Answer:
No matter how you slice it, this passage is a little strange. We seem to be plunged into some kind of weird spat without any context, without important preceding action that should tell us what it’s all about. So even the best scholars are left with a fair amount of speculation to fill in those blanks.
But we begin to make sense of it, if we consider a few of the bare facts: Moses has had two sons. They are clearly several years old and yet they have never been circumcised. Why not? This is the critical question. Moses is a Hebrew, and circumcision is what they do - it was a command given to their forefather Abraham and his descendants (Gen 17:9). Perhaps Moses has not done so because of family pressures from Zipporah and/or Jethro (his father-in-law). They are Midianites and thus probably ‘outsiders’ to circumcision. Zipporah`s harsh reaction in 4:25 seems to indicate that the whole thing is arcane, disgusting, strange or unnecessary to her. But Moses is NOT an outsider to circumcision; he knows it must be done as a sign of his participation in the Abrahamic covenant with Yahweh - the God his mother no doubt taught him about, the God he met personally in Midian at the burning bush.
So this underlying context of disobedience begins to explain the seeming blind side God gives Moses as he travels from Midian to Egypt to challenge Pharaoh. What if this is no blind side at all? What if this is the culmination of a long standing tension between Moses and God and perhaps also Moses and his in-laws? What if Moses has not circumcised his sons, to please his in-laws ahead of pleasing God? A God whose character and laws he is going to represent to the world in very short order! And yet he, the law giver, hasn’t obeyed the first, most simple law! It’s like a preacher getting ready to go on a church planting tour and he’s never been baptized himself! Or he’s never explained the gospel to his own family!
Now, the weird thing is, Zipporah knows God is about to take his life. So Moses predicament can’t be a private revelation known only to himself. Somehow, Zipporah knows that Moses is on death’s door… and she seems to know immediately what will turn away the curse. How does she know Moses life is in danger? And how does she know what to do about it?
I would suggest that perhaps Moses becomes deathly ill on the journey. And perhaps she might have asked Moses himself about it and Moses might have confessed the problem: “I haven’t done the simplest act of obedience to the Lord and his hand is against me.”
Great! So she’s caught. She may have felt manipulated. You’re going to die unless we circumcise our son? What choice do I have? So in anger she does the deed – is none too happy about it judging by her comment (vs. 25). You might ask why, if Moses knows the problem, can`t he fix it himself. Well, if Moses` life is threatened by illness, he`s on deaths’ door, he can’t do it himself… she has to. And she brings the evidence and throws it at his feet with her comment about him being a "bridegroom of blood". In other words, "you have become a husband who required of me a strange, bloody sacrifice to keep you." The plague lifts, Moses is healed, and off he goes to his greater mission, having finally (by force!) taken care of business at home – his first mission.
Now, regarding her phrase, “bridegroom of blood…” one scholar I read had a much softer and more romantic interpretation. He also speculates that Moses has somehow come under a curse, an illness perhaps… but he says that it is Zipporah who, on her own, is given insight from God as to the reason for this plague or curse of imminent death. She is therefore heartbroken at the potential of losing her husband, and also that there is a standing offense against God in their home! So, resolutely, she circumcises their son, and touches Moses feet with the foreskin to associate the act with the father (whose responsibility it SHOULD have been to do it). All of this is an act of servanthood and love on her part and her comment, “Bridegroom of blood” would, in this scenario, be a way of saying, “you were on death’s door, you were lost to me, but now, by this blood, its like you were given to me all over again, my ‘bridegroom of blood’.” A marriage threatened with termination is renewed through blood and she’s relieved and happy to have her husband back.
The second view is a much nicer way to read Zipporah’s attitude – she’s a loving wife who takes action, saves the day and is thrilled with her husband’s recovery, vs. begrudging rescuer not at all thrilled with her man. But either way, Moses has clearly been disobedient about ‘first things first’. So you can see that this strange little story contains a profound lesson for ministers of the gospel needing to attend to their FIRST ministry before they ever seek to venture into their larger Kingdom callings. As Paul says to Timothy, when examining potential elders – make sure their "house is in order" first.
