Exodus 4:26

4:24-31 God met Moses in anger. The Lord threatened him with death or sent sickness upon him, as the punishment of his having neglected to circumcise his son. When God discovers to us what is amiss in our lives, we must give all diligence to amend it speedily. This is the voice of every rod; it calls us to return to Him that smites us. God sent Aaron to meet Moses. The more they saw of God's bringing them together, the more pleasant their interview was. The elders of Israel met them in faith, and were ready to obey them. It often happens, that less difficulty is found than was expected, in such undertakings as are according to the will of God, and for his glory. Let us but arise and try at our proper work, the Lord will be with us and prosper us. If Israel welcomed the tidings of their deliverance, and worshipped the Lord, how should we welcome the glad tidings of redemption, embrace it in faith, and adore the Redeemer!

So he let him go,.... That is, the Lord let Moses go; suffered him to go on his journey without any further interruption; as the Targums, "it", the angel, ceased from him, or left him; or the disease and trembling departed from him, as Aben Ezra, and he was quite well and easy; though Grotius, after Lyra, understands it of Zipporah, she departed from him, that is, from Moses, and returned to Midian again, as it seems she did; but this the grammatical construction of the words will not bear, being masculine, though sometimes the masculine is used of women, as in Exodus 1:21 , then she said, a bloody husband thou art because of the circumcision; this is repeated, partly to give the reason of her calling him a bloody husband, because of the circumcision, and partly because of her great joy on occasion of her husband's restoration to her by this means.

(26) So he let him go. —God let Moses go, i.e., allowed him to recover—accepted Zipporah’s act as sufficient, albeit tardy, reparation, and spared the life of her husband. Then she said.—When Moses was sufficiently recovered, Zipporah explained to him why she had called him “a bloody husband;” it was “on account of the circumcisions,” i.e., the two circumcisions—of Gershom in Midian, many years previously, and now of Eliezer. We learn from Exodus 18:2-3, that Zipporah and her boys were sent back to Jethro by Moses, probably at this time. Moses was in haste, and the child could not have travelled conveniently for some days.

So he let him go; or, he , i.e. God, or the destroying angel sent from God, departed from him , i.e. from Moses, and removed the tokens of God’s indignation, the sickness or stroke laid upon him. Zipporah both repeats and amplifies her former censure, and reproacheth not only her husband, but also God’s ordinance; which perverse and obstinate spirit her husband observing in her, and wisely forecasting how much disturbance she might give him in his great and difficult work in Egypt, he thought fit to send her and her children back to her father, as appears from Exodus 18:1-3 . In the Hebrew it is, because of the circumcisions, to wit, of her two sons, who possibly were both circumcised at this time, though it be not so expressed; but one being mentioned for an example, we are left to suppose the like concerning the other; or the circumcision of this child brings the other to her remembrance, and so she upbraids him with both. Only this doth more provoke her than it seems the other did, because she was forced to do this speedily, and with her own hands, and that to a tender infant; whereas the elder peradventure was circumcised when he was more grown and strong, and able to bear the pain. Let none think it strange that Zipporah should quarrel so much at circumcision, because the Midianites were descended from Abraham, and therefore were circumcised.

For if they were so, it was done when they were grown up, about the thirteenth year of their age, from the example of Ishmael, who was circumcised at that age. But indeed it is more likely that those people, being cast out of God’s covenant, as to the benefit of it, would, and did in a little time, throw off the sign of it, as having much more of pain and danger in it, than of use and privilege.

Verse 26. - So he let him go . i.e . "God let Moses go" - allowed him to escape death, accepted Zipporah's tardy act as a removal of the cause of offence, and gave her husband back to her. Then she said, etc. This is not a second address of Zipporah to Moses, conceived in the same terms, but an explanation of her previous address. She called him "a bloody husband because of the circumcision." Literally, "of the circumcisions." The two circumcisions, of Gershom in Midian, and of Eliezer on the way to Egypt, are especially in the writer's mind. CHAPTER 4:27, 28 Exodus 4:26

26 . let him alone ] Heb. relaxed from him : cf. Jdg 11:37 , Deuteronomy 9:14 . Then she said (viz. when she spoke the words given in v. 25b), ‘ A blood-bridegroom,’ with regard to circumcisions ] The last word is plural in the Heb. ‘Blood-bridegroom’ was apparently a current expression: and the passage seems to attribute to Zipporah the new sense of it explained in the last note but one. It seems that in this narrative an archaic stage in the history of circumcision is referred to, which is not elsewhere mentioned in the OT. Circumcision is a rite which has been, and still is, largely practised in the world: among the Hebrews (besides its religious associations) its distinctive feature was that it was performed in infancy . Among the Arabs it is performed upon boys of ages varying, in different places, from 3 to 15; but in many parts of the world it is performed upon youths at the approach of puberty. A practice so widely diffused must rest upon some common principle: and the idea which appears generally to underlie circumcision is that it is a rite of initiation into manhood ; a youth, till he has been circumcised, is not reckoned a full member of the tribe, or (as in Australia, for instance) allowed to marry.

Now the fact that the Heb. word for ‘father-in-law’ ( ḥôthçn ) is derived from a root which in Arabic signifies to circumcise , seems to shew that it meant originally circumciser , and to indicate that in primitive times circumcision was among the Hebrews, as among the other nations just referred to, a general preliminary to marriage, which it was the duty of the future father-in-law to see enforced. These facts throw light upon the present narrative. The reason why Moses had incurred Jehovah’s wrath was because he was not a ‘blood-bridegroom,’ i.e. because he had not, according to established custom, submitted to circumcision before marriage: Zipporah, seizing a flint, circumcises her son instead of her husband, and so makes the latter symbolically a ‘blood-bridegroom,’ and delivers him from the wrath of Jehovah. At the same time, the circumcision of male infants is explained as a more humane substitute for the original circumcision of young men before marriage (Wellh. Hist. p. 340; EB. ii. 830, 832; DB. v. 622a). On circumcision, see now very fully Hastings’ Encycl. of Rel. and Ethics , s.v.

26. So he let him go—Moses recovered; but the remembrance of this critical period in his life would stimulate the Hebrew legislator to enforce a faithful attention to the rite of circumcision when it was established as a divine ordinance in Israel, and made their peculiar distinction as a people.

But if Moses was to carry out the divine commission with success, he must first of all prove himself to be a faithful servant of Jehovah in his own house. This he was to learn from the occurrence at the inn: an occurrence which has many obscurities on account of the brevity of the narrative, and has received many different interpretations. When Moses was on the way, Jehovah met him at the resting-place (מלון, see Genesis 42:27 ), and sought to kill him. In what manner, is not stated: whether by a sudden seizure with some fatal disease, or, what is more probable, by some act proceeding directly from Himself, which threatened Moses with death.