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Exodus 4 is notoriously difficult, showing God trying to kill Moses without explanation. In the Greek Septuagint translation, the difficulty is removed, as an angel tries to kill Moses instead of God and what Zipporah does to end the threat is explained.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Exodus 4:24
Hebrew Bible
22 You must say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord has said, “Israel is my son, my firstborn, 23 and I said to you, ‘Let my son go that he may serve me,’ but since you have refused to let him go, I will surely kill your son, your firstborn!”’” 24 Now on the way, at a place where they stopped for the night, the Lord met Moses and sought to kill him. 25 But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off the foreskin of her son and touched it to Moses’ feet, and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me.” 26 So the Lord let him alone. (At that time she said, “A bridegroom of blood,” referring to the circumcision.)
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Exodus 4:24
Septuagint
22 And you shall say to Pharaoh, These things says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn. 23 And I said to you, Send away my people, that they may serve me: now if you will not send them away, see, I will kill your firstborn son. 24 And it happened that the angel of the Lord met him by the way in the inn, and sought to kill him. 25 and Zipporah having taken a stone cut off the foreskin of her son, and fell at his feet and said, The blood of the circumcision of my son is staunched: 26 and he departed from him, because she said, The blood of the circumcision of my son is staunched. 27 And the Lord said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses; and he went and met him in the mount of God, and they kissed each other.
Date: 300–201 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... A strange incident occurs on the way to Egypt (Exodus 4:24–25). The angel of the Lord meets Moses and threatens to kill him (verse 24). Sepphōra intercedes by circumcising her son (verse 25), somehow averting her husband’s death. Biblical studies designates this among the more enigmatic pericopae in the Hebrew Bible. It is not even mentioned by Philo or Josephus, and takes on new meaning in LXX Exodus ... The subject is the ἄγγελος Κυρίου, “angel of the Lord.” This reading is affirmed by the Targums, Targum Neofiti I (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan has “destroying angel”; compare Jubilees 48:2 where it is Mastemah), though the Masoretic text reads יְהוָה and makes no mention of an “angel” ..."
Daniel M. Gurtner, Exodus: A Commentary on the Greek Text of Codex Vaticanus (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 230–231.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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