Wes Craven's Bridegroom of Blood

Exodus 4: 18-31

The time is now- and God tells Moses to head on back to Egypt and take care of business. But even before Moe gets the word, he tells Jethro he'll be leaving the Clampetts and heading back to Egypt to see if any of his own people are still alive.

Is Moses embarassed about his mission? Doesn't want to seem crazy or fanatical? Why doesn't he come straight out and say "God is sending me"? Maybe he's facing some of the same pressures to conform that we face thousands of years later.

But God sends him, and he goes.

Most of the rest of the chapter is puzzling and worrysome.

First off God tells Moses that He will harden Pharoah's heart so that he won't let the Israelites go- and then when he doesn't, He'll tell him (through Moses) that since you won't let my first born worship me, I'm going to kill your firstborn.

I understand that God knows Pharoah's heart and that all things (evil and good) work toward God's purpose- but this notion of God actually hardening Pharoah's heart is troublesome for me. For one thing, it seems to fly in the face of freewill. If I can't choose, then how can I be responsible for my actions?

I can get around this in my mind a little- simply by God's omnipotence. If He knows my heart- if He knows what I will choose- then the actual choice itself becomes fairly perfunctory. But if Pharoah was already going to say "no"- why did God need to harden his heart? Is He just speeding up the process? And does He harden my heart today?

This really confuses me- and while I've heard it explained away over and over- I'm not really comfortable with all those explanations. Regardless- if God is the father I believe Him to be, I can trust Him to act in my life according to my best interests, if I don't make it to heaven, it won't be because I got cheated by God- even if I don't understand all the inner-workings of His being (and it's a good thing, because I don't).

But now the other troubling part.

Moses and family are en route to carry out God's plans and when they stop for the night, God sets out to kill his son (or Moses- it's kind of ambiguous). It seems Moses hadn't circumcised him. So Zipporah, apparently well-skilled with the flint knife- does the job, drops the foreskin at Moses feet and calls him a "bridegroom of blood."

This seems way legalistic- Moses is setting out to do God's work- and while he's traveling- he almost loses his child. Scary- but maybe there are a couple of important lessons here.

1) You can't pick and choose God's will. Even if I'm serving God- if I'm consciously defying Him at the same time (which they seem to have been doing since Zipporah knew what had to be done) things aren't going to be ok. While that could lead to an unhealthy paranoia- am I doing everything? What if I forget...? The more healthy application may be to seek- knowing that God's not going to abandon you in the dark. And when you find...act.

2) and maybe even more importantly- this may be a wonderful example of the difference between covenants. This is the pre-Jesus get it all right, no room for error, no room for grace, blood on the doorpost kind of situation. Maybe Moses forgot, was preoccupied, was a little queasy with such medical procedures- whatever. But without Jesus to bridge the gap- the world was a much harsher place. And the lesson is...phew! We've got him- and his grace makes all the difference in the world.

The chapter ends with God sending Aaron to meet Moses. They meet with the Israelite elders- tell them of God's concern and hearing the wondrous news, they worship.