Why God Attacked Moses

Billie Smith also asked about God's attack upon Moses in Exo 4.24-26. Here's my comment on this strange passage:

The stunning thing in this passage is the idea that God would attack His own servant. We should not imagine this behavior as excluded by God's character however; parallel incidents occurred in the lives of Jacob (Gen 32) and Balaam (Num 22-24). Remember that God is the One who both kills and brings to life, wounds and heals (Deu 32.38). Add to this the principle that judgment must always begin with the family of God (1Pe 4.17), and then the incident with Moses no longer seems so strange. Though this passage in Exo remains obscure because of its paucity of information and the ambiguity of its pronouns, this much seems clear: one of Moses' sons had remained uncircumcised. This state of affairs was unacceptable for a descendant of Abraham (Gen 17.10), and criminal for one sent on a covenant mission (Exo 3.10). God therefore responded in a way that rendered Moses too incapacitated to rectify the situation himself. Zipporah, understanding the issue (commentators speculate that her own aversion to circumcision had delayed that of her son, though nothing in the text proves this), did the circumcision herself, and touched the bloody foreskin to Moses' feet, thereby ritually including Moses in the covenant act. The divine requirement fulfilled, God permitted Moses to recover and continue on his mission.