Jewish explanation of God "trying" to kill Moses

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What is the Jewish explanation of God “trying” to kill Moses, in Exodus 4. It’s a short paragraph which seems to kind of interrupt the overall story.

It describes God trying to kill Moses, but Moses’ wife quickly takes a flint, circumcises their son, and touches Moses’ genitals with the son’s foreskin.

The questions I have are:
  1. Why wouldn’t God have already known that Moses’ son wasn’t circumcised?
  2. Why wouldn’t Moses have circumcised his son as the law required?
  3. Why wouldn’t God have simply spoken to Moses, telling him to circumcise his son, instead of suddenly trying to kill him?
Do the Jews have a good explanation for this event?
 
Here is a Jewish commentary on the passage from Rashi:
(chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/63255/jewish/The-Bible-with-Rashi.htm)

Now he was I.e., Moses.
on the way, in an inn and sought to put him to death
  • Moses, because he had neglected to circumcise his son Eliezer. Because he neglected it, he was [to be] punished with death. It was taught in a Braitha: Rabbi Jose said: God forbid! Moses did not neglect it, but he reasoned: Shall I circumcise [him] and go forth on the road? It will be dangerous for the child for three days. Shall I circumcise [him] and wait three days? The Holy One, blessed be He, commanded me, “Go, return to Egypt.” [Moses hurried to Egypt intending to circumcise Eliezer upon his return.] Why [then] was he to be punished with death? Because first he busied himself with [the details of] his lodging. [This appears] in tractate Nedarim (31b). The angel turned into a sort of serpent and swallowed him [Moses] from his head to his thighs, and then [spit him out and] swallowed him from his feet to his private parts. Zipporah therefore understood that it was because of [the failure to perform] the circumcision [that this occurred]. — [from Ned. 32a, Exodus Rabbah 5:5]*
 
Thanks Truarchs. Interesting explanation.

Do you subscribe to or own the Judaica Press Tanach? I tried going to the chabad.org website, and could not find the article you quoted, so I’m assuming it’s not available for free. It looks like it would be a great commentary for Old Testament study, so I’d like to know how to get to the articles.
 
Does anyone else have a problem with the Old Testament God?

Anger, vengeance, game playing, pettyness, etc
 
No one knows what the episode you are asking about means. That’s the short answer. The best explanation I’ve seen is that given by William Propp. He says the reason that God seeks to kill Moses is because Moses still bears the bloodguilt for having killed an Egyptian. THe blood of the circumcision serves to remove the guilt, making it possible for Moses to live and return to Egypt. The Hebrew word for blood in that episode is damim, which is plural. WHen the plural form is used, it is generally to denote bloodguilt. The word for bridegroom in the story also means circumcision in Hebrew.

So Propp suggests that the original bridegroom/circumcision connection had been lost by the time the story was written, and the purpose of the story was to explain this connection. To explain the expression “bridegroom of blood”.

However, we are still left with the question as of why whould God choose Moses, appear to him, tell him to go to Egypt and then seek to kill him?

So another way to view this is to look at the pronouns. Perhaps the “he” that everyone assumes is God in this story, is really Moses, asking God to kill him. “he asked to kill him”. Since Moses has made it clear that he doesn’t want to go to Egypt, maybe he’s asking God to kill him rather than send him to Egypt. This would fit in with the general model of prophets who ask God to take their lives. Eligah (1 Kings 19:4) and Jonah (4:4). Or the prophets who say they prefer death to being prophets – Jeremiah (20:14-18).

If Moses is seeking his own death, than his wife’s reaction makes sense as a reminder to Moses that he has a wife and child to live for.

I’ve paraphrased and copied commentary by Richard Elliott friedman in the above post.
 
Thanks Valke2.

It’s always interesting to hear the explanations regarding the nuances of the original languages (Hebrew, Greek, Latin) so that the text can be better illuminated.

I hope to learn Hebrew some day in order to better understand the Tanach. (It’s on my ever-growing list of things I’d like to do before I die!) My only fear is that I would spend a year or two studying it, only to gain enough knowledge to read and understand the surface meaning, while missing the deeper meanings/word connections such as you explained in your post.

Thanks again.
 
I made an error in my OP. The Hebrew word for bridegroom in the verse, means circumcision in Arabic, not Hebrew.
 
CathCentrist said:
Does anyone else have a problem with the Old Testament God?

Anger, vengeance, game playing, pettyness, etc
Click to expand...
Well, since the “Old Testament God” is the same one as we love and serve today, I hesitate to say that I “have a problem” with Him. But I would agree that it’s often disconcerting when reading the Old Testament, and hear Him authorize doing things such as owning slaves, beating them, piercing their ears with an awl to show lifetime ownership, selling daughters as concubines, etc.

It is also hard to comprehend such things as the deception by Jacob and his mother in order to become blessed by Isaac, in place of Esau. There are several instances like this, in which God blesses someone who deceived another person.

I keep remembering that His ways are far above our ways, and His thoughts are far above our thoughts.

I’m strongly considering (if time permits) using Hebrew commentaries such as the one linked above by Truarchs, in order to supplement the Christian Biblical notes and commentaries I have been using. The explanations provided by Truarchs and Valke2 have really helped, so I’m sure it would be well worth the effort.
 
Here’s another commentary I read by James Kugel in his book “How to Read the Bible”.

It seems inexplicable that God tries to kill Moses and Zipporah’s response of circumcising her son and touching Moses’ feet with the bloody foreskin.

Ancient interpreters assumed that since God stops trying to kill Moses after the circumcision, Moses’ sin must have been in delaying the circumcision of his son.

“Great indeed is the commandment of circumcision, for not the slightest delay was granted even to the righteous Moses in regard to it.” - Mishna, Nedarim 3:11

This was a relevant lesson, since Jews had been pressured, at various times, to abandon circumcision.

But why would Moses delay? Interperters reasoned that since Moses was in Midian and his father in law was a pagan priest, he was unable to circumcise his child until after he left Midian. ANd since Moses did not immediately circumcise his son (or sons) after leaving Midian, God tried to kill him.

Here’s what modern scholars think:

The key to this episode lies in the Hebrew word “az”. Literally, as mean “then”, but it is often used to convey “that was when”. When used as “that was when” it implies that the reader has already heard something about the matter being discussed. So here, the narrative says “That was when [the expression] ‘bridegroom of blood’ was first used in connection with circumcision.”

So the whole story is to explain the relationship between circumcision and the term ‘bridegroom of blood.’ But why was this important?

Answer: Because the Torah insists that circumcision be performed on infants. This was specifically an Israelite practice. Many other cultures circumcise as a rite of puberty or prior to marriage. Apparently “bloody bridegroom” was a term in use at the time the story of Moses was written. So the Torah is trying to show that bridegroom of blood does not mean circumcision in adulthood, but is rather tied to the Israelite concept of circumcision. So the expression does not mean (and never did) that future bridegrooms should be circumcised at puberty or a few months before the wedding.

So, to summarize: The entire purpose of the story, according to this theory, is to explain that the phrase “bridegroom of blood” was coined to refer to Moses, Zipporah’s bridegroom, when she touched him with the bloody foreskin of their newborn son and so saved his life.
 
Thanks again, Valke2, for the time you spent researching this for me. It is most appreciated.
 
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