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Dear Friends of the Byzantine Forum,

Here's a question I recently received with my reply. Could some of you offer any further light on this passage?

original post:

Can someone please help me understand the following verses?

Exodus 4:

24: At a lodging place on the way the LORD met him and sought to kill him.

25: Then Zippo'rah took a flint and cut off her
son's foreskin, and touched Moses' feet with it, and said, "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!"

26: So he let him alone. Then it was that she said, "You are a bridegroom of blood," because of the circumcision.

question:
Why would the Lord try to kill Moses right after he sends him back to Egypt?

Bill, maybe you can look it up for me?

Thanks, G.S.

Dear G.S.,

Here's one explanation from the Roman Catholic commentary Navarre which is a fairly traditional, yet contemporary, RC text (i.e. no wild modernistic exegesis).

Exodus 4:24-26

"This is a puzzling episode because it concerns superstitious healing practices which are unknown nowadays: Moses falls gravely ill (this is what it means when it says the Lord "met him and sought to kill him") and Zipporah interprets this as meaning that he has committed some fault. So she proceeds to circumcise the boy and also Moses himself (the mention of Moses' "feet" seems an obvious euphemism). So, this circumcision seems to be a religious rite, propiatory in character and somehow connected with marital relations, since his wife refers to him as "a bridegroom of blood". Many theories based on what circumcision meant to the Midianites have been put forward to explain this expression and the whole ritual; but so far none of them is very satisfactory. The Fathers tended to comment on the passage allegorically, saying that Moses blessed his wife and children by means of this rite, to give them a share in the fruits of his salvific mission. Anyway, it does seem as though the sacred writer included this episode in order to show that Moses, the leader and lawagiver of the people, himself underwent circumcision before all the sons of Israel had to." (The Nararre Bible, Pentateuch").

I hope this is of some assistance to you, my brother. You've been so much help to me.

Trusting In Christ's Light,
Wm. DerGhazarian
Armenian Catholic Christian
www.geocities.com/wmwolfe_48044/ [geocities.com]

The above is very close. Let me zero it in a little further - or lead you to the LIfe of Moses which will go far in displaying things.

Many of the early fathers who were familiar yet with biblical antiquities (the meaning of difficult portions of the Old Testament) tell us that scripture has �levels� of meaning. Ethical, moral, and spiritual. In the Conferences of Cassian there is a very good section on this.

St. Gregory of Nyssa is very insightful to recognize that the Life of Moses, as recorded in scripture parallels the progress of own spiritual life according to what the early fathers who fashioned our theology of mystical life - called stages. So Gregory related Moses life to these stages (�From Glory to Glory�) by stages. Most of them talk of the �ladder� or ascent to God - meaning the stages of the mystical life.

Whenever the literal meaning seems odd - look for a spiritual meaning.

The episode represents a dark night of the spirit for Moses, in which he passes by giving up living by the means of his own self-production. The little event is comparable to the flood of Noah, and the dark night of Job, and Abram�s sacrifice of Isaac.

I wish I could explain it for you better. I suggest reading St. Gregory of Nyssa�s Life of Moses - to get the intended parallel between the life of Moses and the life of the spiritual man.

-ray

Thanks for your help RayK, I was counting on you. I'll forward this on to my friend and try to find the text of St. Gregory for my own instruction as well.

Thanks again,

Ghazar

Saying that ... you made me look into it some.

Here are some of my thoughts while reading it in the Hebrew transliteration.

As a symbol of our own spiritual life (which Gregoy of Nyssa and Philo agree upon)...

Moses = our intellect (names means �taken from waters�)

Zipporah = our will (name means something like bird or angel of beauty, trumpet, mourning) and the addition of the ah means it is a spiritualized will (as opposed to an animal like will). So this will is likened to an angelic like will of beauty which is also an announcement of the presence of the king (trumpet) and is also in mourning (darkness and trail). This is the general feel.

So the intellect is �ill� and the will is under trial yet it is beautiful. This certainly is the state of the dark night of purification (St. John of the Cross).

As there is always a flow to context - the subject just before this section is regarding the death of the first born. And in this section (for the first time I believe) a �son� is mentioned for Moses - is this his first-born? This is curious - as the death of the first-born seems to be carried on here.

Let us do some wild exploring�

In spiritual imagery - the intellect (mind) has intercourse with the will (desire) and produces off-spring (knowledge or something like that)� that is the �first born� yet first-born often means in the Hebrew - the best� the prime � the most perfect.

It is curious that she takes a �stone� (which the translator having interested in the literal and not spiritual story has translated to - flint knife). Mmmm� a stone?? And she cuts off the foreskin. I would suggest that the Hebrew word be looked up for this because I think we might find it to mean the genitals entire - while the translator for the literal has to make this foreskin. If that be true then she (the will) cuts away the generative faculty or power of the first-born-best. Meaning something along the lines of that the will does not use enlightenment for its own means of generative production - or self-providence.

Murky - but let us continue.

She then put this �at his feet� which certainly has the Hebrew meaning of �under the teaching of�. In a similar way, in the story of Martha and Mary, when Mary is �at the feet of Jesus� she is paying attention to his teaching - she is being a student and it does not indicate that she was literally near his feet. Similar to Saul (Paul) being educated �at the feet of his teacher.

So now (forget the translators assumption) she places the first-born�s power of further generation and productive powers - at who�s feet? Being that the section is headed by the subject of Yahweh (the God of the covenant) it may just as well be that it is placed at the feet of Yahweh (God) - meaning it is dedicated to God or placed under the guidance of God�s will etc..

And she said �bridegroom of blood� - this is the most curious of all - because Moses is obviously no longer a bridegroom - the marriage was consummated (evidence by the son) - and I note that �of� is assumed in the text - so the proper saying may be �bridegroom blood� or �bridegroom�s blood� or �blood of the bridegroom� - and in that we might hear echos of Christ. While intercourse during betrothal was allowed (pre-marriage ceremony) they would have been married before the son�s birth as the birth of a child was proof of marriage.

The text goes on that Yahweh desisted (ceased the dark night) - and then she said what MAY be equal to �blood of the bridegroom for the cutting away� (??)

I would be very curious of that word which the translator calls circumcision as to its root meaning as a verb. I suggest it may be �cutting away� (and of course might be something else all together).

It is yet very wild - but if some of the Hebrew were interrogation by root - we might find that it indicated a spiritual meaning of something similar to the intellect being in a dark night - and the will refuses to refuses to use its own powers (in other worded becomes passive) by doing no self-providing but rather following or waiting on Providence instead. And the sign of this between the soul and Yahweh (the God of the covenant) is the blood of the bridegroom. As you well know the Hebrew has no vowels and so each word is pronounced (vowels supplied) by the reader according to what he feels the context is. This allows words to have various related meanings to co-exist and that ability makes Hebrew poetry to be packed with inflection and word-play.

All this (speculation of the text here) would be loosely in line with the spiritual interpretation of some of the fathers regarding this section (that Moses received a dark night as spiritual purification before performing the miracles of Exodus) but the proof of the pudding would be in further interrogation of the Hebrew words and - as always - the spiritual meaning is to be preferred over the literal in importance.

Certainly - the act of physical circumcision has no power to it� so the symbolic nature of the act is the important meaning of the act. Those who say this was �superstition� have glossed over the clues in the text and attribute ignorance and superstition to Moses. Now how much sense is in that? A man who just spoke face to face with Good - being sunk in the foolishness of ignorance and superstition? A contradiction for sure. A man (Moses) who had the highest philosophical learning of Egypt (as Son of Pharaoh) and was further enlightened by God?? I think - not. The superstition lies in the translators rather than in the text.

(Further notes) Philo (The Special Laws) agrees that circumcision is a symbol of �excision of the pleasure which delude the mind� and a discarding of knowing yourself in and egotistical way. Philo gives Zipporah as �virtue mounting up from earth to heaven�. And in Questions and Answers On Genesis III - Philo said regarding this section of text, �Since that which is, properly speaking masculine in us is the intellect, the superfluous shoots of which it is necessary for us to prune away and to cast off, so that it, becoming clean and pure from all wickedness and vile, may worship God as his priest.� Ahhh� so see � I am getting real warm here.

I always keep in mind that Jesus saw himself in these texts and saint Paul mentions portions like this as pre-figures of Christ - so in the "who are you going to believe" contest of Jesus and Paul vrs translators opinons - I tend to go with Jesus and Paul and the early fathers who were aware of biblical antiquities.

-ra

Dear RayK,

If I may be so bold as to boil down and interpret what you posted so as to see if I understand:

1. dark night of purification: Garden of Gethsemane
2. the circumcision/removal of genitals and the bridegroom of blood: the Interrogation and Crucifixtion.
3. Leading people out of Egypt: Descent into Hades and Resurrection.

In Christ,
Andrew

Dear Andrew;

Yes... in a spiritual way.

You seem to really have a grasp on it.

These are good subjects for personal meditation.

RayK,

Thanks for the very excellent reply. I've been busy and sick lately, but am better now. I appreciate your insights into this topic and will reflect on what you wrote. Please consider my next post on Joseph and Asaneth.Trusting In Christ's Light,

Wm. DerGhazarian
Armenian Catholic Christian
www.geocities.com/derghazar [geocities.com]

Dear Ghazar,

May God grant you health, long life, and many years!

With love in Christ,
Andrew

Thank you very much, Andrew. This means so much. May He also do the same for you, brother.

Whenever I see blood in the Bible, I look for the covenant of God. All covenants are cut in blood. The reason for this is that the blood IS the life of the flesh (Heb. 9:22), therefore, when blood is shed, life is being given to life.

A covenant is made when one life is given to another. The strongest symbol/reality we have of this on earth is the marital covenant, in which the lives of two become one on the night in which they become "one flesh" in reality. (And on the night in which blood is shed, making and confirming the covenant of husband and wife).

But the blood also has another meaning as well. In the making of covenants, there are "oaths and sacntions". This is where we get the Latin word "sacramentum," from which we have the Sacraments of the Church. A sacramentum is an oath and oaths are taken with solemn sanctions which will be applied if the covenantal oath is broken.

Thus, when the Jew of the Old Covenant entered covenant with God by the cutting off of his flesh, he was also making a sacramentum which in effect said, "If I fail to keep the covenant I am entering into, may I be cut off as this flesh has been cut off." The symbol both speaks to and is the reality, since the Sacraments work ex opere operato. In the New Covenant, when we make covenant with God through our baptism, we are pledging that if we do not keep the covenant faithfully to the end, may we suffer death and be buried in the lake of God's fiery wrath. This is why it is SO IMPORTANT that parents take baptism seriously and catechize their children to know the promise that they made to God on the child's behalf.

Therefore, when I look at these verses, I am looking for covenantal clues, and while I do not have a firm fix on exactly what is meant here, there are some interesting things which pop up out of the narrative:

1. Moses was on his way to kill the firstborn of Egypt. God had declared Israel to be HIS firstborn, and was about to ratify in the sight of Egypt His covenant with them as a nation. All those who would take the blood of the lamb would give that life for theirs. All who would not would give the life of the firstborn of their household for violating that covenant and rebelling against God. A life would be given to make the covenant with God --either that of the first born, or that of a substitute. Sound familiar?

2. Moses had failed to "keep covenant" by doing that which the covenant mandated, i.e., entering his son into the covenant by circumcision, therefore, the sanction of God fell upon him and his life was to be forfeit for his covenant breaking. It is conceiveable (and I speculate here) that had Zipporah not done what she had done, Moses life would have been given up and God would have placed the child in his place. This is the principle of succession in covenantalism.

3. Is Moses possibly a picture of mankind who fails to offer God the appropriate covenantal life, that of the Son of God, for their covenant breaking? We are all separated from God by the sin of Adam (Rom. 5:12). As such, we are all considered in the same place as Adam, i.e., as covenant breakers and under the sanctions of a covenant breaker, which is the forfeiture of our life. Christ is the substitute, the Lamb of the Passover Who gives His life for the world, so that all who will offer that Lamb for their sins are relieved of death ("By death He conquered death") and brought into the New Covenant of God.

I must disagree that circumcision did nothing. It most certainly did do something: it made the one circumcized a member of the covenantal community with all privileges and responsibilities of that membership. To not be circumcized was to be "cut off" from the nation (Gen 17:14), which is the sanction for disobedience to the covenant. Likewise, all who refuse the New Covenant in Christ's Blood shall be eternally "cut off" from the people of God.

These are just my thoughts on the issue, and certainly neither authorative nor of any great value. Just thinking out loud.

Cordially in Christ,

Brother Ed