Chizkuni, Exodus 4:24:1-4

ויהי בדרך במלון פסוק זה ראוי להיות דבוק אל ויקח משה את אשתו ואת בניו כמו שלם ישלם שדינו להיות דבוק אל חמשה בקר ישלם תחת השור, אלא ע״‎י שמסר לו את דבריו בשעת המסע הפסיק בינתיים. ויהי בדרך למלון, “it was while they had been on the way, at an inn; this verse ought to have been appended to verse 20 where we were told: ויקח מה את אשתו ואת בניו, “Moses took his wife and his sons;” it is similarly out of place as is Exodus 21,36 שלם ישלם “he is to pay double,” really belongs in verse 37 in that chapter. The reason why it is written where it is, is that the Torah did not want to interrupt what G-d had been saying to Moses.

ויפגשהו לשון ״‎אפגשם כדוב שכול״‎ (הושע ג,י״‎ח). ויפגשהו, “he encountered him;” the expression is remindful of Hoseah 13,8: אפגשם כדב שכול, “I attack them like a bear robbed of its young.”

ויבקש המיתו רשב״‎ג אומר: לתנוק, שנאמר כי חתן דמים אתה לי. צא וראה איזהו קרוי חתן או משה או התינוק הוי אומר התנוק. ד״‎א ויבקש המיתו למשה, שהרי היה לו למול את בנו ולהניחו עם אמו וללכת לבדו בחפזון בשלחותו של מקום. והוא הלך לאט לרגל אשתו ובניו שהוליך עמו. ויבקש להמיתו, “he attempted to kill him;” according to Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel, the angel attempted to kill Eliezer, the uncircumcised baby. (Talmud Nedarim 32) This is why Tzipporah called her son Eliezer a “groom acquired through blood” (of circumcision). [She meant that if she had not circumcised him she would have lost him. Ed.] A different interpretation: the angel tried to kill Moses. He had been guilty of not circumcising Eliezer on the eighth day of his life as G-d had commanded that it be done. He should have done so and left him with his mother in Midian. This would have enabled him to carry out the mission entrusted to him by G-d without delay and without hold ups due to consideration of the needs of his family. Instead he had walked slowly while his family was riding. (Nedarim 31)

ויבקש המיתו פרש״‎י ומפני מה נענש לפי שנתעסק במלון תחלה. וא״‎ת היה לו למשה רבינו להזדרז במילה תחלה שהרי יש בה כרת ובהליכת מצרים לא היו רק עשה. אלא יש לומר אין הכרת מוטל על האב אלא על הערל עצמו כדכתיב וערל זכר אשר לא ימול בשר ערלתו ונכרתה וגו׳‎ ולפיכך נתרשל בה ונתעסק במלון תחלה ועל ידי שנתרשל בה ויבקש המיתו. ויבקש המיתו, according to Rashi the reason for Moses’ punishment was not that he had not circumcised Eliezer on the way, but that this was not his first concern when arriving at the inn. To the question that seeing that neglecting to perform circumcision carries a very severe penalty, as opposed to delaying his trip to Egypt which was only the slight delay in performing a positive commandment, something that normally is not even punishable at all, so why did Moses indeed not perform the commandment of circumcision on time? The answer is that it is not the father of the child that is subject to this penalty, but the uncircumcised male when he is old enough to arrange for his own circumcision if his father failed to do so. The Torah spells this out when writing: וערל זכר אשר לא ימול בשר ערלתו ונכרתה, “when a male with a foreskin allows his foreskin not to be circumcised he will be cut off, etc.” (Genesis 17,14) This is why Moses was not bothered by attending to other details about his family’s accommodation before attending to circumcision of his son.

ותקח צפרה וגו'. על ידי החלשות שנפל על משה לא יכול למולו עד שנגלה הדבר לאשתו והיא מלתהו. ותקח צפורה וגו, “Tzipporah took etc.” what prompted Tzipporah was that her husband had been weakened by the attack of that angel so that he, personally, was unable to perform this commandment. He therefore revealed to his wife what had to be done, and she performed the deed.

צר אזמל חריף כמו חרבות צורים. ד״‎א צר לשון אבן כמו כשמיר חזק מצור. שהרי בדרך היתה ובפתע לקחה מה שמצאה. צר, a sharp scalpel. Compare Joshua 5,2 חרבות צורים, according to Rash’bam. An alternate interpretation: the word צר means “stone;” we find it as having this meaning also in Ezekiel 3,9: כשמיר חזק מצור, like a shamir, “even harder than rock.” She took what was at hand.

ותגע לרגליו של הילד זו המילה, כמו לא עשה את רגליו. וצריך לסרס את המקרא ותקח צפורה צר ותגע הצר לרגליו של ילד ותכרות את ערלת בנה. ד״‎א השליכה המילה לרגליו של מלאך להיות במקום קרבן והועיל וכן מצינו בגדעון ומנוח שהקריבו קרבן לפני המלאך. ד״‎א לרגליו של משה כי בדם המצוה יסתלק לו הנגף כמו שמצינו במצרים שדם הפסח לא היה נותן המשחית לבא. ותגע לרגליו; “she touched his male member.” This is another word being used to describe the area of it where the circumcision had to be performed. We find another occasion where the word: רגליו has been used in the same sense in Samuel II 19,25: לא עשה רגליו, “he had not attended to his private parts.” It is necessary to rephrase this verse so that it means: “Tzipporah took a scalpel and applied the sharp edge of it to the male member of her child and she cut off his foreskin.”Still another interpretation: the subject in the word: לרגליו are the angel’s feet. She considered what she had done as a kind of sacrifice to G-d, and placed it (the foreskin) at the feet of G-d’s representative, in this case, the angel. We find something similar to this when Gideon as well as Manoach in the Book of Judges, placed their “sacrifice” at the feet of the angel. (Compare Pessikta de Zutrata on Exodus 12,13 at length on this subject). Another explanation is that she threw the foreskin at Moshe’s feet because she thought that the blood of the mitzvah would banish the danger, just as we read later on in Egypt that the blood of the Pascal lamb kept the destroying angel away from the Jewish homes.

ותאמר אל משה. (ותאמר (אל משה, “she said: (to Moses)”

כי חתן דמים אתה לי בשבילי. מה שבקש המלאך להרגך הוא בשביל שנתחתנת בי שאנכי מדינית ואתה עברי ואין אני ראויה לך. כי חתן דמים אתה לי, “for you are a bridegroom to me on account of the circumcision.” She attributed the fact the Moses had almost be killedn to herself, i.e. as being her fault for having married her, a Midianite, something not appropriate for Hebrews to do. She considered herself as inferior to Moses.

וירף ממנו. המלאך, אחר שנמול אז הבינה שעל המילה היה ואמרה חתן דמים למולת מה שהיה משה חתן של דמים היינו למולות בשביל מילת בנו ולכך לא אמרה למולות אלא לאחר וירף ממנו. ד״‎א ותאמר על בנה כי חתן דמים אתה לי היא קרא לבנה חתן [דמים] ביום מילתו על שם המצוה, וכן הפי׳‎ אתה בני, חתן של דמים אתה לי שהרי המלאך שופך את דמי בעלי. חתן דמים למולת. מה שקראתי לבני חתן דמים היינו בשביל המולות וכל זמן שהיה בבית חמיו לא נענש לפי שלא היה בידו ספק לעשות בשביל חמיו שהיה מעכב כדאיתא בהגוזל שבקש המלאך להמיתו במלון בשביל בנו בכורו שעדיין לא מל ודבר זה גרם לבן בנו להיות עובד עבודת כוכבים. ולפיכך הקדים המלאך להרוג את משה מיד ותקח צפורה צור לפי שעל ידה היה העכוב. מ״‎מ סברת רוב העולם נוטה שעל בנה הקטן שבשני בניה אמרה כי חתן דמים אתה לי, אבל אין משיבים על האגדה. ואם תאמר הרי לעיל גבי ולכהן מדין פרש״‎י שפירש מעבודת כוכבים. אלא נ״‎ל לאו דווקא מעבודת כוכבים אלא שלא יהא נמול ויהא כגר תושב. וירף ממנו, “he let him alone;” after Tzipporah had performed the circumcision on her son, the angel left. and no longer tried to kill Moses; at that point Tzipporah understood what it had been that caused her husband to almost have been killed, i.e. the fact that Eliezer had remained uncircumcised until then. This is the reason why she had not referred to the word למולות, “on account of circumcision,” in the previous verse where she first described herself a bridegroom of blood. A different interpretation: As long as Moses and Tzipporah had lived in her father’s house, Moses had not been punished for not having circumcised Eliezer because his fatherinlaw would have tried to prevent him from doing so. Compare Yonathan ben Uzziel on the subject who attributes the fact that Moses’ grandson became an idolater to the fact that Gershom had not been circumcised as part of an agreement between Moses and his fatherinlaw that one of his sons could be circumcised but not the other. The reason that the angel tried to kill Moses was on account of Tzipporah, who had opposed his circumcision before. (Compare Judges 18,30, and the commentators there) Nonetheless most people understand the matter as being the non circumcision of Eliezer, not Gershom. At the same time no one has attempted to either explain (away) the aggadah of Moses having made a deal with his fatherinlaw concerning the subject of circumcision. If you were to counter that Rashi on verse 2,16 has already stated that Yitro had abandoned idolatry so how could he have opposed Moses’ circumcising his son, I believe that this Rashi need not be understood literally, i.e. Yitro had not converted to Abrahamitic monotheism, but had become what we call “a ger toshav” a proselyte who had accepted the seven basic laws G-d gave to mankind. He himself had certainly not circumcised himself, in the opinion of Rashi.

כי חתן דמים אתה לי לפי שפרש״‎י דמים כמו שופך דמים כמו צא איש הדמים וצריך לסרס המקרא כי דמים חתן אתה לי כלומר הורג חתני אתה לי. כי חתן דמים אתה לי, “for you are a bridegroom of blood to me.” According to Rashi, the word דמים should be understood as in שופך דמים, “spilling blood, killing. Compare Samuel II 16,7 צא איש הדמים, “get out murderer!” The verse ought to be rearranged so that it is understood as: כי דמים חתן אתה לי, “you were (potentially) a shedder of the blood of my groom for me.” (Alternately, these words could have been addressed to her baby Eliezer, meaning that the baby if not for the blood of his at the circumcision, it would have caused her groom’s death.