Moses and his family set off for Egypt in obedience to the Lord, but then Scripture records this strange incident when the family stopped for the night. Here is Moses, doing as God has told him when, suddenly, we find that God meets with him and is “about to kill him.”

Where has this come from? Why does God come to Moses in this way? The answer is in Zipporah’s response. She takes the knife and circumcises Moses’ son, and God leaves Moses alone.

Moses had agreed, rather reluctantly, to go to Egypt at God’s command, but he had disobeyed the Lord in other ways. An uncircumcised Israelite was to be cut off from the people (Genesis 17:14), so Moses disobedience was serious.

Like Jacob, Moses had to have this reckoning with the Lord. Jacob wrestled with the Lord at Peniel and left the encounter with a limp and a blessing. Jacob had to acknowledge that the Lord was sovereign and the source of all power and blessing. Moses, too, needed to acknowledge this because the Lord had chosen him for a great task.

Moses learned another important lesson that night. He may well have been afraid of going back to Egypt and of confronting Pharaoh, but the Lord’s actions reminded him that the wrath of God is a far greater power than the anger of any human being. What God thinks about us is so much more important than what other people think about us.

Others may mock us, abuse us, ignore us and threaten us, but only the Lord God has eternal life in his hand to give to us. We can make no better choice than to serve him and obey him wholeheartedly.

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NEWBOLD COMMUNITY CHURCH