Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [49]
One day, Moses is drawn to a strange sight on the “mountain of God,” identified as Horeb and later Sinai. “An angel of the Lord” appears to him in a flaming bush. The bush burns but is not consumed. Then God calls to Moses out of the bush. The “God of your father” tells him that he must go back to Egypt and lead his people out of slavery.
Moses puts up a series of protests, finally complaining that he stutters and would not make a good spokesman, so God tells Moses that his brother, Aaron, can do the talking.
BIBLICAL VOICES
And God said to Moses, “I AM THAT I AM.” (Ex. 3:14)
Why did God try to kill Moses?
One of the most fascinating and overlooked vignettes in the life of Moses is a brief section telling of his return to Egypt with his family. Apparently C. B. DeMille didn’t want to go near this story because it has baffled scholars for centuries. The story is a paltry three lines in Exodus. As Moses and his family set out for Egypt, they camp for the night. The account reads, “On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the Lord met him and tried to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched his feet with it, and said, ‘Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!’ So he let him alone. It was then she said, ‘A bridegroom of blood by circumcision.’”
Whom does God try to kill and why? Moses or one of his two sons?
Whose feet (a frequent biblical euphemism for male genitals) get smeared with a bloody foreskin and why?
And what is a “bridegroom of blood”?
While centuries of scholars have plumbed this mystery, producing bizarre theories about the apparent assault on Moses, one explanation is that this was an ancient story reflecting the belief that circumcision could ward off demonic attack. Circumcision was originally a premarital or puberty rite before it was performed on infants. Since Moses was presumably not circumcised, the smearing of the blood on him may have protected him as well. The other point of the story is that without Zipporah and her handy flint knife, there might be no Moses. But most of us have never even heard of Zipporah, another of the overlooked biblical heroines.
Having survived this strange nocturnal attack, Moses returns to Egypt and asks Pharaoh—his stuttering is no longer a problem it seems—to release the Hebrews. His initial request is for a three-day leave to go into the wilderness for a religious celebration. Pharaoh isn’t interested, and orders the Hebrew workload increased. As a show of power, Moses has Aaron cast down his staff, which turns into a snake. Interesting that the villain of Genesis is put to such good use by Moses. Pharaoh isn’t impressed with this trick—his sorcerers can do the same trick. But Aaron’s snake swallows those of the Egyptian court magicians, and Moses warns Pharaoh that worse is to come. A succession of divine calamities, known as the Ten Plagues, is then brought down on Egypt.
THE TEN PLAGUES
(Psalm 105 reviews the Exodus and does not mention all ten plagues; some scholars see in this further evidence of a combination of the two “J” and “P” accounts as one in Exodus.)
The water of the Nile and all its tributaries turns to blood. (The Nile occasionally reddens owing to volcanic deposits and algae.)
Frogs crawl out of the river and cover Egypt. (A result of the transformation of the river’s waters.)
Gnats (also translated as “mosquitoes” or “lice”) infest the people and animals of Egypt.
Flies (or swarms of insects) infest the land, but not Goshen, where the Hebrews live. (All of these severe insect infestations are typical natural occurrences in Egypt, especially after the annual river floods leave pools of water in which insects breed.)
Livestock pestilence on the Egyptians’ horses, donkeys, camels, cattle herds, and flocks. (An outbreak