Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

BRIDEGROOM OF BLOOD

An epithet in Exod. 4:24-26, arguably the most enigmatic passage in the Pentateuch. It has been seen variously as the etiology of infant circumcision in Israel; a symbolic, ritually correct, (re)circumcision of Moses; or even the expiation of Moses’ bloodguilt after killing the Egyptian.

Moses returns to Egypt according to God’s instructions and brings with him his wife Zipporah and his sons. Somewhere along the way, while they are encamped for the night, the Lord seeks to kill “him” (Moses or either of his sons; the pronoun is ambiguous). At this point Zipporah uses a flint to circumcise her “son,” touches the foreskin to “his legs/feet” (the common euphemism for genitals), and then pronounces the mysterious phrase, “you are a bridegroom of blood unto me,” whereupon God recants.

Some translations add Moses’ name as the one touched with the foreskin; most commentaries also view him as the object of God’s attack, and many see him as the recipient of Zipporah’s words. Others see Zipporah touching and speaking directly to her son. All that is evident is that Zipporah’s decisive actions avert God’s attack.

The unanswerable questions surrounding this passage are manifold, and go beyond the identification of the pronominal antecedents and Zipporah’s obscure formulaic pronouncement. What is God’s almost demonic motivation, and why would he seek the life of either Moses or his son? Why did circumcision stay the hand of God? How did Zipporah know what to do? Why would Zipporah touch anyone with the foreskin? What does “bridegroom of blood” mean, and why is it repeated twice? Proposed answers range from the psychological (there was no actual attack; rather, Moses suffered from a serious depression, or it was all a dream), to the comparative (Zipporah performed a Midianite rite on her son to avert an attack from a pagan deity). In any event, after this episode, Moses is able to continue safely on his mission to free the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt.

Sharon R. Keller

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

BRIDEGROOM OF BLOOD

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)