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EDWARD D. ANDREWS (AS in Criminal Justice, BS in Religion, MA in Biblical Studies, and MDiv in Theology) is CEO and President of Christian Publishing House. He has authored over 140 books. Andrews is the Chief Translator of the Updated American Standard Version (UASV).

Moses and his wife Zipporah were on their way to Egypt with their sons, Gershom and Eliezer, when the following events occurred:

Exodus 4:24-26 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)
²⁴And it came to pass on the way at the lodging place that Jehovah met him and sought to kill him. ²⁵Then Zipporah took a flint, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and caused it to touch his feet, and she said, “Surely a bridegroom of blood you are to me.” ²⁶So he let him alone. Then she said, “A bridegroom of blood are you,” because of the circumcision.

Clearly, this passage is complex and complicated. We cannot be dogmatic about its meaning. Yet, when we look at the Scriptures, we will begin to gain some light on these verses. The account does not state in a clear and detailed manner whose life was in danger. Nevertheless, we can logically conclude that it was not Moses’ life, even though some translation point in that direction (LEB; NASB), for Moses had just gotten a divine commission to lead the sons of Israel out of Egypt. “Come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10) Therefore, it appears doubtful that while Moses’ was on his way to carry out that assignment, his life would have been threatened by the angel of God. It, therefore, would more likely be one of his sons lives that was being threatened. When we look back that the law that had been given to their forefather Abraham regarding circumcision, it stated, “And the uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.” (Genesis 17:14) Moses had evidently overlooked the circumcision of his son, and thus, it was the boy’s life that was being threatened by the angel of Jehovah.

Now, to the next Bible difficulty, whose feet were touched when Zipporah cut off her son’s foreskin? It was the angel of Jehovah who was seeking to put the uncircumcised son of Moses to death. Reasonably, then, Zipporah would have caused the foreskin to touch the feet of the angel, offering it to the angel, a representative of Jehovah as confirmation that she had act in accordance with the covenant of circumcision that had been given to Abraham.

Zipporah was the daughter of Reuel/Jethro, the priest, and the prince of Midian. The descendants of Abraham’s son Midian by his concubine Keturah are communally designated as “Midian” and “Midianites.” (Num. 31:2-3) Zipporah’s expression “a bridegroom of blood you are to me” is not of the norm that we have heard thus far in God’s Word. What does it indicate about her? With her action of complying with the requirements of the circumcision covenant, Zipporah confirmed Moses and her covenant relationship with God, as she acted in behalf of her husband. The Mosaic Law covenant that would later be made with the Israelites evidenced that in a covenant relationship, Jehovah can be viewed as a husband, while the other party is seen as the wife. (Jeremiah 31:32) Hence, when she approached God (through the angel serving as his representative) as “a bridegroom of blood,” Zipporah seems to have been accepting her own submission to the conditions that covenant that she and Moses were under. It was as though she had acknowledged a wifely place in the circumcision covenant, with God as the husband. Regardless, because of her crucial actions of obedience to the conditions God expected, the life of her son, Gershom, was no longer being threatened.

Old Testament Bible scholar Douglas K. Stuart writes,

The expression “relative of blood,” or more naturally, “blood relative” (ḥăṭan dāmı̂m) found in both vv. 25 and 26, is key to understanding what Zipporah was thinking and doing: she was not necessarily using language about Moses as her husband (which would be expressed by the word ʾı̂š) or necessarily language she or someone else might have used at the time of their marriage, long prior to this event, when he was still (or still about to become) her bridegroom (which can be but is not the only meaning of ḥăṭan). It may well be that the language she used here is the sort that she would naturally have used about any male relative, since ḥăṭan simply means “relative.” Among the Midianites full circumcision was presumably practiced early in a male child’s life, although it is possible that some men probably were circumcised a few weeks prior to marriage rather than earlier in life. Zipporah said what she understood to be the proper language—which was her best attempt and apparently was a sufficient attempt—to show that the circumcision she performed was official and pious. When she said “you are a blood relative to me” (our translation), she presumably was speaking to Gershom, not to Moses.^[1]

^[1] Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, vol. 2, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006), 154.