S. Michael Houdmann Supporter Got Questions Ministries

Zipporah in the Bible was the wife of Moses and the daughter of Jethro, the priest of Midian. When Moses fled from Egypt to the land of Midian, he met Jethro's seven daughters, who were having some...

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September 08 2015 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report

Jack Gutknecht Supporter ABC/DTS graduate, guitar music ministry Baptist church

I’d like to comment on just this one event in the life of Zipporah (and her husband, Moses).

Zipporah, as a woman of Midian, did not share the spiritual values of her notable husband who found himself acting against the sacred tradition of Israel. This may be one reason why he named his second son Eliezer, meaning “The Lord of my father was my help.” To keep the peace, Moses compromised with his unbelieving wife and withheld circumcision, the sign of God’s covenant, from Eliezer. The Lord intervened, and as a sign of divine displeasure, Moses is stricken with a mortal disease. Both Zipporah and Moses became conscience-stricken over the profanation of God’s covenant, and Zipporah yields. Moses is too prostrate to take a knife and circumcise the child, so his wife severed the boy’s foreskin and, throwing it down before Moses said, “Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.”

When Moses was restored to health relations in the home were not congenial, for he went on alone to Egypt, and Zipporah and the two sons went back to her home in Midian. HL

The best explanation for this stressful event in the life of this man and wife is that Moses was destined to become Israel’s great lawgiver, but he failed to keep the single most basic law that God had given to Abraham, the father of the Jews. 

“Circumcise every baby boy…Any male who is not circumcised will be cut off from his people because he has broken my agreement” (Genesis 17:13-14 NCV). SMM

July 28 2021 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report