Much, but not all, of Exodus 3 and 4 is really well known stuff - the burning bush, the long conversation with God during which Moses makes his various excuses, God gets coss and Moses agrees to go with Aaron as his his spokes-person. But a closer read does reveal some less familiar words and one downright bewildering paragraph that it seems no-one really has a clue what it means!
Favour and Plundering
Hidden away in the midst of Moses' conversation with God, as part of the response to "who will I say has sent me" comes this:
'I will bring this people into such favour with the Egyptians that, when you go, you will not go empty-handed; each woman shall ask her neighbour and any woman living in the neighbour’s house for jewellery of silver and of gold, and clothing, and you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters; and so you shall plunder the Egyptians.’
This makes me pretty uncomfortable to say the least. And I'm not convinced it's what happened either - the Hebrew people, far from finding favour, became linked with the dreadful calamities that befell the Egyptians. Any giving of bounty to them as they left would be not the result of favour but of a desire to be rid of this pestilence.
More than that, though, I am uncomfortable with the idea of currying favour as a vehicle to exploit or rob. Sorry, God, but I don't like this bit. What about love your neighbour as yourself...
No Guarantees
When Moses and God have their long conversation, Moses is worried that people won't believe him or take him seriously. When God gives Moses the three, decidedly bizarre, signs (staff to snake, leprous hand, water to blood), he is told that if the people don't beleive the words they "may believe the signs". Not they 'will' but they 'may'... Moses is not given a guarantee that the people will believe, even though in the overall conversation God is saying "this will happen and you are the one to do it".
Interesting to ponder the place of free will within an overarching trajectory chosen by God.
A reminder, were one needed, that the task of the preacher, missionary, evangelist, whoever is not to achieve x, y, or z, but rather to be faithful to what they understand God to have called and commissioned them to do. Even Jesus had people who walked away after they heard what he had to say...
What the....?
So this is the bit that is totally puzzling, that looks to me like a random fragment that has been inserted and I haven't a scooby what it means or why it's here... I've included the paragraph that immediately precedes it, to give such context as there is...
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. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord: Israel is my firstborn son. 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.” ’
On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the Lord met him and tried to kill him. 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!’ So he let him alone. It was then she said, ‘A bridegroom of blood by circumcision.’
The final words of God to Moses are troubling in thier own right - why, oh why, would God decide to harden pharaoh's heart? (I recall an essay title for a Biblical studies course on Exodus that rang along the lines "God plays with pharaoh like a puppet, discuss" - it certainly appears thus if you read some parts of the Exodus narrative). The threat/promise to kill pharaoh's first-born son, however horrendous we find it, possibly forms the context for what comes next... or at least how we hear/read it.
This paragraph illustrates the ambiguity of using lots of pronouns, and Bible translators make interpretive choices not always present in the original. Whilst the NRSV names Moses, the original Hebrew uses the pronoun 'his'.
So we have something along the lines of God met [somebody] and tried to kill [somebody] but Zipporah* circumcised her son** and touched [somebody's] feet with the foreskin, saying '[somebody is] a bridegroom of blood to me'.
Confused? I certainly was! Bewildered as to the purpose of this paragraph? I am! By the wonder that is Wikipedia, you can read a bit more about it here, should you wish to.
A couple of notes...
* I am fascinated that Zipporah is named clearly here when no-one else is.
** We don't know which son (she had two) this was or why the circumcision was undertaken only at this point, never mind quite what it signified.
I am utterly bewildered by the idea that en route to Egypt God decided, seemingly capriciously, to kill either Moses or one of his sons... Huh? (less polite expressions are available!)
What do we do with bits of the Bible like this? Do we quietly ignore them (tempting). Do we agonise over interpretation, forcing them to fit our own theological niceties (convenient, if requiring mental gymnastics). Do we note them, allow them to puzzle us but not lose too much sleep over it (probably my default!). Or something else... (what do/would you do?)
This short passage is just plain weird, some others are highly disturbing. Perhaps what spotting this afresh today has done, is to remind me, and anyone who has read this far, that the Bible is a complex and confusing collection of texts, and that sometimes it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense!