boggled

Earlier in the week I encountered the most befuddling passage yet in my reading. It was near the beginning of Exodus (24-26) on page 111 and the paragraph seemed to have little to do with the surrounding story. God was suddenly and inexplicably angry, about to short-circuit His stated plan that was just laid out for Moses.

On the journey back, as they camped for the night, God met Moses and would have killed him but Zipporah took a flint knife and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ member with it. She said, “Oh! You’re a bridegroom of blood to me!” Then God let him go. She used the phrase “bridegroom of blood” because of the circumcision.

I understand from Genesis the importance of circumcision as it being a sign of the covenant between God, Abraham and his descendants.  Yet the fact that Moses’ son was not yet circumcized doesn’t seem to be the sole cause of God’s anger here.  If it was, then why was it not enough for Zipporah to circumcise the son.  Why did she touch the foreskin to Moses’ member?  I feel like there’s something missing, like a paragraph of Exodus was lost somewhere over the years that helped to make sense of this piece.