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Exodo 4:24-26 : Moses the Bloody Bridegroom

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24 At nangyari sa daan, sa dakong panuluyanan, na sinalubong ng Panginoon siya, at pinagsikapang patayin siya.

25 Nang magkagayo'y sumunggab si Sephora ng isang batong matalim, at pinutol ang balat ng masama ng kaniyang anak, at inihagis sa kaniyang paanan; at kaniyang sinabi, Tunay na ikaw sa akin ay isang asawang mabagsik.

26 Sa gayo'y kaniyang binitiwan siya. Nang magkagayo'y kaniyang sinabi, Isang asawa kang mabagsik, dahil sa pagtutuli.

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Moses the Bloody Bridegroom

വഴി Brian David

Moses's Journey into Egypt and the Circumcision of His Son Eliez

This strange little story has baffled scholars for centuries. Having just told Moses to go to Egypt, Jehovah meets him on the way with the intent of killing him. Why? The standard explanation is that Moses had not circumcised his son, as Jehovah had ordered for all descendants of Abraham. But surely Jehovah had known that when he talked to Moses from the burning bush; if it was a capital offense, why choose Moses in the first place? And why not remind him then? The Hebrews had, after all, been slaves for 400 years, and had so forgotten their religious roots that they did not even know Jehovah’s name. Can Moses really be held to blame? Besides that, how did Zipporah know what to do? She wasn’t even a Hebrew!

Those and other questions have caused many to write the passage off as fragmentary, a leftover piece of some more complete story. Understood spiritually, however, it’s clear that it illustrates an important moment in the formation of the Israelitish Church.

The Lord’s second great church, the Ancient Church, had fallen prey to human pride. At its height, it had possessed a vast knowledge of the correspondences between the natural world and the spiritual world, and had understood how things in the natural world served as forms and containers for spiritual things. As it fell, though, that knowledge turned into idolatry and magic, and even human sacrifice. The Lord needed to form a church that would preserve the proper natural forms so that when He later came to earth as the human Jesus, He could start filling in those forms with their true spiritual meaning again.

The Lord’s intent was to form that church among the descendents of Jacob. That group, however, was as hard-hearted and external in its thinking as any of the people around it – which is represented by Moses staying in a lodging-place. It was so hard-hearted, in fact, that it reacted with hostility to the leading of the Lord, represented by Jehovah’s intent to kill Moses.

Zipporah, however – who represents a remnant of the Ancient Church which still worshipped the Lord – used teachings from the Lord (the flint) to remove the most external loves of self and the world (the foreskin) and expose the people’s internal loves to the Lord. Those loves were as hellish as the external ones – represented when Zipporah called Moses her “bridegroom of blood” – but having them exposed allowed the Lord to control their external worship so that they could represent spiritual things.

That is pretty deep stuff and somewhat abstract, but as with all things in the Bible it also represents a stage we all go through in life. In many ways the “Children of Israel” represent all of us as children. Once past the innocence of infancy and the wide-eyed absorptive stage of toddler-hood, children – much as we love them – are relatively external in their interests and self-absorbed in their desires. At that age we force rules and structure on them, generally against their will, with the idea that they will eventually grow to see and embrace the deeper purposes behind the rules – which is very much what the Lord did with the Children of Israel.

This story, then, to some extent represents the foundation we lay with our children, the basic idea that we are in charge and they must obey, that they cannot control us and enforce their will. Their belief that they are and should be in control of their own lives has to be cut away for further rules to have any effect.

(റഫറൻസുകൾ: Arcana Coelestia 7040)

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Exodus 4

പഠനം

   

1 Moses answered, "But, behold, they will not believe me, nor listen to my voice; for they will say, 'Yahweh has not appeared to you.'"

2 Yahweh said to him, "What is that in your hand?" He said, "A rod."

3 He said, "Throw it on the ground." He threw it on the ground, and it became a snake; and Moses ran away from it.

4 Yahweh said to Moses, "Put forth your hand, and take it by the tail." He Put forth his hand, and laid hold of it, and it became a rod in his hand.

5 "That they may believe that Yahweh, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you."

6 Yahweh said furthermore to him, "Now put your hand inside your cloak." He put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, as white as snow.

7 He said, "Put your hand inside your cloak again." He Put his hand inside his cloak again, and when he took it out of his cloak, behold, it had turned again as his other flesh.

8 "It will happen, if they will neither believe you nor listen to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign.

9 It will happen, if they will not believe even these two signs, neither listen to your voice, that you shall take of the water of the river, and pour it on the dry land. The water which you take out of the river will become blood on the dry land."

10 Moses said to Yahweh, "O Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before now, nor since you have spoken to your servant; for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue."

11 Yahweh said to him, "Who made man's mouth? Or who makes one mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Isn't it I, Yahweh?

12 Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth, and teach you what you shall speak."

13 He said, "Oh, Lord, please send someone else."

14 The anger of Yahweh was kindled against Moses, and he said, "What about Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Also, behold, he comes forth to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.

15 You shall speak to him, and put the words in his mouth. I will be with your mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do.

16 He will be your spokesman to the people; and it will happen, that he will be to you a mouth, and you will be to him as God.

17 You shall take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs."

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

19 Yahweh said to Moses in Midian, "Go, return into Egypt; for all the men who sought your life are dead."

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

21 Yahweh said to Moses, "When you go back into Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your hand, but I will harden his heart and he will not let the people go.

22 You shall tell Pharaoh, 'Thus says Yahweh, Israel is my son, my firstborn,

23 and I have said to you, "Let my son go, that he may serve me;" and you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your firstborn.'"

24 It happened on the way at a lodging place, that Yahweh met Moses and wanted to kill him.

25 Then Zipporah took a flint, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet; and she said, "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me."

26 So he let him alone. Then she said, "You are a bridegroom of blood," because of the circumcision.

27 Yahweh said to Aaron, "Go into the wilderness to meet Moses." He went, and met him on God's mountain, and kissed him.

28 Moses told Aaron all the words of Yahweh with which he had sent him, and all the signs with which he had instructed him.

29 Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel.

30 Aaron spoke all the words which Yahweh had spoken to Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people.

31 The people believed, and when they heard that Yahweh had visited the children of Israel, and that he had seen their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.