WHEN MOSES' WIFE PULLED A KNIFE AND CUSSED HIM OUT

Blogging Exodus 4:18-26

¹⁸ So Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law, and said to him, “Please let me go and return to my brethren who are in Egypt, and see whether they are still alive.”

And Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”

¹⁹ Now the Lord said to Moses in Midian, “Go, return to Egypt; for all the men who sought your life are dead.”

²⁰ Then Moses took his wife and his sons and set them on a donkey, and he returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the rod of God in his hand.

. . . ²⁴ And it came to pass on the way, at the encampment, that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. ²⁵ Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses’ feet, and said, “Surely you are a husband of blood to me!” ²⁶ So He let him go. Then she said, “You are a husband of blood!”—because of the circumcision.

On the way from Midian to Egypt, Moses' wife performed an emergency circumcision of their son. 

Son.  Singular.  

Moses and Zipporah had two sons and both of them were with them on the road to Egypt, which means that one of the boys was circumcised and one wasn’t.  And that may explain why God was so upset with Moses that   it came to pass on the way, at the encampment, that the Lord met him and sought to kill him (Exodus 4:24). 

Circumcising one child showed that Moses knew the Abrahamic rule of circumcision, knew that God wanted the men committed to faith in Him to bear that physical symbol, knew and applied that knowledge.

But only halfway. 

Moses compromised with the anti-circumcising culture of greater Midian.  He acquiesced to the oldest of heresies: “It doesn’t take all that.” 

God thought otherwise. 

I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth (Revelations 3: 15-16).

  The Lord had tapped Moses to confront 4 centuries of tradition, social norms, and economic policy, and break them.  Moses was assigned a task that required total  commitment and the idea of Moses negotiating some kid of half-way freedom from Pharaoh was so sickening to God that it came to pass on the way, at the encampment, that the Lord met him and sought to kill him.

Fortunately for Moses, he'd married a strong and spiritually discerning woman.  

Zipporah saw Moses sick without cause, or facing a vision of a vengeful angel, or whatever form the Divine threat to his life manifested, and she intuited both the cause and solution for her husband’s terminal condition.  Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses’ feet, and her husband recovered.

Unfortunately for Moses, he had married a strong and spiritually discerning woman. 

Here was her baby (no matter his age) on the side of the road, wounded, in the kind of pain no male ever wants to be in, by her own necessary hand, and it WAS ALL MOSES' FAULT!  Likely still holding the bloody blade, Zipporah  angrily presented the priest of her household with the proof of circumcision.  She cast it at Moses’ feet, and said,“Surely you are a husband of blood to me!”  In British slang, she said, “Bloody husband!”  In Mississippi Black slang, she cussed him out.

 And after the Lord released Moses from the attentions of the death angel, she cussed him out again.

So He [the Lord] let him go. Then she said, “You are a husband of blood!”—because of the circumcision.

MOSES had been trained by her father the priest of Midian. MOSES had been educated in the best schools of Egypt.  MOSES had seen the burning bush and heard the voice of God. MOSES was the spiritual one.  But SHE had to recognize the move of God AND do the thing with the razor sharp knife on her baby’s wee-wee. 

So yeah.  Zipporah was cussin’ mad.

To be clear, Christians SHOULD NOT CUSS. 

But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth (Colossians 3:8).

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear (Ephesians 4:29).

Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving (Ephesians 5:4).

But, Exodus 4 reminds us that you can be saved, sanctified, filled with the Holy Ghost, and on a mission for God; but every now and then somebody still makes you (want to) cuss.

So, the morals of the story are:

1.  You must be FULLY committed to your God-given purpose because God is deathly serious about your calling.

And 2. Do what you’re supposed to do cause if somebody else has to do your job, you might get cussed out.

 --Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama. He writes a blog called A Word to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com

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