The Return, and a Night on the Road
18 Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law, and said to him, “Please let me go and return to my brothers who are in Egypt, and see whether they are still alive.” Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.” 19 Yahweh said to Moses in Midian, “Go, return into Egypt; for all the men who sought your life are dead.” 20 Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them on a donkey, and he returned to the land of Egypt. Moses took God’s rod in his hand. 21 Yahweh said to Moses, “When you go back into Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your hand, but I will harden his heart and he will not let the people go. 22 You shall tell Pharaoh, ‘Yahweh says, Israel is my son, my firstborn, 23 and I have said to you, “Let my son go, that he may serve me;” and you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’” 24 On the way at a lodging place, Yahweh met Moses and wanted to kill him. 25 Then 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.” 26 So he let him alone. Then she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision. 27 Yahweh said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” He went, and met him on God’s mountain, and kissed him. 28 Moses told Aaron all Yahweh’s words with which he had sent him, and all the signs with which he had instructed him. 29 Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel. 30 Aaron spoke all the words which Yahweh had spoken to Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people. 31 The people believed, and when they heard that Yahweh had visited the children of Israel, and that he had seen their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.
A man sent to demand God's firstborn son is nearly killed for neglecting the sign of the covenant in his own household.
Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law, and said to him, “Please let me go and return to my brothers who are in Egypt, and see whether they are still alive.” Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”
He asks permission and does not explain, and Jethro releases him without asking. Then the detail that closes the old wound: all the men who sought your life are dead Exodus 4:19. The manslaughter of forty years earlier is not held against him. It is outlived.
Before the journey come two sentences that set the terms of everything in Egypt. I will harden his heart and he will not let the people go Exodus 4:21 — the outcome announced in advance, and how that statement is to be understood is a question the narrative answers as it goes, since the first five plagues report Pharaoh hardening his own heart before the phrase is ever applied to God. And the charge to be delivered: Israel is my son, my firstborn... let my son go, that he may serve me; and you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your firstborn son Exodus 4:22–23.
The last plague is announced first, before a single sign has been performed. Egypt is not ambushed. The contest is framed from the outset as one claim against another — a nation held as property, against a son claimed by his father — and the penalty is stated in the terms of the crime.
On the way at a lodging place, Yahweh met Moses and wanted to kill him.
The scene is abrupt, brief, and deliberately hard. A man just commissioned is met by the one who commissioned him, in mortal earnest, and the reason is supplied only by what his wife does about it. Then Zipporah took a flint, and cut off the foreskin of her son Exodus 4:25. Circumcision was the sign of the covenant with Abraham, and neglecting it carried the sentence of being cut off from the people Genesis 17:14. The son of the man about to demand covenant obedience from a king had never received the covenant sign.
Several details are unexplained and are left so: which son, why the omission had been allowed to stand, and what Zipporah meant by you are a bridegroom of blood to me Exodus 4:26, said twice and evidently not with pleasure.
The principle, though, is clear. A messenger cannot carry a demand from which he has quietly exempted his own household, and the God about to judge Egypt begins with the man he is sending. The severity at the lodging place is the same that will fall on Pharaoh, applied first and nearer. It is also survivable, and survived.
The chapter ends with the thing Moses had insisted would not happen. Aaron meets him at the mountain, the words are passed on, the signs are done, and the people believed... then they bowed their heads and worshiped Exodus 4:31. Every objection raised in the previous paragraph is answered by the event, which is the usual fate of objections raised in advance. The belief will not survive the first setback, but it is real while it lasts, and what produced it is worth noticing: not the signs alone, but the news that he had seen their affliction.
held with reason What this mark means