'
mother to
nurse her own baby (Exod. 2:7-10).
2 Ronald B. Allen, "What Is in a
Name?" in God: What Is He Like? ed. William F.
Kerr
(Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1977), 107-27.
260 BIBLIOTHECA SACRA / July-September 1996
paths less
traveled. Childs wrote, "Few texts
contain more prob-
lems for the
interpreter than these few verses which have contin-
ued to
baffle throughout the centuries."3 In the New King James
Version,
Exodus 4:24-26 reads as follows:
"And it came to pass on
the way, at
the encampment, that the LORD met him and sought to
kill
him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone
and cut off the fore-
skin of her
son and cast it at Moses'4 feet, and said, 'Surely you
are a husband
of blood to me!' So He let him go. Then she said,
'You are a
husband of blood'--because of the circumcision."
PRELIMINARY ISSUES
Several questions come to mind when one
reads these verses.
1.
This passage seems to be an intrusion into the flow of the
chapter. It is abrupt as well as cryptic and
difficult. Though these
verses form
a unit, the question remains, What is the purpose of
this
pericope?
2.
The passage is marked by a lack of clear antecedents for
some of its
pronouns or named objects for some of its verbs. Fur-
ther, many
translations have inserted the name "Moses" in verse
25 where the
Hebrew has only "his."5 Who did what to whom?
3.
More significantly, the passage prompts the question,
Why? What possibly could have prompted the rage of
Yahweh that
would have
caused Him to want to kill Moses? This
seems partic-
ularly
inappropriate, since the initial "misunderstanding" be-
tween God
and Moses had been settled (Exod. 4:1-17).
4.
Why does the passage center on what for modern readers
are the
distasteful and embarrassing subjects of circumcision,
blood, and
foreskins?
5.
What was behind Zipporah's action?
How did she know
what to
do? Why did Moses not act? After she cut off the foreskin
of her son,
whom did she touch with it, what did she touch with it, and
why did she
need to touch anything with it?
3 Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus:
A Critical, Theological Commentary
(Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1974), 95. John I. Durham
writes, "These verses are
among the
most difficult in the Book of Exodus, not in terms of their translation,
which is
quite straightforward, but in terms of their meaning and their location in
this
particular context" (Exodus,
Word Biblical Commentary [
1987],56-59).
Walter C. Kaiser Jr. echoes these words ("Exodus," in The
Expositor's
Bible
Commentary, 12 vols. [
4 The footnote in the New King James
Version correctly notes that the Hebrew is
literally
"his."
5 Certainly this passage must be studied on
the basis of the Hebrew text rather
than in a
translation. At times the priority of
the Scriptures in the original lan-
guages needs
to be reasserted over that of any translation.
All translations of
Scripture
are adequate for the purposes intended; no translation of Scripture is
able to
reveal the subtle nuances that are a part of the original locution.
The "Bloody Bridegroom" in
Exodus 4:24-26 261
6.
What is the meaning of Zipporah's words, "You are a
husband of
blood to me," and to whom are they addressed?
7.
What is the point of this passage?6
SUGGESTED INTERPRETATIONS
Not surprisingly, this puzzling passage
has been a mine for
critical
scholars to explore, allowing them to look for exotic ores
and bizarre
treasures.7 Alas, they seem
to have found mostly
fool's gold.
On the other hand three contemporary scholars have
attempted to
deal with the passage constructively.
BREVARD
CHILDS'S VIEW
Childs notes many difficulties, including
those of connec-
tion, the
rash action of the Lord, the lack of stated reason, the lack
of an
explanation of the action of Zipporah, the lack of an-
tecedents,
and the irrational, almost demonic, atmosphere with
its focus on
blood.8 Then he says that it
is not clear whose feet were
touched. "In my opinion the redactor of the
present narrative
seemed to
have understood the child as the recipient of the action.
The smearing
of the blood serves as a visible demonstration that
circumcision
had indeed been performed."9
To this the question may be asked, Would
not the boy's wail be
sufficient
evidence that he was the one on whom the procedure had
been
accomplished? Why also put blood on the
child's feet?
To whom were the words addressed? On the surface they seem to
apply neither to the child nor to Moses,
and assuredly not to
Yahweh.
The frequent suggestion of translating the phrase on
the basis of Arabic to mean "the
blood-circumcised one" escapes
some of the difficulties but cannot be
sustained philologically.10
Childs concludes that the story
"serves to dramatize the
tremendous
importance of circumcision. . . . the implication is
certainly
that Moses was held culpable for its omission.
Indeed so
serious was
the offense as to have nearly cost him his life. When
Zipporah
righted the omission, he was released."11
6 To put it another way, How
does this text aid in one's spiritual development,
and how may
this text be used in preaching God's Word to hurting people? How is
this a part
of Scripture that has its role in making the believer complete in the
Lord (2 Tim.
3:16-17)?
7 For a survey of theories, see
8 Childs, Exodus, 95.
9 Ibid., 103.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., 104.
262 BIBLIOTHECA SACRA /
July-5eptember 1996
Thus Childs suggests these points: (1) The child was circum-
cised by his
mother because Moses did not do so. (2)
The bloody
foreskin was
touched to the feet of the child to demonstrate that the
circumcision
was accomplished. (3) Questions about
Zipporah's
enigmatic
words are unanswered. (4) The meaning of
the pas-
sage is to
be found in the tremendous importance attached to cir-
cumcision
(and its role in the covenant of God and man).
WALTER C.
KAISER JR.'S VIEW
With the two textual clues, the rite of
circumcision as the ex-
planation of the whole episode and
"my firstborn son"12 as the
connection between the sections, the rest
of the passage yields
this explanation. The Lord had attacked
Moses as he was enroute
to accomplish the mission of God in
nearly fatal experience is not known to
us; therefore, it does not
figure in the interpretation. That Moses
was the object of the di-
vine action is clear from the fact that
the otherwise unspecified
son in v. 25 would need to be identified
as belonging to someone
other than Moses. The sudden introduction
of Zipporah's action
leads us to believe that she instinctively
connected her husband's
peril (a malady so great that it left only
her hands free to act, for
presumably his were not able to help) with
their failure to circum-
cise their son. This she immediately
proceeded to do. But her
words of reproach--"Surely you are a
bridegroom of blood to me"--
indicate that the root of the problem was
in her revulsion and
disgust with this rite of circumcision.13
Kaiser then gives this conclusion:
Thus for one small neglect,
apparently out of deference for his
wife's wishes, or perhaps to keep peace
in the home, Moses almost
forfeited his opportunity to serve God and
wasted eighty years of preparation
and training! To further underscore this
connection between Moses' grave
condition and the circumcision of his son,
Zipporah took the excised prepuce
and touched Moses' feet (this need not be
as many commentators argue a
euphemism for his genitals, for this is
not a puberty rite here). The Lord let
Moses
go, and the grip of death was lited.14
These are the salient elements in Kaiser's
presentation: (1)
Moses was
the one under God's action, suffering from an (un-
named)
illness that incapacitated him.15
(2) The child (presum-
12 Kaiser is referring here to the words,
"my firstborn son," in verse 22.
13 Kaiser, "Exodus," 332-33.
14 Ibid., 333.
15 This is also the view of U. Cassuto:
"that the Lord met him, that means, that he
contracted a
severe illness (on the Hebrew usage that attributes every event to the
direct
action of God)" (A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, trans. Israel
Abra-
hams [
The "Bloody Bridegroom" in
Exodus 4:24-26 263
ably
Gershom) had not been circumcised, possibly the result of a
family
dispute. (3) Zipporah showed revulsion
to the act of cir-
cumcision of
her son, as seen in her words to Moses; nevertheless
she acted to
save Moses' life. (4) One senses the homiletical point
in Kaiser's
last paragraph: What sadness if one were to lose a
ministry for
God just to keep peace in the home.
JOHN I. DURHAM'S VIEW
stands in
Exodus, and, just as important, where it stands in Exo-
dus.16 These are his interpretive points. (1) The main point is
clearly circumcision,
and at that, a specific circumcision.
The
etiological
view (as Childs argues) is not in view here, nor (in the
present
text) is there any ground for a demonic interpretation. (2)
Moses was
the object of Yahweh's encountering action.
(3) The
reason for
the attack is "that Moses had not previously been cir-
cumcised."17 (4) Zipporah circumcised her son, because if
she had
circumcised
Moses, he would have been incapacitated for his
journey. On the child, the effects would be less
problematic; in
any event,
the child did not make the journey. (5)
To transfer the
effects of
the rite to Moses, she touched the severed foreskin of her
son to
Moses' genitals. (6) The phrase "a
bridegroom of blood"
was an
ancient formula recalling circumcision as a premarital
rite. (7) Thus Zipporah's action "is a
vicarious circumcision of
Moses to
prevent his being painfully crippled at the beginning of
the most
important undertaking of his life."18
There are some strengths to
is marred by
a critical error. "Vicarious circumcision" is as un-
likely a
category as "vicarious baptism."
This is a theological
oxymoron. If Yahweh were about to kill Moses because he
was not
circumcised,
the blood of his son's foreskin on his still uncir-
cumcised
organ would not likely assuage the wrath of God. Fur-
ther,
statement
which accompanied the premarital circumcision as a
declaration
to a young man's in-laws that he was of an appro-
priate for
marriage."19 Of what
application would this be for
Moses, who
had long before married her and fathered two sons by
16
17 Or if he had been circumcised, it was in
the "partial manner" of the Egyptians.
This is farfetched,
for was it not Hebrew circumcision that led Pharaoh's daughter
to recognize
Moses as a Hebrew baby (Exod. 2:6)?
18 These points are summarized from
19 Ibid., 59.
264 BIBLIOTHECA SACRA /
July-September 1996
her? If circumcision were a necessity for marriage
in her cul-
ture, and if
Moses had not been circumcised as a baby in
surely Moses
would have been circumcised by Jethro, her father,20
in the
time-honored tradition of the Arabian (and other) peoples of
this period.
The weaknesses of this view outweigh the strengths.
A PROPOSED INTERPRETATION
VERSE 24
"Now it happened on the way at an
inn, that Yahweh encoun-
tered him
and sought to kill him" (author's translation). The
"him"
(twice) in verse 24 undoubtedly refers to Moses.21 Is it pos-
sible that
the delicate nature of the text led Moses (or another) to
refer to him
obliquely? Moses was on his way to
missioned by
Yahweh (4:21-23). The strained interplay
Moses
had had with
the Lord (4:1-17) was behind him.
Yahweh is clearly the subject of the verbs
"met" (wgaPA,
"to en-
counter")
and "sought to kill" (though the Septuagint substituted
the word
"angel" for Yahweh). Moses had
recently learned the
meaning of
the name of God, Yahweh (Exod. 3:13-15); now God
who was for
him had become his enemy.
The verb "encounter" is
minimized by many commentators.
Cole says
Moses "was struck down by some dangerous sickness
or other
blow as the sign of God's displeasure."22 However, He-
brew has a clear
way of speaking of physical illness or injury
(e.g., 1
Kings 17:17; 2 Kings 1:2), and such phrases are not in this
passage. The verb "encounter" is as
significant in this passage
as is the
word "son." Kaiser rightly
sees "son" (v. 25) as the con-
necting link
of this pericope with the preceding one (v. 23), but he
20 This is particularly the case since the
Hebrew for "his father-in-law" (Ont;Ho) used
of Jethro is
derived from an Arabic word that means "his circumciser."
21 Because there is no clear antecedent for
the pronoun "him" in this verse, it is
remotely
possible that the one whom the Lord was about to kill was not Moses but
his son
(either Gershom or Eliezer) who was not circumcised. The uncircumcised
one was to
be cut off from
holding the
boy, even as his mother circumcised him. Then the Lord would have re-
leased the
boy. This option is likely without
precedent among interpreters (but see
comments
below on v. 26). Perhaps the strongest
objection to this view is the obser-
vation that
one would have expected Moses to have acted on behalf of his son in this
Hebrew
custom rather than his mother (who was a Midianite). Yet her mother's
love may
have urged her to act quickly, as Phinehas acted with zeal in Numbers 25.
22 R.
Alan Cole, Exodus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973), 79. Similarly,
John J.
Davis suggests Moses "was punished by God and was apparently desper-
ately
sick" (Moses and the Gods of Egypt: Studies in the Book of Exodus
[Grand
Rapids:
Baker, 1971], 71).
The "Bloody Bridegroom" in
Exodus 4:24-26 265
strangely
dismisses the link of "encounter" with the next pericope
beginning in
verse 27.23
Yahweh encountered Moses to kill him; in
the next unit
Aaron
encountered Moses to embrace him. Both statements use
wgaPA, a
relatively rare verb that connotes a significant personal en-
counter.24 This verb suggests a dramatic (hostile)
encounter of
Yahweh with
Moses in what may be a hitherto-unacknowledged
theophany. Those approaches that say Moses was ill
because of a
visitation
by the Lord overlook the serious nature of this term.
This
theophany was an appearance of the living, preincarnate
Christ, the
One who reveals the Father and is the living Word
(John
1:14-18).
Yahweh's encounter with Moses was similar to
the wrestling
match of the
Angel of Yahweh (the preincarnate Christ) with Ja-
cob (Gen.
32). Both theophanic appearances were
sudden, per-
sonal,
direct revelations of the divine presence in a hostile,
wrestler's
hold. Moses was held by the Lord, not
beset by a myste-
rious
disease. And then he was released by
Yahweh when His
demands had
been met (Exod. 4:26); it was not simply that he "got
better." Just as he was later held by Aaron (v. 27) in
a warm em-
brace, so
now he was held by the Lord (v. 24) in a hostile hold--a
death grip.
Why does verse 24 state that "Yahweh.
. . sought to kill him"?
If He truly
wished to kill Moses, could He not have done so in a
moment? Actually the very opposite was God's
intention. He held
Moses in a
death grip, but He did not want to kill him.
The verb
wqaBA,
"to seek," means not a frenetic activity on God's part, but a
sudden
struggle, a divine grip, and divine patience before the fi-
nal
blow. Indeed, He was giving Moses one
last chance to stay
alive. Strangely, but surely, this is another
instance of God's
grace. Moses had committed a serious offense against
the Lord
that made
him unfit to be God's agent of deliverance or to live in
God's
presence.
VERSE 25
"Then Zipporah took a flint and she
cut off the foreskin of her
son, and she
held it out to touch his feet, and she said, "Surely you
are a bloody
bride-father25 [MymiDA-NtaH#] to
me!' " (author's transla-
23 Kaiser, "Exodus," 332.
24 The word here (v. 24) is not the more
familiar verb xrAqA,
"to meet." Both wgaPA
and xrAqA
are used in verse 27.
25 Brown, Driver, and Briggs list NtAHA
as a "daughter's
husband, bridegroom"
(meaning one
who undergoes circumcision), and more generally, a wife s or hus-
band's
relations. For Exodus 4:25 they give the standard translation, "a bloody
266 BIBLIOTHECA SACRA I
July-September 1996
tion). Crucial to the interpretation of this verse
is the Lord's in-
struction
regarding circumcision based on Genesis 17.
Clearly
that passage
says that each male child is to be circumcised on the
eighth day
of his life. Should that fail to be
done, that one was to be
cut off from
17:3-14).
Moses was guilty of not carrying out circumcision
in his own
family, yet
he was the one who was to lead the circumcised nation
of
simply
intolerable. "But if Moses was to
carry out the divine
commission
with success, he must first of all prove himself to be a
faithful
servant of Jehovah in his own house."26 Though a sen-
tence of
death was pronounced on any neglect of circumcision as
being a
breach of the covenant (Gen. 17:14), "Moses had probably
omitted
circumcision [of his child] simply from regard to his
Midianitish
wife, who. . . disliked this operation; he had been
guilty of a
capital crime, which God could not pass over in the case
of one whom
He had chosen to be His messenger, to establish His
covenant
with
There may be a grisly pun in the words
"cut off" in Genesis
17:14. If the foreskin were not removed, then the
person was to be
removed. Did the punishment fall on the child who was
uncir-
cumcised, or
on the parent who refused to have this done?
The an-
swer may be
"On both." That is, the child
seems to be in view in
Genesis
17:14, but the command is for the father (or his agent) to
do the
task. Another issue concerns which son
is in view in Exo-
bridegroom
art thou to me" (Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A
Hebrew and
English Lexicon of the Old Testament [
However,
there are etymological data that may suggest the standard translation is
based on the
false assumption that Zipporah's words were addressed to Moses.
The verb NtaHA, "to circumcise" is related to
an Arabic verb, hatana, "to circum-
cise."
The Hebrew NteHo, "father-in-law," is related to
the Arabic hatin, "a circum-
ciser
," hence to a father-in-law with reference to circumcision performed on
young
men just
before marriage (cf. the Arabic hatan, a relative on the wife's
side). The
Hebrew NteHo is used of Jethro, Moses' "wife's
father" (Exod. 3:1; 4:18; 18:1-2, 5-8, 12,
14, 17, 24, 27;
Num. 10:29; Judg. 1:16; 4:11). The same
word in the feminine is used of
the wife's
mother (Deut. 27:23).
In Ugaritic the related verb htn
means "to marry," and the related noun htn
means
"son-in-law" (Cyrus H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook [
Institute,
1965], 405).
These Hebrew, Arabic, and Ugaritic terms
also have cognate nouns in Aramaic,
Syriac, and
Old South Arabic, with the same general meaning (cf. the Akkadian
hat(a)nu).
See Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Ara-
maic Lexicon
of the Old Testament
(Leiden: Brill, 1994), 1:364-65.
26 C.
F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, The Pentateuch,
3 vols., Biblical Commentary on
the Old
Testament (reprint,
27 Ibid.
The "Bloody Bridegroom" in
Exodus 4:24-26 267
dus
4:25. Since only one son is said to be
circumcised, one may
assume that
the other son had already been circumcised.28
The words "her son" do not
exclude Moses as father, of course,
(nor is it
likely that this was a child of hers from another mar-
riage). But they may suggest something of the
animosity she may
have had
against circumcision.29
VERSE 26
"Then He released him. (Now she had
said 'bloody bride-fa-
ther' with
reference to the circumcision)" (author's translation).
The verb "to release" (hpArA, "to sink," "to
relax," "to with-
draw")
fits with the idea of the release of the wrestler's grip of
death,
described above. Zipporah repeated the
scurrilous phrase
"bloody
bride-father" to the living God because she was so angry
at the act
she was forced to perform on her child.
A PROPOSED SCENARIO
When Gershom was born, Moses would have
circumcised
him on his
eighth day as a matter of course, following the clear
teaching of
Genesis 17:9-14. While circumcision was
also prac-
ticed by the
Midianites, it would have been a kind of puberty "rite
of
passage" for them (and other Semitic peoples as well).30 Thus to
28 Some might suggest the second son was an
infant, not yet eight days old, but
this seems
unlikely. The birth of the second son
that near the time of travel would
have been an
extraordinary hardship. Only Gershom's
birth has been mentioned to
this point
(Exod. 2:22). But Moses took with him
his "sons" and his wife (4:20); the
name of the
second, Eliezer, was not given until 18:3-4.
29 Some suggest the son in view here is
Gershom, Moses' firstborn. The tie that
may link
this pericope with the preceding may be the words "firstborn son" (v.
23).
Also, as
Kaiser suggests, the firstborn of Moses and Zipporah may be linked with
the
firstborn of Pharaoh. However, even
Kaiser is uncertain on this point.
Actually
the
relationship is tenuous. In the case of
Pharaoh, it was his son who was at risk,
but in the
case of Moses, it was Moses himself, not his son, who was at risk. Yet the
problem
concerned his son. "He who is on
his way to liberate the people of the cir-
cumcision,
has in Midian even neglected to circumcise his second son Eliezer"
(John Peter
Lange, Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal and
Homiletical [1876; reprint,
30 The rite of circumcision was not an
exclusive practice of the ancient Hebrews.
Actually circumcision was practiced in
prehistoric times, as attested by some cave
paintings. It was practiced among many people groups in the
ancient world, in
Asia, among
South Sea Islanders, in many tribal groups in
of the
native peoples of the
cision was a
rite of passage performed on a boy at puberty rather than shortly after
birth. Among the ancient Semitic peoples,
circumcision was practiced among many
of
The
Philistines (who were Indo-European peoples) did not practice circumcision
268 BIBLIOTHECA SACRA /
July-September 1996
the child's
mother the practice of circumcising babies would have
been
unexpected at best and abhorrent at worst. When the second
child was
born, Zipporah (perhaps in association with her fa-
ther31)
may have strongly resisted, saying, "You have done this
with the
first boy, but not again. Not with my
son." If only one son
had not been
circumcised, it would seem more likely to be the
younger
rather than the older.
So now at the critical moment she did
what she had objected to
before. Moses, her husband, was in the death grip of
his God. She
rushed forth, did the deed, but was surely repulsed by the pr