Why God almost Killed Moses

24On the way to Egypt, at a place where Moses and his family had stopped for the night, the LORD confronted him and was about to kill him.25But Moses’ wife, Zipporah, took a flint knife and circumcised her son. She touched his feet with the foreskin and said, “Now you are a bridegroom of blood to me.”26(When she said “a bridegroom of blood,” she was referring to the circumcision.) After that, the LORD left him alone. Exodus 4:24-26 NLT

I have to admit this little section of scripture is a bit befuddling. We’re just about to embark on an amazing journey to free God’s people from the tyranny of the Egyptians, but before Moses even gets close to Pharaoh, he finds his life endangered by the very God who called him. What is going on? Here’s a brief answer by Bob Deffingbaugh from Bible.org.

“What does this action on Zipporah’s part mean, and what is the purpose of including this story in Exodus? Surely this is the kind of incident which Moses would not wish to become public, let alone become a part of holy Scripture. And remember, Moses wrote this book and could have omitted it. What then does this mean, and what are we to learn from it? I would suggest that this enigmatic event is the key to the entire chapter, explaining Moses’ deeply rooted resistance to obeying the call of God to return to Egypt to rescue the Israelites.

The “gospel,” if you would, of the Israelite was the covenant God had made with Abraham and reiterated to the patriarchs and now, through Moses, to the people of God, the Israelites. Circumcision was the sign of the covenant, an evidence of the parents’ faith in the promise of God to Abraham that through his seed blessings would come to Israel and to the whole world (cf. Gen. 12:1 3). As a testimony of the parents’ faith in God’s covenant promise, every male in Israel was to be circumcised:

Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner—those who are not your offspring. Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant” (Gen. 17:9 14).

So there we have it. The basis of Israel’s preservation (as pictured by the bush that didn’t burn up) was the covenant made with Abraham by the eternal God who is, from now on (cf. Exod. 3:15) the “I AM.” The covenant was the “gospel,” the promise of blessing and salvation which every Israelite was called upon to believe and whose belief was symbolized by the circumcision of his sons and all the males in his household. Moses was to go to Egypt and tell the Israelites that God was about to fulfill His promises, based upon His covenant. And yet Moses had not yet circumcised his son. And if this son is his firstborn, he has had many years in which to do so.

If God takes the “hardness of Pharaoh’s heart” so seriously as to kill his firstborn son (Exod. 4:21 23), then He must likewise deal with the sin of Moses who by not circumcising his son has endangered him greatly. According to the word of the Lord recorded in Genesis 17, his son should have been “cut off from his people.” The holiness of God is clearly manifested in the near fatal illness of Moses. God does not look lightly on any sin.

Moses’ wife rightly perceived the problem and spared the life of her husband by her prompt action. The great man Moses was saved by his wife’s keen perception and decisive measures. Her rebuke was well deserved, and Moses was man enough to record it for posterity. Would that we husbands had the integrity to be so honest.”