Zipporah - Glenn Conjurske
Zipporah
by Glenn Conjurske
“Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock. And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon to day? And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock. And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? Why is it that ye have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread. And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.” (Exodus 2:15-21).
Moses, though forty years old, is yet a single man. Till now he has been the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, living at the Egyptian court, though never anything but a Hebrew in heart. We suppose that he would not marry an Egyptian, while he dared not marry a Jew. He would not marry one of the oppressors of his people, yet while he retained his place among them, he dared not lower the dignity of the court of Egypt by marrying one of their oppressed servants. Yet this was doubtless his intention. We can hardly suppose that so momentous a thing as to refuse to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter—-to turn his back on the mother who had rescued and adopted him, and to abandon the exalted place which she had given to him—-was the result of a sudden spasm of fear, or that such a decision was made on the spur of the moment. He had doubtless long contemplated this. He would leave the court of Pharaoh. He would identify himself with his own people. He would find a wife among them. But this was easier contemplated than done, as it was sure to cause great offence at the Egyptian court. While Moses therefore intended and delayed, God precipitated the matter, by Moses’ own deed, and forced him to act. But instead of the calm and courageous stand which he meant to make, whenever he should find the courage to do so, he must now flee for his life. Instead of finding a place among his own people, he is now a fugitive among strangers in a far country.
But at any rate he is free. He has repudiated his place at court. He has refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He is now free from the cares and formalities and restraints of the Egyptian court, but he is a homeless fugitive, far from his own people, footsore and weary, doubtless discouraged, sitting by a public well, as he has no place else to go; lonely and pensive, perhaps thinking of his father Jacob in the same circumstances years before, and of the singular good fortune which met him there in the person of his beautiful Rachel.
But what elysian dream is this? He hears the chatter of sweet feminine voices. He lifts his eyes, and beholds seven fair feminine forms approaching him. Like Jacob’s Rachel, they have come to water their father’s flock. Like Rachel, too, they meet with opposition. Like Jacob, in accordance with the deep-seated instincts of his masculine heart, Moses stands up to assert his masculine powers, to assist the women in need. He is a lone stranger, outnumbered by the shepherds, but he is a man mighty in word and deed—-he knows how to act with authority and power—-and he prevails, and waters their flock.
The seven daughters of the priest of Midian leave the well, walking slowly towards their father’s house, doubtless discussing what a noble specimen of masculinity they have just met, while Moses sits still on the well, watching wistfully their departing footsteps, and casting in his mind which of them is the fairest. It may be he has settled already upon Zipporah, though he knows nothing of her name.
Their father soon hears of “an Egyptian” who helped his daughters, and wonders why they have left the chivalrous stranger sitting at the well. “Call him, that he may eat bread.” He is soon called, and his circumstances are soon learned. He is a homeless stranger. Yet Moses is such a man as must soon impress those who meet him with his intrinsic worth, and the priest of Midian soon takes a liking to him. He will have him to dwell with him. Moses is “content,” and likely more than content. Moses dwells with Reuel. Reuel observes him, is soon satisfied of his superior worth, and offers him one of his daughters. Moses’ choice has long since been made, and he marries Zipporah. The sweetness of her voice, the beauty of her face, the light in her eyes, the winsomeness of her ways, the undefinable traits of her personal self, have set her off from all the rest, and she suits the heart of Moses as no other can do. Bear in mind that Moses was forty years old, and no fool. We can hardly suppose him foolish enough to choose by a lottery, or leave the choice to his father-in-law. He had no obligation—-and he could surely have had no inclination—-to take any of the daughters of Reuel, if they were not pleasing to him, and having his choice among the seven, we may surely suppose that the one he married was the light of his eyes and the satisfaction of his heart. Naturally she was doubtless all that he desired. Yet she was no Israelite, and however the will of the Lord may have prevailed in her at the last, in the mean while Moses will have some domestic trouble on her account.
We see nothing more of Zipporah till Moses is sent back to Egypt by the Lord. Then we are told,
“And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt: . . . And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.” (Exodus 4:20, 24-26).
This is all we know of Zipporah, and yet, after the usual manner of Scripture, the little which we are told is a great deal after all. From this we know of a certainty that Zipporah was an intense and passionate opponent of circumcision, and hence we may conclude with the utmost safety that it was due to Zipporah’s influence that the son of Moses was not circumcised. More on that anon. But first we must go back to the beginning. Some such scenes as the following must have occurred.
Zipporah probably knew nothing of circumcision till she married Moses. She then soon learned that Moses was different from other men—-that he was missing a part of his anatomy which belongs to all men by nature. She asks the reason for this, and no doubt receives a full explanation. Moses was an Israelite, a son of Abraham. Circumcision was given to Abraham, as the sign of the covenant of God with him, and with his seed. Every male child born to an Israelite must be circumcised.
Moses no sooner speaks his mind than Zipporah speaks hers. “That’s gruesome.” She asks when the bloody deed is done, and is told, “When the boy is eight days old.”
“Eight days old! That’s cruel. It’s barbarous. I can’t believe anyone would do that to a baby.”
Silence follows, while they stand studying each other’s eyes. At length she moves in close to Moses, puts her hands on his shoulders, rests her arms on his chest, and looks up tenderly and searchingly into his eyes. “Moses . . . ,” she says with a quiet air of authority, “We won’t do that to our babies.”
Moses, however, is determined that they shall, and many a dispute must follow.
Now whenever we set ourselves to oppose the will or the ordinance of God, we must become so far rationalists, and so skilled is the human heart in the art of rationalism that it may easily raise a dozen plausible objections which a score of the most seasoned theologians cannot answer, and speak so convincingly as seemingly to out-argue the Almighty himself. This was now the business of Zipporah. She will save her tender offspring from this gruesome operation, and she will become a seasoned theologian herself in order to do so. How she studies the whole history of the world, and of the people of God in it! What questions she now puts to Moses concerning all the work of God in the world—-and all to this one end, that she may find more arguments against circumcision. We have seen such rationalists at work, diligently studying the Bible and concordances and commentaries, ransacking sacred and profane history, all to prove that sprinkling is baptism, that baptism is unnecessary, that we may forsake the assembling of ourselves together, that we need not pay our taxes, or support the preacher, or some other thing which appeals to our personal desires, or interests, or pride.
Such was now the case with Zipporah, and her arguments are manifold.
Circumcision was a modern thing, never heard of before Abraham. And it was unnecessary. Noah went to heaven, though he never heard of circumcision. Enoch walked with God, and pleased God, and was caught up to heaven, and all this without ever knowing there ever would be such a thing as circumcision.
Moses, however, being an orthodox dispensationalist, argues that these men lived before Abraham, and so before God gave the covenant of circumcision.
By this he gains nothing. She turns to Melchizedek. Was he not a priest of the most high God while Abraham walked the earth? Why did God not require circumcision of him? Did Melchizedek go to hell because he wasn’t circumcised? And what of Sarah and Rebekah and Rachel and Leah? What of his own mother, and his own sister Miriam? No girls are circumcised. If the thing is unnecessary for the females, it must be equally unnecessary for the males. Does God have two standards of righteousness, one for men and one for women? And Abraham himself was accounted righteous before he was circumcised. How then can it be necessary? It can’t be necessary for salvation, or for the world to come, and of what benefit can it be for the present life? What good has it done the Hebrews? They are slaves in Egypt!
But more. The thing itself is barbarous, and impious besides. It mars the work of God. If God wanted men to be so, he would have created them so. You don’t cut the tail off a calf when it is eight days old, nor the ears off a dog. This would be to claim a wisdom superior to that of their creator. This is impious, and unreasonable. And how would I hold up my head to my sisters when they see my baby so barbarously mutilated? And I will have to bear the reproach for it. They all thought I was most fortunate to marry you, but they will change their minds now.
Against all this Moses has but one plea. “God commands it.”
Zipporah remains entrenched just where she was. “Do you mean to tell me then that God commands the unreasonable, the senseless, the unnecessary, the barbarous, the impious? I can never believe it.”
Yet Moses prevails, if not by argument, then by authority. Their first son is born, and is circumcised, over all the arguments and all the tears of Zipporah.
This much is clear from the Scriptural account. “And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt: . . . And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet.” Moses had two sons. If both of them were uncircumcised, Zipporah has done but half her work, in cutting off the foreskin of her son. Yet God is satisfied, and lets Moses go. But one son was circumcised in the inn, whence we conclude that but one of Moses’s sons was uncircumcised before, and this of course was the younger of the two. If Moses had been thus remiss at the birth of the first, he would doubtless have been so at the second also. If he had failed to circumcise the first, and afterwards repented, to circumcise the second, that repentance must have led him to circumcise the first also.
We hold it as a certain fact, then, that Moses’ firstborn was circumcised, over all the objections of his wife. Zipporah of course observed the operation, with her eyes full of tears, and her mouth full of reproaches—-the same sort of reproaches which she cast in the teeth of Moses years later at the inn. And if she was an enemy of circumcision before, she was tenfold more so now. She saw her baby’s blood. She heard his screams. She cuddled and rocked and nursed him afterwards, while he cried and whimpered for the pain. And she resolved in her heart—-never again. She must now dig in her heels for a further conflict, redouble her efforts, her tears, her determination, her arguments.
In the passing of time she learns that she is once more with child. She now sets herself most earnestly to pray for a baby girl, and for nine months she pleads, “Oh, God, let this baby be a girl!”—-but the Lord heeds her not. There are many difficult issues which we do not care to face. We seek to avoid them, by wisdom, by stratagems, by labor, by prayer, but God will have us to face them. He is always arranging our circumstances to try our obedience and our character. He therefore defeats our stratagems and disregards our prayers, and brings us face to face with those hard issues which we had sought by all means to avoid. So he does with Zipporah, and she must give birth to another boy.
But while she has wrestled with God, she has not failed to wrestle with Moses. Her tears have flowed more freely than before, and her reproaches have been more keen, so that after hearing from her for nine months, Moses himself must be ready to believe that circumcision is the most barbarous thing ever instituted on the earth. His heart, too, is moved by her tears. And doubtless he longs for peace. When he comes in from his long days and nights on the hillside with his father-in-law’s flocks, he wants peace and serenity at home. He wants warmth and love, not strife and debate. Moses therefore yields to her, and the boy is not circumcised.
Zipporah has fought a hard battle, and she has won. She has conquered her husband. She has conquered the man of God—-—-–but she has not conquered God. He will yet conquer her, though it must be by a hard stroke.
Neither has she conquered her conscience. The victories which we gain over truth and right seldom give us much satisfaction, for conscience remains just where it was—-always on the side of God and right—-never yielding an inch, though husbands and parents and masters and kings, and all the affairs of house and church and kingdom, should tamely submit to our wayward wishes. The victory which leaves conscience opposed is a hollow one, and such was the victory of Zipporah. Conscience will yet have its own, and she herself will do the bloody deed which she could not bear that her husband should do before, and do it too in a manner more barbarous than anything ever contemplated by Moses.
Years pass, however, and she is at peace, in the possession of her hollow victory—-as near to peace, that is, as a woman can be who is as war with her conscience. She now has peace with Moses, but conflict within. That conflict, however, is not a severe one. Conscience will continue to speak, especially in times of fear or mishap, but its chidings are neither sharp nor many, and the longer the time which passes, the easier she becomes. She has nearly persuaded herself that God is on her side. Not quite, however, for conscience can never be quite suppressed. It is the working of conscience which we see at the inn, on the way to Egypt, and how exquisite its working.
God has been forty years in preparing Moses for this time. God has now appeared to him, spoken to him, sent him. He gathers up his little family, sets them upon asses, and begins the long journey back to Egypt, this time to accomplish what he had failed to do forty years before. God has sent him, God is with him, the destiny of the people of God is in his hands, and who would now dream that God will lay hold of him in the inn, and seek to kill him? Yet so it happens, for God has a controversy with Moses. Zipporah has sinned in opposing the ordinance of God, and Moses has sinned in yielding to her. Moses evidently has the greater responsibility, and at any rate God will not have him to stand up as the leader of his people, while he stands delinquent in the covenant of his God. Neither is this a light matter, and God lays hold of him to kill him.
Moses is now in the grasp of death. Zipporah is struck with consternation. This is no minor fever—-no mere headache in her uncircumcised son—-no mere threatening of wind or weather. Conscience has doubtless spoken on such occasions, but she has put it off. Now it cries aloud, and she cannot ignore it. She must act without delay. No time now to inquire the reason for this hard stroke. Nor any need to inquire, either, for conscience now asserts itself, and Zipporah knows very well what the issue is. She knows very well where her will is at war with the ordinance of God. She knows where God has a controversy with her. She knows, therefore, exactly what to do, and how to do it, too, for she doubtless observed the circumcision of her first son. It is her certain and unerring knowledge as to the reason of this calamity which persuades us that it was due entirely to her influence that Moses neglected his duty in his second son. Deep down she has felt her delinquency all these years, though doing her best to ignore it, and to persuade herself that she was in the right. She can do so no more. God has come to reckon with her, and she knows it.
Neither is there any time to waste in the doing, but she is now in a hard place. She must act in haste to circumcise her son, but she is a traveller, just stopped for the night at an inn, with nothing in hand with which to accomplish it. “Joshua”—-at his leisure—-”made him sharp knives, and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of the foreskins,” but no such luxury comes to the hand of Zipporah. She finds, therefore, “a sharp stone.” Yet methinks no stone quite sharp enough for so delicate an operation, and certainly not when she has neither time nor means to dress the edge. Her stone perhaps more grinds and tears than cuts, but she has no choice. What she would not allow at her leisure at home she must now perform in her extremity on the road, with such an instrument as she can find. It is often easier to obey God when we ought than when we must, for God is righteous, and will make us feel our delinquency. She, therefore, who refused to allow her husband to do the easier thing, must now do the harder thing herself. But however difficult and distasteful, she performs the bloody rite, and thus clears her own conscience, and delivers her husband from the grasp of death.
Thus do the hand of God and the voice of conscience conspire together to subject the will of this woman. But she is no more reconciled to circumcision in her heart than she was before. She will lay down the sword of her warfare against the ordinance of God, but she will not do this tamely nor gently, but rather in such a manner as to let it be known that her submission is anything but congenial to her. She therefore casts her son’s foreskin “at his feet”—-at the feet of Moses, we suppose. This was one last act—-and done with petulance enough, no doubt—-by which she displayed her detestation of the rite to which she was forced to submit. How like a woman is this!
Neither is her saucy tongue yet tamed. She will yield the victory in this her extremity, but not without one last word of reproach concerning the barbarous operation. She will yield the point, driven by hard necessity, but she will yet have it known what she thinks of the matter. She says therefore to Moses, “Surely a bloody husband art thou to me!” Such a remark, no doubt spoken in the most petulant manner, must give pain to Moses, and she may read the pain in his eyes. And really it is not so much Moses she designs to reproach, as the ordinance of God. She adds therefore, in a softer tone, “A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.” Towards that she will not soften her words.
Meanwhile, God has accepted her obedience, and let her husband go. It may take years yet ere she can be reconciled in heart to the bloody ordinance—-and perhaps she never will be—-but God does not regard that. It is obedience for which he looks, whatever our feelings may be. It is the will which concerns him. In circumcising her son, she has yielded her will, and this God has accepted. This is where true religion lies, and not in our likes or dislikes—-not in what we wish, but in what we choose. The fact is, true religion requires self-denial of us, and self-denial consists of none other thing than choosing to act contrary to our desires. God does not require us to hate our right eye, but to pluck it out, and cast it from us. He does not expect us to feel any antipathy towards our right hand, but to cut it off, and cast it from us. He has no controversy with us if we desire to retain our right foot, so long as we cut it off, and cast it from us. Neither will he regard our distaste for the painful operations by which such things are cut away, so long as we perform them. Thus did Zipporah when she cut off the foreskin of her son, and this was acceptable to God. We will not pretend that her spirit or her words were altogether acceptable, but sin cleaves to all of us, and even our best actions may be tainted.
Glenn Conjurske