Exodus 4:24-31: a reflection

24On the way at a lodging place, the LORD met Moses and wanted to kill him. 25Then 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.” 26So he let him alone. Then she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision. 27The LORD said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” He went, and met him on God’s mountain, and kissed him. 28Moses told Aaron all the LORD’s words with which he had sent him, and all the signs with which he had instructed him. 29Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel. 30Aaron spoke all the words which the LORD had spoken to Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people. 31The people believed, and when they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel, and that he had seen their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.

This is one of the strangest and most unsettling passages in Exodus, and honesty requires admitting we do not fully understand it. On the way to Egypt, at a lodging place, the LORD confronts Moses in a way that threatens his life, and Zipporah, Moses' wife, quickly circumcises their son, and the danger passes. It is obscure, and it should not be forced into a tidy lesson.

But most readers see at its center a matter of the covenant. Moses is on his way to lead God's covenant people, and yet, it seems, he had neglected the covenant sign in his own household; his son was uncircumcised. Before he can go forward to call a nation to God, this neglect at home is dealt with, urgently. There is a sobering point in that, however strange the scene: you cannot lead others toward obedience to God while quietly neglecting it in your own house.

That is worth sitting with, especially for anyone who serves, leads, or teaches others. It is possible to be zealous for God's work out in the world while letting obedience slip at home, in the private, familial places no one sees. This hard passage suggests God takes that seriously. Before you carry God's word to others, attend to obedience in your own household, your own hidden life. Do not neglect at home what you would urge on everyone else.

Lord, this passage is strange and hard, and I do not fully understand it. But keep me from the danger it warns of: being zealous for your work in the world while neglecting obedience in my own home and hidden life. Help me attend first to faithfulness in the private places, before I would urge it on others.