That's interesting Georges. :wink:
Hey Javier, I was looking at this and another Bible Study you have out earlier and it's funny cause I've gone through Ex a few times and I've missed this each time! Where did you find this at? Did it just catch your eye? I'm glad you posted!
Anyway, I had to go to an outside source for this one cause I had no idea. Here's what the Net Bible says in it's commentary on (I'll try and use this as an entry point to my own studies with further materials that I have)
4:24 Now on the way, at a place where they stopped for the night,76 the Lord met Moses and sought to kill him.77 4:25 But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off the foreskin of her son and touched it to Moses’ feet,78 and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood79 to me.†4:26 So the Lord80 let him alone. (At that time81 she said, “A bridegroom of blood,†referring to82 the circumcision.)
77sn The next section (vv. 24-26) records a rather strange story. God had said that if Pharaoh would not comply he would kill his son – but now God was ready to kill Moses, the representative of Israel, God’s own son. Apparently, one would reconstruct that on the journey Moses fell seriously ill, but his wife, learning the cause of the illness, saved his life by circumcising her son and casting the foreskin at Moses’ feet (indicating that it was symbolically Moses’ foreskin). The point is that this son of Abraham had not complied with the sign of the Abrahamic covenant. No one, according to Exod 12:40-51, would take part in the Passover-exodus who had not complied. So how could the one who was going to lead God’s people not comply? The bold anthropomorphisms and the location at the border invite comparisons with Gen 32, the Angel wrestling with Jacob. In both cases there is a brush with death that could not be forgotten. See also, W. Dumbrell, “Exodus 4:24-25: A Textual Re-examination,†HTR 65 (1972): 285-90; T. C. Butler, “An Anti-Moses Tradition,†JSOT 12 (1979): 9-15; and L. Kaplan, “And the Lord Sought to Kill Him,†HAR 5 (1981): 65-74.
78tn Heb “to his feet.†The referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The LXX has “and she fell at his feet†and then “the blood of the circumcision of my son stood.†But it is clear that she caused the foreskin to touch Moses’ feet, as if the one were a substitution for the other, taking the place of the other (see U. Cassuto, Exodus, 60).
79sn U. Cassuto explains that she was saying, “I have delivered you from death, and your return to life makes you my bridegroom a second time, this time my blood bridegroom, a bridegroom acquired through blood†(Exodus, 60-61).
80tn Heb “heâ€Â; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
81tn Or “Therefore.†The particle אָז (’az) here is not introducing the next item in a series of events. It points back to the past (“at that time,†see Gen 4:26) or to a logical connection (“therefore, consequentlyâ€Â).
82tn The Hebrew simply has לַמּוּלֹת (lammulot, “to the circumcisionâ€Â). The phrase explains that the saying was in reference to the act of circumcision. Some scholars speculate that there was a ritual prior to marriage from which this event and its meaning derived. But it appears rather that if there was some ancient ritual, it would have had to come from this event. The difficulty is that the son is circumcised, not Moses, making the comparative mythological view untenable. Moses had apparently not circumcised Eliezer. Since Moses was taking his family with him, God had to make sure the sign of the covenant was kept. It may be that here Moses sent them all back to Jethro (18:2) because of the difficulties that lay ahead.
