Exodus, Above and Beyond

We're in a series on Exodus 1-15 called the Great Escape: Breaking Free from the Things That Keep You Enslaved.

When you're teaching through a book with a firm date to start your next series, you have to pick and choose what you're going to cover which is sometimes hard since it is all inspired and has meaning.

Two people in my congegration noticed I skipped over this little gem in Exdous 4:24-26 (Thanks for being in your Bible, Jeff Lynn and Sheila Whitworth!)

Exodus 4:24-31

24At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. 25But 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. 26So the Lord let him alone. (At that time she said “bridegroom of blood,” referring to circumcision.)

Then in verse 27-31, it goes right back to the story of Moses and Aaron getting together with the Israelites (above).

So, what are verse 24-26 about? I actually thought about preaching it as one of the messages, but it didn't quite fit with the theme of Breaking Free as well as everything else does.

First, since the passage (3 verses) doesn't have a whole lot of detail., most of the commentaries I read "supposed" a little of the situation.

Basically, ever since Genesis 17:10-14 God had told Abraham for all males who believed in God to be circumcised.

The Bible Knowledge Commentary summarizes the point of this passage best:

In his years in Midian Moses had neglected to obey God’s command (cf. Gen. 17:10) to circumcise one (or both?) of his sons. So 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 His prophet. Her touching Moses’ feet with the son’s foreskin was possibly a symbolic act of substitution, in which obedience was seen as replacing disobedience. Zipporah called Moses a bridegroom of blood. The meaning of this phrase is unknown, but 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.

At this time Zipporah and the sons may have returned to Jethro (18:2-3). Moses’ sudden illness was a warning that he must obey God wholly and fulfill his mission.

Walvoord, John F. ; Zuck, Roy B. ; Dallas Theological Seminary: The Bible Knowledge Commentary : An Exposition of the Scriptures. Wheaton, IL : Victor Books, 1983-c1985, S. 1:115

Had I preached it, the point would have been: We must get right with God if we want to do His work.