Комментарий к Шмот 4:24

ויהי AND HE WAS — Moses was — DURING THE JOURNEY IN THE LODGING PLACE.

ויפגשהו ה', in this instance a reference to the Lord’s angel. Moses’ sin consisted of needlessly slowing down the carrying out of his mission by taking his wife and children along.

ויהי בדרך במלון, when he was on the way from the desert to Midian with his wife and children. The Torah tells of this incident after concluding the report of how G’d appointed Moses as the leader of the Jewish people.

ויבקש המיתו, He tried to kill him. The reason that the Torah describes G'd as only "trying" to kill Moses may be that the fact that Moses was on the way to carry out a commandment by G'd. This acted as partial protection based on Pessachim 8 that "people engaged in the process of carrying out a מצוה do not suffer harm either on their way to or from carrying out that מצוה." The מצוה which Moses was occupied with at that time acquired one heavenly advocate for him; this advocate was his companion at the time and prevented the destructive forces poised against him from approaching him too closely. Perhaps the Torah's description of all this happening בדרך במלון is to inform us that at the time Moses was not so much involved with his primary mission but with private matters; this is what provoked the destructive forces to attack him. Nonetheless he still enjoyed some protection seeing that he had not abandoned his mission. While the positive and negative forces were confronting each other, Tziporah removed the impediment to saving Moses' life by circumcising her son.

ויפגשהו ה', “the Lord encountered him;” as a rebuke for having concerned himself with private concerns at the inn, instead of first performing the circumcision on his son Eliezer. The excuse that he was on the way and that the circumstances were such that circumcision would place the life of the infant in danger, did no longer apply as the inn in question was already close to Egypt, not in the desert Some commentators claim that because this was close to Egypt, Tzipporah suggested that she should await the Exodus of the people of Israel while remaining at the inn, and join the Israelites on their way to the Holy Land from there. Moses entertained the thought to leave her there. Seeing that he considered the place safe enough to leave his wife and children there, he had no excuse not to immediately perform the circumcision. Still other commentators claim that he was punished because he should have circumcised Eliezer while still in Midian and not have taken Tzipporah and her children with him at all at that time. Still another view holds that this was the punishment for Moses having agreed with Yitro at the time he married Tzipporah that he would leave half of the children born to him uncircumcised. As a result, he was not at liberty to perform circumcision on his second son in Yitro’s house.

Moshe. You might ask: perhaps ויהי (he was, or: it was) refers to an event rather than to a person, as in (Bereishis 14:1), “ ויהי (It was) in the days of Amrafel,” and (ibid., 15:17), “ ויהי (It was) at sunset.” The answer is: since it says afterwards “ ויפגשהו ה' (Adonoy confronted him),” without stating who was confronted, we must say that ויהי refers to Moshe [and thus means: he was].

ויהי בדרך במלון ויפגשהו ה' ויבקש המיתו; Moses was not present at the inn. The Torah had written prior to this that Moses had taken his wife and his sons and let them ride on the donkey. (verse 20) The meaning of the verse is that he sent his family ahead of him. Immediately afterwards we are told that Moses himself returned to Egypt. If the Torah reports sequentially, Moses could not have been at the inn at the time Tzipporah had this encounter. ויבקש המיתו, the person under threat of death was the boy, seeing that the angel had assumed the form of a serpent about to swallow the little boy. This serpent then spit out the boy and began to devour him from the opposite end, swallowing up to the part where the circumcision was to be performed. At that point, ותקח צפורה צור, Tzipporah understood what the problem was, i.e. that they were being punished for being tardy in performing the boy’s circumcision so that she herself performed it with a sharp flint.

V. 24. ויפגשהו ד׳. derselbe Gott, der ihn soeben mit einer so großen Botschaft aussandte, und in dessen Sendung er eben begriffen war, trat ihm mit einem Male entgegen und zog es vor, ihn lieber sterben zu lassen. Es ist aus dem Folgenden evident, dass Mosche die Beschneidung seines Sohnes verabsäumt hatte und dies die Ursache seiner plötzlichen Todesgefahr gewesen. Ging er doch hin, die Erlösung eines Volkes zu vollbringen, dessen ganze Bedeutung auf Mila beruht, und da soll er in den Kreis dieses Volkes ein unbeschnittenes Kind bringen! Lieber ihn sterben, als ihn mit solchem Beispiel seine Sendung antreten lassen. So glauben wir das ויבקש verstehen zu müssen, ein Wort, das sonst eine doppelte Härte als Aussage von Gott erhalten würde. Gott, der Allbarmherzige, wünscht nicht den Tod eines Menschen, und wen Gott töten will, der ist tot. So aber bringt uns dies Wort das Bedeutsame zum Bewusstsein, dass Gottes Plan durch keinen Menschen bedingt ist, — הרבה שלוחים למקום — Gott ist kein Mensch, auch ein Mosche nicht, unentbehrlich; eine irrige Meinung, der durch das bisherige Dringen in Mosche zur Übernahme der Sendung Mosche Vorschub geleistet war, und der hier begegnet wird. Gott sieht auch seinen Boten, auch einem Mosche, nichts nach. Im Gegenteil: בקרבי אקדש. Das ist hier mit großen Zügen von vornherein gezeichnet.

ויהי בדרך במלון, “It was on the way, at the inn;” Rashi, explaining why the location was necessary to be given here, explains that the word מלון was chosen for what an inn represents. It represents the comfort it can offer the traveler in an otherwise hostile environment. Moses is criticised for not having his priorities right, and in paying attention first to the comforts offered instead of dealing with the law to circumcise his son at the earliest opportunity, i.e. the eighth day. This seems questionable, seeing that immediately after leaving the inn the baby would be exposed to the dangers of traveling in the desert. We must therefore assume that this took place after the meeting of Moses and Aaron, when the latter had already told Moses not to expose both his wife and his family to these dangers but to let them go back to Midian. He did so although members of the tribe of Levi such as Moses and Aaron were not required to perform menial labour in Egypt. Therefore, seeing that they intended to turn back home, there was no excuse for not performing the circumcision at once. Tzipporah would have stayed on at the inn until the infant had recovered from the circumcision. This is why Moses was punished.

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.

ויבקש המיתו AND HE SOUGHT TO PUT HIM TO DEATH — the angel sought etc., because he had not circumcised his son Eliezer; and because he had showed himself remiss in this, he brought upon himself the punishment of death. It has been taught in a Boraitha (Nedarim 31b): Rabbi José said: God forbid that this was so; Moses had not been remiss in this duty; but he thought, “If I circumcise him and immediately proceed on the journey, the child’s life will be in danger for three days. If, on the other hand, I circumcise him and wait three days — the Holy One, blessed be He, has commanded me, “Go return to Egypt!” Consequently, he obeyed His command, intending to circumcise the child as soon as the opportunity presented itself. There was therefore no remissness on his part; why, then, was he threatened with punishment? Because he busied himself with the affairs of the lodging place first, (i. e. because when he arrived at the inn he troubled himself first about eating and drinking. He should first have circumcised his son. Being now so much nearer Egypt, the danger that follows upon the circumcision was not so great, since the interval of time between the operation and his arrival in Egypt was now shorter than if he had circumcised him before he set out on the journey). See this in Treatise Nedarim. — The angel became a kind of serpent and swallowed him (Moses) from his head to his thigh, spued him forth, and then again swallowed him from his legs to that place (the membrum). Zipporah thus understood that this had happened on account of the delay in the circumcision of her son (Nedarim 32a; cf. Exodus Rabbah 5:8).

ויפגשהו ה', the 8th day on which he should have circumcised his son occurred [the word is derived from פגש, occurred, happened. Ed.] When the baby is circumcised the presence of the Lord, שכינה is perceived as being present waiting to induct the new member of the Jewish faith. Perhaps this is even the source of the practice to place a chair for the prophet Elijah at the circumcision ceremony.

Because his first concern was his lodging. You might ask: Rashi himself explained earlier that [Moshe did not circumcise him] because traveling endangers the child during the first three days [following circumcision]. If so, why was Moshe punished, [as they were in the midst of traveling]? The answer is: Moshe was now at an inn that was a distance of one day’s travel to Egypt. Such a short journey would not hurt or endanger the child. (Re”m)

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.”

When the time passed without Eliezer being circumcised, the Shechinah or the angel in charge of circumcision was ready to kill Moses for having been so remiss in fulfilling this commandment.

The angel turned into a kind of snake. [Rashi knew this] because otherwise, how could Zipporah have known that it was because of the circumcision that the angel wanted to kill Moshe? We need not object: Perhaps the angel told her expressly that it was because of the circumcision? For the answer is that the verse later states: “Then she said, ‘[You are] a bridegroom of blood [to me] because of the circumcision.’” This implies that Zipporah did not actually understand it until then. Whereas if the angel told her expressly, why did she not understand?

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, 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.