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NASB | Exodus 4:24 ¶ Now it came about at the lodging place on the way that the LORD met him and sought to put him to death. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Exodus 4:24 ¶ Now it happened at the lodging place, that the LORD met Moses and sought to kill him [making him deathly ill because he had not circumcised one of his sons]. [Gen 17:9-14] |
Bible Question: This verse comes right after the passage where God speaks to Moses from the burning bush. God has gone to great lengths it seems to convince Moses that he is the one to return to Egypt to confrot Pharoah. I'm confused about this verse, which seems to say that as Moses is finally on his way to do what God had told h8m to do, that the Lord now seeks to kill Moses. If Moses is the one God has chosen, why would He be seeking to kill him? Am I reading this verse correctly? |
Bible Answer: From the text it appears that Moses was delinquent or even negligent to circumcise his son. It seems his wife Zipporah had to do it for him. This would account for why she was mad at him for she says "Surely you are a husband of blood to me!" and again after God let him go, she said, "'You are a husband of blood!'--because of the circumcision." v26 No mother would take kindly to having to do this to her own son. This would be a man's job. I think she's saying, I can't believe you made me do this because of your own negligence. In v26 it says "So He let him go." It appears God was going to take his life because he was not going to fulfill his part of the bargain. It may be that, since he did not do the circumcision, he was also intending not to go to Egypt either. (speculation) One can put 2 and 2 together and surmise that since God knew Moses would be the prophet, He did this to shock Moses back to the reality that he MUST go. Surely God knew that he would, yet it appears that he was preparing not to go. It is a hard thing that Moses was commanded to do, and he might have been thinking that meeting with God was just a dream, or that he was losing his mind and imagining these things. Imagine if you met God and He told you to go to Iran and depose the government. You would probably be looking for reasons to prove it wasn't real. |