Mr Vinson,

Hope this finds you well. I haven’t wrote in a long time, all things are very good here. Been really busy here for a long time, but never too busy to study the word. I have a quick question, if you have some time.

When I get into exodus, there are a couple paragraphs that I try to figure out what are we talking about, and how does this apply to my spiritual life.

Exo 4:24 and it came to pass by the way to the inn, that the Lord met him, and sought to kill him.
Exo 4:25 then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband thou to me.
Exo 4:26 so he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband, because of the circumcision.

First, why would the Lord want to kill Moses, after commissioning him to bring the children of Israel, out of Egypt?

Second, why do Moses’s gentile sons need to be circumcised?

Third, what is the spiritual application of Zipporah doing the physical act of circumcision and not moses?

Any help with this is always a blessing.

Bless you and your family,

D____

Hi D____,
It is so good to hear from you and see that you are still meditating upon “the things of the spirit”. I hope this letter finds you and your family all in good health, both physically and spiritually.
Thank you for your questions about the spiritual significance of Moses wife Zipporah circumcising her own son.
To answer your question I must point out a couple of unwarranted assumptions.
First, it is not Moses who the Lord is threatening to kill, but the uncircumcised son of Moses. God is sending Moses to deliver His circumcised people, and here is Moses with an uncircumcised son. God could not permit that to be so.
Next, you call Moses’s son a Gentile, but He is really a Levite, because his father is a Levite. Gentiles have always been permitted to marry into the nation of Israel, as long as they accepted the sign of circumcision.

Gen 34:14 And they said unto them, We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one that is uncircumcised; for that [ were] a reproach unto us:
Gen 34:15 But in this will we consent unto you: If ye will be as we [ be], that every male of you be circumcised;
Gen 34:16 Then will we give our daughters unto you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people.
Gen 34:17 But if ye will not hearken unto us, to be circumcised; then will we take our daughter, and we will be gone.

It was only the father who could agree to giving his daughter to another. So Jacob had agreed to this arrangement, but Jacob’s son’s were lying to these men by agreeing to do the right thing when they had no intention of following through. Nevertheless, it was always possible to marry into Israel by agreeing to be circumcised.
Now to answer your question as to what this has to do with your and my spiritual life, it is clear that we all attempt at first to please God without being completely circumcised, and Zipporah, as the woman in this story, symbolizes the ever present church, as the very force which opposes our complete circumcision. The fact that this happened when Moses was on his way back to Egypt to deliver his people Israel, demonstrates that this is an experience which is common to us all at the beginning of our own calling into the service of our Lord. We are all “yet carnal… babes in Christ” even after being given to know Christ, and even being given spiritual gifts.

1Co 1:5 That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;
1Co 1:6 Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
1Co 1:7 So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:

Moses was enriched in Christ, had the testimony of the miracles God had shown him at the burning bush and came behind in no gift. Nevertheless, these next verses all applied to Moses and to all of us at the beginning of our Christian walk.

1Co 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, [ even] as unto babes in Christ.
1Co 3:2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able [ to bear it], neither yet now are ye able.
1Co 3:3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas [ there is] among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
1Co 3:4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I [ am] of Apollos; are ye not carnal?

Four times in four verses Paul explains that we are “yet carnal… (as) babes in Christ”.
I hope this helps you to see that Moses’s uncircumcised son is merely an Old Testament type of our own carnality which always asks ‘What is permissible?’ instead of ‘What is commendable?’ even while being called into our Lord’s service. To this very day our flesh considers Christ, our spiritual husband, to be “a bloody man because of the circumcision” which seems too demanding of the flesh.
Instead of allowing the church world [ Zipporah] to influence us to remain uncircumcised, this ought to be our attitude.

Heb 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

You are in my prayers, to be granted to follow the exhortation of this and every word of scripture.
Your brother in Christ,
Mike