Cheryl

Lin,
God had chosen Moses to lead the people out of Egypt, but in order to do this job he needed Moses to be completely obedient. The sons born to the Israelites as well as the servants born to their family must be circumcised on the eighth day and it is apparent that Moses had not done this to his son. Perhaps it was because his wife was not an Israelite and did not approve of the practice and he listened to her rather than obeying the commandment. When God came to put Moses to death for disobedience, it appears that his wife had been holding back Moses from circumcising his son, so Zipporah finally relented when she saw that there was no other option, but she did the circumcision in anger and threw the foreskin at Moses’ feet calling him a husband of blood. The fact that Zipporah did the circumcision and it was not Moses who did the job, appears to give strong evidence that she was the hold-out and Moses should have had some backbone to do what was right even if his wife didn’t want to follow God.

Although scripture says that the uncircumcised son will be cut off from the people of God, it appears that God threatened to cut off Moses too for disobedience. Circumcision was a requirement, not an option in obeying God. It symbolized the importance of cutting off of sin, so much so that God chose to make this a “hill to die on” and would have removed Moses if there wasn’t complete obedience.