The question regarding Exodus 4:24-26

[hoohkostwon]

Hi brothers and sisters,

I am Ada, a new Christian and recently want to dedicate myself to study the holly bible a bit deeper. I never read the bible myself until very recently, so when I went to detail, I found myself some questions...for example, what it means regarding Exodus 4:25-26. Is the God wants to kill Moses or his soon, and why? I am not sure I understand correct. I hope some of you can be a bit patient and maybe guide me a bit with understanding.

Thank you very much, and May God bless all you.

Ada

 

[RC1970]

Circumcision is a symbol of putting away all that is unpleasing to God, and of dedication to God for the task ahead. Moses (in this case his wife) was required to complete the circumcision of their son(s). There is a lot here that is not explained fully, so we have to infer.

 

[Greg J.]

Hi brothers and sisters,

I am Ada, a new Christian and recently want to dedicate myself to study the holly bible a bit deeper. I never read the bible myself until very recently, so when I went to detail, I found myself some questions...for example, what it means regarding Exodus 4:25-26. Is the God wants to kill Moses or his soon, and why? I am not sure I understand correct. I hope some of you can be a bit patient and maybe guide me a bit with understanding.

Thank you very much, and May God bless all you.

Ada

Welcome, Ada! Have you gotten any advice on what order to read the books of the Bible?

God made circumcision to be a sign of obedience for people who chose to follow God. He did this with Abraham (and for his descendants) in Genesis 17:10. Moses was one of Abraham's descendants and was a Jew, but had failed to circumcise Zipporah's son. The implication is that this is why God "wanted to kill him," although it is not stated. God was angry with Moses (and would be angry with Moses at times in the future, too). God was about to kill all the firstborn non-Jews in Egypt. Mose's wife was aware of what was going on, and tried to fix Mose's failure, which satisfied God.

 

[hoohkostwon]

Thank you for both of your explanations. I got better understanding now. I followed the reason why God wanted to kill Moses; I just feel a bit surprise God wanted to do that after he already chose Moses.

I was suggested to read new testament first, which I finished already. But I didn't receive advices regarding the order of reading old testament. If you have more suggestions, please let me know.

Thank you again, and may God bless you.

 

[Greg J.]

@hoohkostwon, I think you can read the OT books in whatever order you want, but it is valuable to understand how each book fits into the history of the Jewish people, otherwise it may be unnecessarily confusing what each book is talking about and why.

The big picture of the OT is that God called the Jewish people to be his people which the Jews accepted, but later rejected, then God punished them or let them experience the consequences of not having his protection and they realized they needed God and went to him and accepted him again, then they got comfortable and ended up rejecting him again, and this repeats over and over.

Included in the first 5 books is the Mosaic Law (what God commanded the Jews through Moses, such as the 10 Commandments) as well as the account of the long process of God freeing the Jews from slavery in Egypt and leading them for 40 years to the land he had given to the Jewish people (Israel/Judah/Canaan). Don't feel obligated to read all the genealogies carefully.

There are three long, but rich, books which are accounts from 3 major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel).

Proverbs is a book of wisdom and Psalms is a book dedicated to hymns and poems. It is not a bad idea to read a little bit of theses from time to time while you are working your way through the rest of the OT, because neither is a a book with a single story. Most people can't digest what is in Psalms and Proverbs all at once, because there is so much there that is unrelated to its other parts.

There's a bunch of books from "minor" prophets. Some of them are short and in story form, so they are easy to read (Jonah, Esther, Ruth).

 

[AvgJoe]

Hi brothers and sisters,

I am Ada, a new Christian and recently want to dedicate myself to study the holly bible a bit deeper. I never read the bible myself until very recently, so when I went to detail, I found myself some questions...for example, what it means regarding Exodus 4:25-26. Is the God wants to kill Moses or his soon, and why? I am not sure I understand correct. I hope some of you can be a bit patient and maybe guide me a bit with understanding.

Thank you very much, and May God bless all you.

Ada

Hi Ada & welcome to CF!

God was going to kill Moses because of sin. The sin of Moses in Exodus 4:24-26 is not stated explicitly, but the surrounding events give substantial clues as to the nature of Moses’ transgression. God had instructed his messenger to warn pharaoh to free Israel or pharaoh would lose his firstborn son (Exodus 4:21-24). Moses had been specially groomed by God for eighty years for this mission, and now the time for action had come.

Moses was to lead his people out of Egypt and to be an example to pharaoh’s house, to the nation of Egypt, and to all the nations that heard of those happenings (Exodus 18:10-11; Joshua 2:10-11). Accordingly, Moses’ personal life had to be in order before he could direct the spiritual lives of the Hebrew people. It seems that Moses had neglected to administer the sacred rite of circumcision, the act that symbolized the Almighty’s covenant with His chosen people.

Perhaps this was the result of pressure from his surrogate Midianite tribe. It is also possible that he was persuaded by Zipporah not to circumcise his son, since she apparently found the practice revolting (4:25). This would explain her violent outburst; she felt that she had saved her husband from death by shedding the blood of her son. Whatever the cause, Moses’ outstanding sin made him unfit to serve as a spiritual leader, and the situation had to be rectified before he could carry out his mission effectively. Indeed, as soon as Zipporah performed the act, the Lord “let him go.” In summary, God was going to kill Moses because Moses was supposed to teach the Israelites God's Law, yet Moses was not obeying God's Law himself.

www.gotquestions.org/kill-Moses.html

 

[hoohkostwon]

Hi Ada & welcome to CF!

God was going to kill Moses because of sin. The sin of Moses in Exodus 4:24-26 is not stated explicitly, but the surrounding events give substantial clues as to the nature of Moses’ transgression. God had instructed his messenger to warn pharaoh to free Israel or pharaoh would lose his firstborn son (Exodus 4:21-24). Moses had been specially groomed by God for eighty years for this mission, and now the time for action had come.

Hi Avgjoe, thank you so much for your patience and detailed explanation. It seems much clear for me now, and really encourages me to continue my study. Thank you again. May God bless you

 

[hoohkostwon]

@hoohkostwon, I think you can read the OT books in whatever order you want, but it is valuable to understand how each book fits into the history of the Jewish people, otherwise it may be unnecessarily confusing what each book is talking about and why.

Hi Greg, I really really appreciate for your explanation and suggestions!! As I said, I am really new to the Holly Bible and thank you to be patient. I am glad I got many good teachers here and I am exciting to continue my study and I will probably come back when I have more questions. Thank you again. May God bless you.

 

[AvgJoe]

Hi Avgjoe, thank you so much for your patience and detailed explanation. It seems much clear for me now, and really encourages me to continue my study. Thank you again. May God bless you

You're welcome. Glad it helped & God bless.

 

[hedrick]

I have issues with some of what is said above.

First, there's no sign in the passage that the problem is sin. The only issue presented is circumcision. It seems likely that the problem is that Moses isn't circumcised. Because no specific reason is given, this passage has about a million interpretations. But the simplest one seems to me that he's about to go to Egypt and get terrible things to happen to the Egyptians. But without circumcision, he's still an Egyptian, so his life would be in danger.

Why did Zipporah circumcise Moses' son and not Moses himself? One suggestion is that Moses doesn't have time to recover. At any rate, circumcising his son, and touching the foreskin to his genitals (the actual meaning of "feet" in this context) is essentially a proxy circumcision for Moses.

 

[Joshua_5]

I have issues with some of what is said above.

First, there's no sign in the passage that the problem is sin. The only issue presented is circumcision. It seems likely that the problem is that Moses isn't circumcised. Because no specific reason is given, this passage has about a million interpretations. But the simplest one seems to me that he's about to go to Egypt and get terrible things to happen to the Egyptians. But without circumcision, he's still an Egyptian, so his life would be in danger.

Why did Zipporah circumcise Moses' son and not Moses himself? One suggestion is that Moses doesn't have time to recover. At any rate, circumcising his son, and touching the foreskin to his genitals (the actual meaning of "feet" in this context) is essentially a proxy circumcision for Moses.

Remember where Pharaoh's daughter found Moses in Exodus 2?

"And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children."

How would she know the child was a Hebrew if he was not circumcised? Further, why would she conclude he was a Hebrew child if he was uncircumcised?

Moses' parents were God-fearing as they defied the Pharaoh's edict to kill their child. How much more would they have obeyed God for something so important (and simple) as circumcision?

Even if Moses was uncircumcised when he married Zipporah, Zipporah was quite capable of circumcising her son at short notice with only a rock. Why would she not have done the same to Moses as soon as she became aware (like, on their wedding night)? Not to mention why Moses himself would have done nothing about it, when he chose God's people over the Pharaoh's riches. And why would the circumcision of Moses' son be a sufficient substitute for Moses' circumcision, when the command was that "the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant."?

The interpretation that Moses was not circumcised is reading into the scriptures more than they explain, and is inconsistent with other passages (let alone the Exodus passage it tries to interpret).