Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Kenneth Greifer:

 

 

I am not sure that anyone has ever explained Exodus 4: 25-26 satisfactorily.  Let me give it a shot, from my own unique perspective.

 

 

Zipporah and her father and her blood relatives are all from MDYN/Mitanni, the Late Bronze Age Hurrian state in eastern Syria, and all of them are ethnic Hurrians with vintage Hurrian names.  The name “Zipporah” also suggests a Kassite connection.  By sharp contrast, Moses is a Hebrew, not an ethnic Hurrian (or Kassite).  Although circumcision was routine in Canaan and Egypt and elsewhere in Africa, it was considered a barbaric custom in Kassite-dominated southern Mesopotamia.  We’re not sure what the Hurrians generally thought about circumcision, but if Zipporah is referred to as a “Kassite” at Numbers 12: 1 (my interpretation of that ambiguous passage), then Miriam may be condemning Zipporah the Hurrian for having wanted to follow the known Kassite custom of not allowing sons to be circumcised.

 

 

Given that ethnic and historical background, Zipporah may have initially resisted Moses’ desire to have their son circumcised.  So Gershom (another Hurrian name) had not been circumcised on the 8^th day after his birth, per the divine commandment at Genesis 17: 12.  The parents, Moses and Zipporah, were still discussing whether and when Gershom would or would not be circumcised, with Moses having been a bit derelict in his duty, as it were, as to forcing the matter:  Moses had not insisted, over Zipporah’s objections, that Gershom must be circumcised at age 8 days.

 

 

With the matter of Gershom’s circumcision being in temporary limbo, and with it also being somewhat unclear how committed Zipporah was to committing herself irrevocably to the Hebrews as her husband’s people, as symbolized by her great reluctance to allow their son to be circumcised per the Hebrew, non-Kassite way (and perhaps with there also being some concern as well about a possibly implied potential lack of commitment on Moses’ part to his ethnic Hurrian wife and their son), Zipporah now in effect saves her husband’s life by agreeing, at the 11^th hour as it were, to have their son circumcised, which she does on the spot:

 

 

“Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.  So he let him go:  then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.”  Exodus 4: 25-26

 

 

If Zipporah were a Hebrew or a Canaanite or an Egyptian or a Cushite (as opposed to being a Hurrian who was following Kassite ways), the story wouldn’t make sense, because then Zipporah would have been delighted to have Gershom circumcised at age 8 days as a matter of course.  But as a Hurrian who strongly preferred to follow the Kassite tradition of not allowing circumcision, this was a crisis of conscience matter for Zipporah.  And it almost got Moses killed from divine wrath.

 

 

Or to put the matter a slightly different way, this is a super-exciting story if one realizes that Zipporah is an ethnic Hurrian who seems bound and determined to follow the Kassite tradition of not allowing circumcision.  What then will happen as to Gershom, the son of Moses and Zipporah, regarding circumcision? 

 

 

If we can get the ethnic identities, historical time period and underlying geography right [where MDYN = Mitanni], then in my opinion, the story practically tells itself.  Whereas otherwise, this story seems inexplicable.

 

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois