Exodus 4:24

4:24 Now on the way, at a place where they stopped for the night, ¹  the Lord met Moses and sought to kill him. ² 

Exodus 4:27

4:27 The Lord said ³  to Aaron, “Go to the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him at the mountain of God ⁴  and greeted him with a kiss. ⁵ 

[4:24]  ¹ tn Or “at a lodging place” or “at an inn.”

[4:24]  ² sn The next section (vv. 24-26) records a rather strange story. God had said that if Pharaoh would not comply he would kill his son – but now God was ready to kill Moses, the representative of Israel, God’s own son. Apparently, one would reconstruct that on the journey Moses fell seriously ill, but his wife, learning the cause of the illness, saved his life by circumcising her son and casting the foreskin at Moses’ feet (indicating that it was symbolically Moses’ foreskin). The point is that this son of Abraham had not complied with the sign of the Abrahamic covenant. No one, according to Exod 12:40-51, would take part in the Passover-exodus who had not complied. So how could the one who was going to lead God’s people not comply? The bold anthropomorphisms and the location at the border invite comparisons with Gen 32, the Angel wrestling with Jacob. In both cases there is a brush with death that could not be forgotten. See also, W. Dumbrell, “Exodus 4:24-25: A Textual Re-examination,” HTR 65 (1972): 285-90; T. C. Butler, “An Anti-Moses Tradition,” JSOT 12 (1979): 9-15; and L. Kaplan, “And the Lord Sought to Kill Him,” HAR 5 (1981): 65-74.

[4:27]  ³ tn Heb “And Yahweh said.”

[4:27]  ⁴ tn S. R. Driver considers that this verse is a continuation of vv. 17 and 18 and that Aaron met Moses before Moses started back to Egypt (Exodus, 33). The first verb, then, might have the nuance of a past perfect: Yahweh had said.

[4:27]  ⁵ tn Heb “and kissed him.”