The Blood Covenant

"Sometimes we don't need
another chance to express
how we feel
or to ask someone to understand
our situation.
Sometimes we just need
a firm kick in the pants.
An unsmiling expectation
that if we mean
all these wonderful things
we talk about and sing about,
then lets see something to prove it."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer




The Blood Covenant and Obedience:

So here goes Moses,
after this incredible personal encounter
face-to-face with the Living God…

He reluctantly agrees
to take on the task
of going back to Egypt
some forty years after he had
escaped Pharaoh’s wrath
for killing an Egyptian soldier.
So he gets his household in order
and starts out on the journey.
Now he is ready to follow God’s command…

Just as we start to think highly of Moses,
then these words suddenly appear:

24Now it came about at the lodging place on the way
that the LORD met him and sought to put him to death.
25Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin
and threw it at Moses' feet, and she said,
"You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me."
26So He let him alone.
At that time she said,
"You are a bridegroom of blood"-
-because of the circumcision.
Exodus 4:24-26 NAS

The anger of God here, can at first glance,
easily catch us off guard

God's anger toward Moses here
was due to his blatant disobedience
of not having his son circumcised.

This was an act that was clearly outlined
under the Abrahamic covenant,
but Moses failed to comply.

God took his disobedience
as a tremendous affront.

There are a lot of different layers of interpretation
of these verses.

Some people interpret this to say
that Moses didn’t do this intentionally somehow.

Some say that he didn’t want
to stigmatize his son
as he was headed back to Egypt
by having him circumcised
(the certain sign that he
was a Hebrew and not Egyptian).

Basically his wife Zipporah
(whose name means “beauty”)
has to do what he (Moses)
was supposed to do.

(There is a whole sermon here
about the importance of a Godly wife;
but I’ll save that for another day).

What it comes down to is that Moses
did not uphold the covenant of God.

God says to Moses, ‘Look, I’ve chosen you
for this mission of great importance…
you literally are on a mission from God.
But you are not doing
what you clearly know is right
and that will identify you son as My own…
you are not upholding your end of the covenant!
That’s the sign of the covenant… a blood sacrifice.”

That’s why God became angry.

We live today under a new and better covenant
purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ…
I wonder how God feels about us
when we fail to walk faithfully?

-30-