Articles
A Bloody Husband You Are
A bloody husband art thou to me
Exodus 4:18-31 records the return of Moses to Egypt in order to confront Pharaoh and lead Israel out of their bondage. Little recognized is the fact that this also proves that Moses and his wife were really British. You can tell by their use of language. How else could she refer to him as a bloody husband? This might make a Discovery Channel special!
OK. That really doesn't explain this strange passage. To begin to understand this we need to back up to the time of Abraham. In Genesis 17 God made a covenant with Abraham. God tells Abraham: "This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised" (Genesis 17:10) God goes on to declare that all males that are born are to circumcised on the 8th day. Abraham is then warned that "any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant" (vs. 14).
Abraham begats Isaac. Isaac begats Jacob. Jacob begats 12 sons including Levi. From Levi we get to the birth of Moses (Ex. 6:25-27). Moses was nurtured the first three months of his life under the hand of his parents (Ex. 2:1-2). This would have included the 8th day. While it isn't stated I take it that he was circumcised but I could be mistaken. Some 80 years later Moses is returning to Egypt with his wife and sons (Ex. 4:20). As they lodged on the way it says that the LORD met him and sought to put him to death. Without recording WHY this occurred, we do read that Zipporah, his wife, took a flint and circumcised her sons and exclaimed to Moses: "Surley a bloody husband art thou to me".
My take on this is simply that Moses and Zipporah had spoken about this at some point and that is why she knew about it. We can only speculate on why they had NOT done it but we do know that it had not been done. Regardless of WHY it had not been done, it was a breach of the covenant with Abraham. This man who was to be the leader of God's people had not kept the provisions of the covenant. The LORD took this as a serious enough act to seek the death of Moses. I find it instructive that God did not instantly strike him dead. We don't know how old the son is, but this situation has continued since the child was 8 days old. God even gives Moses and Zipporah enough time for her to react and circumcise the child.
As great as Moses was he was not exempt from the demands of the covenant. Leaders of God's people need to first be walking with God.
