What Am I Missing – Lesson 1 – Why Did God Almost Kill Moses?

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Three Verses on the Road to Egypt

Exodus is the second book of the Bible. It tells how God rescued the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt. God chose a man named Moses to lead that rescue. He spoke to Moses from a burning bush and sent him back to Egypt to confront Pharaoh, the king who held Israel in slavery.

On the road to Egypt, Exodus records three short verses that startle readers when they read slowly.

God had just called Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt. Moses had agreed to go, and he was traveling in obedience to God’s command. Suddenly the LORD confronted him, and his life was in danger. Zipporah is Moses’ wife, and the son is their son.

That is the entire incident. Then Exodus continues with Moses’ brother Aaron meeting him, and the two of them going to Israel together.

The answers begin with the story Moses was walking into. Once we know that story, these verses fit exactly where Exodus places them.

Moses Was Returning to the People of God’s Covenant

Moses grew up in unusual circumstances. The Hebrew people, the descendants of Jacob, multiplied in Egypt. A new Pharaoh viewed them as a threat, enslaved them, and commanded that Hebrew baby boys be killed. Moses’ mother hid him for three months and then placed him in a small ark among the reeds of the Nile. Pharaoh’s daughter found him, and Moses was raised in Pharaoh’s household even though he was a Hebrew.

As an adult, Moses killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew. Pharaoh sought to kill Moses, so Moses fled to Midian. There he married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, and became a shepherd. Zipporah gave birth to a son named Gershom (Exodus 2:22). A second son, Eliezer, is named in Exodus 18:4.

Years passed while Israel suffered in Egypt. Then Moses saw a bush that burned and remained whole, and God spoke from the bush: “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6).

Those names carry weight. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were father, son, and grandson, and God made promises to each of them generations earlier. God called Abraham in Genesis 12 and promised to make a great nation from him. He repeated those promises to Isaac and then to Jacob, whose name became Israel. The Israelites suffering in Egypt were the family of the covenant promises.

Exodus 2:24 records that God “remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.” When the Bible says God remembered, it means God acted in faithfulness to the covenant. Israel’s deliverance rested on promises God had already given.

That makes something in Moses’ household extremely important.

God Had Given Abraham the Sign of Circumcision

Genesis 17 explains Exodus 4. When Abraham was ninety-nine years old, God reaffirmed His covenant. Abraham would become the father of many nations, and the covenant would continue with his descendants. Then God gave Abraham a physical sign of that covenant.

Circumcision is the removal of the foreskin of the male reproductive organ. God commanded that every male child among Abraham’s descendants receive this sign at eight days old. Abraham obeyed and circumcised himself, his son Ishmael, and every male in his household. When Isaac was born, “Abraham circumcised his son Isaac being eight days old, as God had commanded him” (Genesis 21:4).

For Israel, circumcision carried covenant meaning far beyond a medical procedure or family custom. It marked the males of Abraham’s family as belonging to the covenant. God also stated the seriousness of the command:

Notice God’s wording: “he hath broken my covenant.”

An Israelite reading Exodus knew this background. When Exodus 4 records that Zipporah circumcised her son and the danger to Moses ended, the reader recognizes the connection. Someone in Moses’ household had left a son lacking the covenant sign God commanded.

The Bible leaves the reason unstated. Moses may have neglected the command, Zipporah may have objected, or some other circumstance may have been involved. Many suggestions exist, and the text leaves each one open. We hold to what Exodus states: a son was uncircumcised, Zipporah circumcised him, and the threat against Moses ended.

God knew the problem. A command He gave concerning His covenant had been left undone.

Moses Was About to Preach God’s Covenant While Neglecting It at Home

Consider what Moses was traveling to Egypt to do. God said, “Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:10). Moses would tell Israel that the God of their fathers had sent him and was acting on His promises. He would stand before Pharaoh and say, “Thus saith the LORD.” He would demand obedience because God had spoken. Soon he would carry God’s law to Israel.

Moses was about to speak publicly of God’s covenant faithfulness while a command tied to that covenant waited unfulfilled in his own home. God dealt with Moses’ disobedience before Moses announced God’s commands to anyone else.

Scripture ties hearing and obeying together. James 1:22 says, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” Jesus asked in Luke 6:46, “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?”

Moses’ calling raised the standard for obedience in his own home. Being chosen for service brought greater accountability for what God had clearly commanded. He was about to represent the God whose command had been neglected.

Notice What God Says Immediately Before This Happens

Immediately before the incident, God tells Moses what to say to Pharaoh.

Then the very next verse says, “And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.”

Read these statements together. God calls Israel “my son, even my firstborn.” Pharaoh has oppressed God’s son and refuses to release him. Moses will warn Pharaoh that continued refusal will cost Pharaoh his firstborn son. Meanwhile, Moses travels toward Egypt with a son of his own who lacks the sign God commanded for the sons of Abraham’s covenant family.

Sons appear before the incident and during the incident. Covenant obedience and death appear in both. These connections explain why the writer placed this event here.

The conflict in Egypt will show repeatedly that the LORD means what He says. Pharaoh will hear God’s command and refuse it, and judgment will follow. Moses could begin this mission only by treating God’s commands as serious for himself as well as for Pharaoh. God holds one standard for Pharaoh and Moses alike. Pharaoh will answer for refusing what God commanded him. Moses answers for what God commanded him.

Zipporah’s Action Shows What Needed Correction

Exodus leaves unstated how God threatened Moses’ life. Moses may have become suddenly and severely ill, or God may have confronted him in another unmistakable way. The wording is severe because the situation is severe.

Zipporah evidently understood what had to be done. She “took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son.” Then she said, “Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.” Interpreters explain her words in different ways. We can say with confidence that she connects the blood of circumcision with Moses and with what had just happened. Then Exodus says, “So he let him go.”

The danger ended when the covenant command was obeyed.

Difficult expressions attract our attention, and the plain point stands in the middle of the passage. Moses’ life is threatened, the circumcision is performed, and Moses is released. God was dealing seriously with disobedience.

God Was Preparing Moses Before Moses Confronted Pharaoh

God deals with the servant before using the servant to speak to others. Moses would confront Pharaoh’s rebellion, and Moses had already shown resistance at the burning bush. He asked, “Who am I?” and “What shall I say unto them?” and “They will not believe me.” He said, “I am slow of speech.” Finally he said, “O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send” (Exodus 4:13). Moses wanted God to send somebody else, and “the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses” (Exodus 4:14).

God answered Moses patiently, and Moses still needed to learn that God’s Word deserves trust and obedience. Now another matter of obedience appears before Moses even reaches Egypt.

Moses would spend the next forty years teaching Israel to take God’s Word seriously. He later told them, “Ye shall observe to do therefore as the LORD your God hath commanded you: ye shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left” (Deuteronomy 5:32). Moses could say that as a man who had learned personally that God’s commands are serious.

Moses continued to have weaknesses and would sin again. Scripture shows God using sinners. The lesson concerns known disobedience: God calls His servants to deal with it rather than protect it, excuse it, or carry it along while serving in other areas.

We Can Become Comfortable With Sins We Already Know About

Exodus 4 reaches directly into Christian life. Sometimes our greatest need is to obey something God has already made clear.

Three commands God has already given:

Scripture speaks just as directly to stealing, dishonest business, gossip, anger, and greed.

Believers seek wisdom for decisions that Scripture addresses through principle rather than direct command. At other times we ask God to show us His will while setting aside what He has already said. Moses already held God’s revelation concerning his son. God had already spoken.

Begin With What God Has Already Said

Moses was on his way to something enormous. He would walk into Pharaoh’s court, watch God turn water to blood, cover Egypt with frogs, and send darkness across the land. He would see Israel delivered through the death of Egypt’s firstborn, raise his rod at the Red Sea as God opened a path through the water, and receive God’s law on Mount Sinai. Before all of that, obedience was required on the road to Egypt.

We can become fascinated with what God might do through our lives and give too little attention to what He has already told us to do with our lives. Three patterns:

The answer is to serve God while dealing honestly with known disobedience. First John 1:9 gives Christians the proper response to sin:

Confession means agreeing with God about our sin. Exodus 4 shows that God’s Word deserves that kind of response.

What Were We Missing?

A quick reading moves from the burning bush straight to Pharaoh and skips these three verses. The surrounding story gives them meaning.

The strange story prepares us for the story that follows. Pharaoh is about to learn that the LORD’s words demand a response. Moses had to learn the same thing.

That leaves us with a question worth carrying home from this passage. Before asking, “What else does God want me to do?” it may be worth asking:

What has God already told me to do?

Six responses to what God has already said:

Moses was headed toward Egypt to do something remarkable for God. First, on an ordinary stop along the journey, God dealt with something Moses should already have taken seriously.

Sometimes what we are missing when we read the Bible is only three verses long. Once we understand why those verses are there, they can change the way we read everything around them and expose something in the way we are living today.