Zipporah Circumcises Her Son. Series

Forgiveness from God is that quick for us as well. We have to take the necessary steps to access it!

If we have never buried our sins in baptism to put on Christ, we have to do so to be in a right relationship with God (Rom. 6:1-7; Acts 8:12; Acts 8:34-39; Gal. 3:26-29).

Once we are in that relationship with God, when we learn of sin in our lives, all we need do is confess it to Him and turn away from it.

I John 1:9 reads: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Moreover, 2 Corinthians 7:10 says, “For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

In Zipporah’s case, the sin and what to do about it were evident at that moment. Sometimes it is not apparent, like for David and his sin with Bathsheba (2. Sam. 11 – 12). Nevertheless, God’s forgiveness is always waiting for us to ask for it (2 Chron. 7:14; Prov. 28:13; Eph. 1:7).

I encourage you today to be like Zipporah. If you see something that needs correcting in your life, correct it. Take that swift action and turn things around.

The same principle can be applied to everyday life as well. It may not be sin, but it may be that child that needs to learn to stop doing something, a habit that we have ourselves that needs to be broken – see the problem, determine the correction, and do something about it. If you lack confidence in your abilities to correct the problem – do, like noted before, ask for help and learn.

There is no need to carry the burden of knowing something is wrong and yet doing nothing about it when it is within your power to correct it.

Bizarre is typical of how biblical scholars describe the tale of Zipporah and her husband, Moses, especially the section in which God attacks Moses, and Zipporah uses a blood ritual to defend her husband and son successfully. "For mystery, mayhem, and sheer baffling weirdness, nothing else in the Bible quite compares with the story of Zipporah and the 'Bridegroom of blood.

The main plot of Zipporah's cryptic story, which contains a few large holes, is this: Moses, a fugitive from Egypt, where he killed a man for abusing a Hebrew enslaved person, happens upon the seven daughters of Jethro, the Midian priest. The daughters are at a well in the desert, trying to water their sheep. Using brute force, chivalrous Moses scares off some bullying shepherds harassing the girls. Despite their religious differences, a grateful Jethro gives Moses his daughter Zipporah in marriage. They marry and have two sons, Gershom and Eliezer.

A few years later, after God speaks to Moses through a burning bush, Moses sets out with his family to return to Egypt to free his people from slavery. During this journey, a strange incident occurs one night in their tent. God tries to kill Moses. Zipporah, somehow sensing that God is angry that their son is not circumcised, immediately grabs a stone and cuts her son's foreskin. Then she flings the bloody foreskin at his feet (whether "his" in the story refers to God, Moses, or the baby is unclear, and feet may be a stand-in or a euphemism for genitals). Then she says: "Surely, a bridegroom of blood thou art to me." According to God's covenant with Abraham, cutting away the foreskin from the penis signifies identification among Hebrews.