Moses Encounters the Daemonic Aspect of God*

On his way back to Egypt to carry out the mission undertaken at the burning bush, Moses undergoes the bizarre and frightening experience of his second encounter with God, this time, of a totally different nature than the first. In Exodus 4:24-26, we are told: “And it came to pass on the way at the lodging place, that the Lord met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a flint, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet; and she said, Surely a bridegroom of blood art thou to me. So he let him alone. Then she said, A bridegroom of blood in regard of the circumcision.”

This puzzling and obscure passage has challenged scholarly investigation over the years. Roheim sees this episode as a myth of the origin of circumcision, a rite which, in some Arabian tribes, in Egypt, and other regions, is performed in connection with the marriage ceremony (8, p. 169 f.).

Theodor Reik views the incident as a displaced reference to the puberty rite of circumcision (7, p. 115). Andrew Peto sees Zipporah in this situation as a re-emergence of the ruthless, demonic mother-goddess, originating in the early traditions of the desert Bedouins (6, Vol. I, p. 326 f.). Martin Buber emphasizes the significance of Zipporah's act, not so much in terms of possible origins, but in its more immediate relationship to Moses and his situation at that time, in this respect coming closer to my own position. At the same time, he moves from the individual to the group, explaining that the circumcised son represents the entire clan of Israel, who is thus consecrated to God by Zipporah, here the symbolic mother of the clan. Thus, not only Moses, but the entire people, Israel, are involved in this act of conciliation and appeasement to ward off the dread punishment of an angry Deity (2, p. 56 f.).

My own viewpoint is that this strange episode can also be understood in terms of the personal psychodynamics of