THE LIVES OF THE PATRIARCHS #52 | THE LIFE OF MOSES #34

Pastor Christopher Choo,

Lesson 3734

THE LIVES OF THE PATRIARCHS #52

THE LIFE OF MOSES #34

3 REVELATIONS OF YHVH'S NAME GIVEN TO MOSES #22

YHVH M'KADDESH ( PART 13)

MOSES AND CIRCUMCISION #2

Exodus 4:24-26: “And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the Lord met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at this feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.”

This is a watershed scripture that raises more questions than answers:

1. Was Moses circumcised?

2. Which of his two sons was circumcised?

3. Why would God want to kill him when he was on the way to Egypt with his family to honour God's call to liberate His people from slavery as their saviour?

The text quoted above must be understood from what preceded before.

Moses had grown up in Pharaoh’s household, but by faith, he cast his lot with the children of Israel, who were slaves of Pharaoh (Heb. 11:24-26).

Moses had thought that the time had come to deliver Israel from bondage, and so killed an Egyptian (Acts 7:23-25). 

But, although Moses thought the time had come for Israel’s deliverance, the time was Moses’ choice, not God’s choice. 

And so Moses was forced to flee Egypt and find a place where he would be safe.

He found this place in the Sinai peninsula in the home of Jethro. There he stayed for forty years tending Jethro’s sheep.

During this period, he married Zipporah, Jethro’s daughter, and they had a son (Ex. 2:16-22) - the first of two sons called Gershom.

But now the time had come that God would save His people. So He sent Moses to Egypt to deliver Israel.

It was on his way back to Egypt with his family that the event described in the text took place. 

Exodus 4 states emphatically that God sought to kill Moses (24) but we are not told of the particular means He was to employ. Certain it is that the Lord did not slay Moses, for, through Zipporah’s intervention (25-26), “he [i.e., God] let him [i.e., Moses] go” (26).

Why did the Lord try to kill Moses? What lesson did He want to teach Moses and Zipporah? The answer is in the text itself.

Jehovah’s apparent intention to kill Moses was forgotten when Zipporah circumcised Gershom, their son (Ex. 4:25-26). It all had to do with the circumcision of their son.

God had given Abraham the sign of circumcision when God established His covenant with Abraham (Gen. 17:7-14). Notice in this passage that God told Abraham that any of his descendants who did not circumcise their sons had broken God’s covenant and had to be cut off from Israel (14).

Moses knew God’s command to Abraham but had nevertheless failed to observe it. One gets the impression from Zipporah’s anger in casting the foreskin at Moses's feet and saying to him (twice in the text), “A bloody husband thou art to me,” that she had opposed it. 

Two very important truths are emphasized here.

1.The first is that circumcision was the God-given sign and seal of the covenant because it pointed to the fact that God would establish His covenant and save His people in the line of generations.

2. The second truth is that Abraham and all succeeding generations are saved and brought into God’s covenant only by the shedding of blood. Abraham’s seed was, centrally, Christ (Gal. 3:16).

Only through Christ’s blood, that made perfect satisfaction for all the sins of God’s people, could God's covenant be realized and salvation come.

To refuse to perform the rite of circumcision was to cast doubt on the coming of Christ and the efficacy of the cross. That is, it was a repudiation of salvation through the shedding of the blood of Jesus as the washing away of sins.

Conclusion

1. Moses was responsible to perform his covenantal obligation before he could be a proper instrument in God’s hand to lead His covenant people to Canaan.

2. Baptism in the New Testament has become the sign and seal of God’s covenant - for it is the sign and seal of the great truth that God’s covenant is established with believers and their seed through the washing away of sin in the blood of Christ.

3. Let us not take God’s anger at Moses lightly. 

Let us not take the importance of baptizing our children lightly. 

And let us not deny that baptism is a sacrament that takes the place of circumcision, now that Christ has come.

N.B. Tomorrow's devotion will try to answer the difficult and still unanswered question - was Moses himself circumcised?