7049. 'Then she said, A bridegroom of blood in regard to circumcisions' means that although the internal was full of violence and hostility towards truth and goodness, circumcision was nevertheless accepted as a sign representative of purification from filthy kinds of love. This is clear from the meaning of 'a bridegroom of blood' as full of every kind of violence and hostility towards truth and goodness, dealt with above in 7047; and from the meaning of 'circumcision' as a sign representative of purification from filthy kinds of love, dealt with in 2039, 2632, 3412, 3417, 4462, 4486, 4493. Zipporah says these words because now that nation was allowed to represent the Church, meant by the statement that He ceased from killing him, 7048. The reason why circumcision became a sign representative of purification is that cutting off the foreskin meant the removal of filthy kinds of love, as a result of which the internal is laid bare, 7045. When therefore no attention at all is paid to what is internal, as was the situation with that nation whose attention was focused on outward forms without their inner meaning, one is left with circumcision or cutting off the foreskin as a sign, that is to say, a sign that means the removal of filthy kinds of love, and so means purification. It was for this reason that that practice could serve as a representative sign.

7047. 'And said, Surely a bridegroom of blood are you to me!' means that it was full of every kind of violence and hostility towards truth and goodness. This is clear from the meaning here of 'a bridegroom' as a representative of the Church or the external aspect of it since the representative Church itself is 'the bride' (in these three verses 'Moses' represents that nation, and a representative of the Church among them, see above in 7041. While 'Zipporah' represents the representative Church, 7044; and since 'Zipporah' represents the representative Church and 'Moses' the external aspect of it, Zipporah does not call him her man or husband but 'a bridegroom', for a bride can represent something dissimilar from that which the bridegroom represents, unlike man or husband and wife since the bond of marriage makes them one); and from the meaning of 'blood' as violence done to charity, dealt with in 374, 1005, and also as truth falsified and rendered profane, 4735, 6978, thus hostility towards truth and goodness.