At a lodging place along the way, the LORD met him and sought to kill him.
Exodus 4:24, RSV
One of the most confusing passages to me in all the Bible used to be the one you just read above. God had just selected Moses to lead His people out of Egypt, but then on the way back, the LORD was about to kill him. As if that was not confusing enough, the very next thing we read is of Moses' wife performing a circumcision upon their son Gershom, and that somehow caused the LORD to relent from His decision to kill Moses.
Why did God do that? What is going on?
This is where your having read and studied the Word of God will help to make a seemingly random and confusing act become clear. So how can we make any sense of this passage? By using the facts that God has already given us in His Word to this point. Since God does not tell us exactly why He sought to kill Moses, let's look at the facts that He has given us.
First, in Genesis 17:9-14, God gives Abraham the covenant of circumcision. Abraham's male descendants were required to be circumcised on the eighth day. Any who were not were to be cut off from God's people because they (obviously their parents) had broken the covenant. The second fact that will help us to understand this event is that God was sending Moses to rescue His people the Israelites - descendants of Abraham - from their bondage in Egypt. In Exodus 4:22-23, God had commanded Moses to say this to Pharaoh: "Thus says the LORD, Israel is My first-born son, and I say to you, Let My son go that he may serve Me: if you refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay your firstborn son."
The third fact we have is that God met Moses on the way back to Egypt to kill him, but God relented from killing Moses as soon as his wife Zipporah circumcised his son. So what does that have to do with clearing up the mystery? Well, here is what I believe we can discern from the facts that God has left us: Since all Israelites had to be circumcised or be cut off from their people, Moses had violated the covenant. We are not told his reasoning for doing so, we just know that his son had not been circumcised.
Since Moses was on his way with the incredible task of revealing God's will to Pharaoh and to Israel, and since part of the message he was to take to Pharaoh was that the first-born children of Egypt would die if Pharaoh did not obey God and free the Israelites - God's people of the covenant - and Moses had not even kept that covenant by circumcising his son Gershom, Moses was about to be punished. But, as soon as Moses and Zipporah obeyed God by keeping the covenant of circumcision, God relented on His punishment and, as they say, the rest is history.
So what does all of this have to do with us today? For one thing, God has made a covenant with all people who would follow His Son. While we are no longer commanded to be circumcised in the flesh to be people of the covenant, God's covenant still has numerous facets contained within it that we all must obey, lest we risk being cut off from His people forever. And if God was willing to put to death even Moses for violating His covenant, do you think that we will fare any better at the Judgment, should we find ourselves to have fallen short of God's covenant with all Christians?
This is why we study!
Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. James 1:22, NIV
Today is the 13th day of the 30 day challenge to study through the Books of Moses, with Exodus 1-4 being the text for today. May God richly bless you as you seek to find all the answers in His holy Word!