I am doing my BSF lesson and came across an interesting verse. I generally subscribe to general inerrancy of the scriptures as a whole, but do have some misgivings. Anyhow, this verse really struck as one of those “misgivings”
To give a context, I’ll quote the surrounding passage
To further go back into the context, God has chosen Moses to free the people of Israel. God creates a huge plan, tells it to Moses, who already was a bit reluctant (as anyone one of us would be, I think) and then just out of the blue, God was going to kill him without warning because of a piece of foreskin? Hmm, something does not add up here.
It’s even a little more forceful in the Message:
24-26 On the journey back, as they camped for the night, God met Moses and would have killed him but Zipporah took a flint knife and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ member with it. She said, “Oh! You’re a bridegroom of blood to me!” Then God let him go. She used the phrase “bridegroom of blood” because of the circumcision.
Gads. I don’t know how explain it; my understanding is that the ‘him’ that is translated ‘Moses’ above is actually ambiguous, and could mean the son of Moses instead, which does little to ease the puzzlement. My guess is that there is a lot of context missing.
It may simply be that Moses had been particularly negligent in not having his son circumcised as per the covenant Gen 17:10-14]. For Moses, being Israel’s leader and having his foreign wife remind him of one of his primary covenantal duties i.e., circumcision, this in itself would have been quite a rebuke quite apart from YHWH’s intended deathly threat. Leader or not “rules is rules” – especially so.
Does this translation of the Septuagint help in any way?
22 And you shall say to Pharao, “These things says the Lord, Israel is my first-born.
23 And I said to you, send away my people, that they may serve me. Now if you will not send them away, lo, I will slay your firstborn son.”
24 And it happened that the angel of the Lord met him by the way in the inn, and sought to slay him.
25 And Sepphora having taken a stone, cut off the foreskin of her son, and fell at his feet and said, “The blood of the circumcision of my son is stopped.”
26 And he departed from him, because she said, “The blood of the circumcision of my son is stopped.”
Possibly. That rendering makes it appear to me that God was going to take the life of his son, not Moses. That being the case, I still find it difficult to accept, but I also recognize that God gives and takes away life. He has that right… Also, just because he takes a life doesn’t mean he doesn’t take care of that life in the after-life. So, I can definitely let this one rest with God. But from a purely this side of the grave viewpoint, it seems harsh.