The Old Testament holds some clues that the character of Moses did not originate as a Hebrew. First, he is raised as an Egyptian. Second, when he kills an Egyptian for mistreating an Israelite, Moses escapes into exile, where he marries not a Hebrew, but a Midianite woman, Zipporah. Perhaps logically, God chooses this border-crossing man to be his intermediary in approaching Pharaoh about freeing the enslaved Hebrews. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, God decides to kill Moses.
In Exodus , Moses is on the road to accost Pharaoh when the Lord comes to execute the death sentence. Some Bible scholars have suggested that the reason Zipporah did not circumcise Moses as well was that the time required for healing would have interfered with their travel plans.
A "freshly circumcised" man does not travel well. My question is why Moses' lack of circumcision was cause for God to "about to kill" Moses. Why was circumcision so crucial? Why would God want to kill Moses for not being circumcised? I don't know the answer to that question, but let me make three observations. First, circumcision was the sign of the covenant that God made with Abraham in Genesis It literally marked Abraham as belonging to God.
This was not a unique cultural feature of the Hebrews since other people practiced male circumcision as well. However, in the Genesis narratives circumcision was adopted as part of the covenant signs of the Hebrews, most likely to distinguish them from some of the Canaanites such as the Philistines, who did not practice circumcision.
It is a sign of costly grace: they could not earn the covenant, it was gift; but it demands their all, it is costly. Furthermore, in Deuteronomy we find the phrase "circumcision of the heart.
Circumcision is more than just the surgical procedure of removing a piece of skin. It involves bearing the mark of God upon one's heart, yielding ownership of the heart to God, surrendering the center of one's being to God. Thus, circumcision, even though its origin lies in the culture of the ancient Middle East, became an exceedingly important ritual for the Israelites, indicating the profound grace of God as well as the all encompassing demands of that grace.
That helps us understand the importance of circumcision, but does not really address God's intent to kill Moses. This brings us to the second observation. In the New Testament the Jewish ritual of circumcision is replaced by that of baptism.
New believers are not circumcised into the people of God. Rather, they are baptized into the people of God. Baptism serves the same function as circumcision, that is, of marking people as belonging to God, as having been brought into a covenant of costly grace. And just as circumcision was an outward ritual of a "heart thing," so is baptism.
In Romans 6 Paul writes about the heart thing of baptism. He points out that in baptism the believer is baptized into the death of Christ and receives the newness of life of Christ's resurrection. In baptism the old life is crucified with Christ and the believer is given a new Christ-like life to live, along with the Spirit to empower Christ living.
Thus, baptism, the church's circumcision ritual, involves the death of the believer vicariously in the death of Christ, and it is only via this death that one can receive the newness of life offered in Christ. My general approach is to let the Old Testament speak for itself and then move to the New Testament.
Here, perhaps we can allow the New Testament use of this theme to shed some light on the Old Testament passage, since the New Testament tends to develop and apply Old Testament ideas. Pull out your fingernails. Eat a pile of steaming bear crap. Skin yourself alive.
Fall into a vat of molten iron. Get run over by a train. Go through a sausage grinder. Saw off your legs. Poke out your eyes. Go To Hell. One thing the story does make clear is that circumcision was a blood ritual. Now that we know what blood is and does, can we perhaps move on from performing blood rituals, especially on newborn babies, sometimes at risk to their lives?
Is GOD circumcised or intact? If GOD in circumcised, who did it? Himself perhaps. But if GOD created us in his image with foreskin, did he make a mistake? Foreskin is the reason I do not believe in the GOD of the bible.
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