Exodus 4:18-31

Moses went back to his father-in-law Jethro¹ and said to him, ‘Please let me go back to my kindred in Egypt and see whether they are still living.’ And Jethro said to Moses, ‘Go in peace.’ The Lord said to Moses in Midian, ‘Go back to Egypt;² for all those who were seeking your life are dead.’ So Moses took his wife and his sons, put them on a donkey, and went back to the land of Egypt; and Moses carried the staff of God in his hand.

And the Lord said to Moses, ‘When you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.³ Then you shall say to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord: Israel is my firstborn son.⁴ I said to you, ‘Let my son go that he may worship me.’ But you refused to let him go; now I will kill your firstborn son.”’⁵
On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the Lord met him and tried to kill him.⁶ But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ feet with it, and said, ‘Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!’⁷ So he let him alone.⁸ It was then she said, ‘A bridegroom of blood by circumcision.’
The Lord said to Aaron, ‘Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.’ So he went;⁹ and he met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which he had sent him, and all the signs with which he had charged him. Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the Israelites.¹⁰ Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses, and performed the signs in the sight of the people.¹¹ The people believed;¹² and when they heard that the Lord had given heed to the Israelites and that he had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshipped.

1 Being called Jethro still, rather than Reuel

2Order is strange here – didn't the Lord already tell Moses to go back to Egypt, and didn't Moses just ask permission to go back?

3Reminds Moses to obey, but gives a scary warning. Why does God harden hearts? If Pharaoh chose to let the people go, why not allow him to make that choice? Or is that a misreading of the text?

4Israel has a privileged place over other peoples.

5Frightening violence from God. Why does the punishment fall on the innocent son?

6Wait, what? Why? And “tried”? How does God try to kill him and fail?

7How did she know what to do? And if she had known, why hadn't she done it before? Was God trying to kill Moses or Moses's son, and why does God try to kill him when it's Zipporah who does the action that stops it?

8After everything that God has done to chose Moses, despite Moses's resistance, why wasn't his son or circumcision mentioned earlier, and why is it a life and death matter?

9Aaron obeys.

10Both are obedient.

11No sign that Aaron shared any of Moses's doubts, even though Aaron did not hear the revelation from God himself.

12Moses's fears appear to have been unfounded.

Take-home: A really difficult passage for me.  Why does God harden Pharoah's heart?  Why does God try to kill Moses (or perhaps Moses's son)?  And what does the "bridegroom of blood" language mean?  Despite these difficulties, it is clear that there is a message of obedience to God that continues to run through the narrative.