Exodus: Part 2 Getting Midian out of Moses        

    Ex 2:21 And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.

The LORD convinced Moses of his mission

·       Ex 3:10 The LORD gave Moses a Mission

·       Ex 3:11 The LORD claimed Moses him as the man

·       Ex 3:14 The LORD gave Moses His name – The self-existent One – I AM, THAT I AM -

·       Ex 4:1. The LORD gave Moses the sign of the rod  to convince the people

Ø    The Rod: [Ps 23:4; Ex 25:10] used by the shepherd to fight off the wolves, only about 24” to 36” long

Ø    The serpent [Gen 3:1; Ecc 10:8,11] Would hide in the bushes and attack when not expected. The shepherd would keep the sheep away from the bushes.

·       Ex 4:14 The LORD gave Moses Aaron

·       Ex 4:18-20 Moses gave in and departed with his wife and his sons.

Ex 4:21-23 Before Moses departed, The LORD claimed His nation as His first born son. Moses was to proclaim this to the new Pharaoh and warn him that Egypt’s firstborn was going to be cost for not obeying the LORD. The firstborn son was the one the to whom the inheritance would go.

Ex 4:24-26 Why did the LORD JEHOVAH of Ex 6:3 seek to kill Moses?

·       Still during the dispensation of promise. Moses was to be the one Israel would obey and follow to the land of promise.

·       Gen 17:7-8 God established an everlasting covenant between Himself and the seed of Abraham; [Gen 15:18] to give them the land and to be their God. This was a one sided covenant depending on God only. He would keep it.

·       Gen 17:9-14 The covenant of circumcision.

Ø    V9-13 God’s covenant Abraham and his seed were and are to keep. This is a one sided covenant depending on the people.

Ø    Vs 11 The token of the covenant betwixt God and Abraham

o      Some consider circumcision to be the token of the covenant of Vs 7-8

o      Vs11, 13b Or was the flesh of the foreskin the token of the covenant of the of circumcision showing the people kept the covenant.

Ø    V13a The head of the house was responsible to see all males in his house were circumcised.

By keeping the covenant of circumcision Abraham’s seed acknowledged they were His people and the people of the covenant of Vs 7-8. The importance of the promise to the people was demonstrated by their keeping the covenant circumcision.

Ø    V14

o      If a child was not circumcised he was not able to be called a Hebrew.

o      It would be the father who chose not to circumcise his child. This was an act of disobedience on his part that could affect his son’s future.

o      But when the son would come of age he would have been obliged to have it done to himself. If not he broke the covenant.

Note: Joshua 5:2-7 [V5] While in Egypt the covenant of circumcision was kept by the Hebrews. So all could come out of Egypt were able to be part of the covenant of the promise. [V6] Israel wondered 40 years while all who came out those who were 20 years and older when they came out of Egypt wanted to go back to Egypt. [Vs5, 7] They stopped  keeping the covenant of circumcision; they never wanted the promise to come to Abraham’s seed. All males who crossed the Jordan River had to be circumcised to be called a Jew and have a part of the promise

Ex 4:24-26 Before God could bring Moses out of the land of Midian, He had to get the land of Midian out of Moses.

·       Moses had not kept the covenant of circumcision.  He was content to be a shepherd in the land of Midian.

·       Moses’s uncircumcised son (Gershom 2:22) could not be a called a Hebrew could not be part of the promise.

·       Moses had to understand the importance of his mission. The importance of desiring the promise of God. If Moses did not truly desire the promise he could not live.

·       Zipporah knew Moses would die if the covenant was not kept. Since Moses failed, she (a Midianite women, daughter of the priest in Midian) had to circumcise her son that is why she said to Moses “a bloody husband art thou to me”. The blood was on her hands. She may have been questioning why Moses left this task to her.

·       Could it be Zipporah was not expressing her disgust for the covenant. I believe she was actually showing her choice to be part of the promise as the wife of Moses. She no longer was to be identified as a Midianite but as a Hebrew.

·       Blood was a very important of the Jewish worship.

·       V26 with V20 Moses let his son go. When Israel left Egypt Zipporah and his sons were with Jethro (father-in-law).