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References
Genesis 17:10-14. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; 1999. p. 29.
Leviticus12:3. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; 1999. p. 231.
Genesis 34. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; 1999. pp. 70-2. The text specifically notes that Jacob’s sons spoke “with guile,” v. 13, p. 71, suggesting that their claim that they were all circumcised was misleading. This text dates from about 900 BCE. [Friedman RE. Who Wrote the Bible? New York: Summit Books; 1987. p. 248.]
Joshua 5:2-8. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; 1999. pp. 464-5. This passage seems to have been written sometime around 700 BCE. [Finkelstein I and NA Silberman. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. New York: Free Press; 2001. chap. 3.]
I Samuel 18:25-27. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; 1999. p. 614. David returned in triumph with 200 foreskins, though in II Samuel 3:14, p. 649, he claims he paid only “one hundred Philistine foreskins” for Michal.
Isaac E. The enigma of circumcision. Commentary 1967;43(Jan.):51-5. [here, p. 53.] He goes on to say that “[t]he interpretations of this passage have usually been even more peculiar than the passage itself.”
Exodus 4:24-26. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; 1999. p. 120.
Most authors provide a critique of their predecessors before attempting to explain the tale themselves. See especially Isaac E. The enigma of circumcision. Commentary 1967:43 (Jan.):51-5; and Eilberg-Schwartz H. God’s Phallus and Other Problems for Men and Monotheism. Boston: Beacon Press; 1994. pp. 151-61.
For the most part, I follow the lead of Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, whose book, God’s Phallus and Other Problems for Men and Monotheism, contains the most perceptive analysis of the Zipporah story. Eilberg-Schwartz and others maintain that Yahweh attacked Moses with the intention of damaging his genitals, just as he (or his angel) wrestled with Jacob ⎯ wounding him in the groin ⎯ when he, too, was on his way to assume leadership of the Hebrew people. They say Yahweh insists in these episodes that Israelite leaders not be too cocky (to use a word they avoid) in their relationship with the Lord: that the Israelites should assume a feminine role in their receptivity toward God, though masculine enough towards the outside world. Though this is presented as a theological argument, it has the additional advantage of clarifying the action of the Zipporah story. Eilberg-Schwartz H. God’s Phallus and Other Problems for Men and Monotheism. Boston: Beacon Press; 1994. pp. 151-61. See especially p. 161, where he states that “circumcision was for the ancient Israelites a symbol of male submission [to God].”
For recent works in this field, see Friedman RE. Who Wrote the Bible? New York: Summit Books; 1987 and Finkelstein I and NA Silberman. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts. New York: Free Press; 2001.
Friedman RE. Who Wrote the Bible? New York: Summit Books; 1987, gives the earliest date (circa 900 BCE) for the Zipporah story (p. 250). Friedman assigns the Genesis 17 command to circumcise all newborn boys ⎯ a P text ⎯ to around 500 BCE (p. 247). For further discussion of this dating of the circumcision mandate, see Glick LB. Marked in Your Flesh. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2005. pp. 14-7.
Genesis 32:25-32. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; 1999. p. 68.
One article on this story, in fact, is titled “Zipporah to the Rescue.” (Robinson BP. Zipporah to the rescue: a contextual study of Exodus IV 24-6. Vetus Testamentum 1986;36(4):447-61.) Robinson recognizes her service to Moses, but cannot fully explain it. Not all commentators have understood the passage this way, because there is no literal basis in the Hebrew text for the assumption that Zipporah’s actions came in response to her husband’s peril. Although the translation says “So Zipporah took a flint,” no motivation or causality can be inferred; the Hebrew word for that transition is the bland “and” that merely indicates sequential action.
In addition to the near-sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22), there are many biblical injunctions similar to Exodus 22:28: “You shall give Me the first-born among your sons.” JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; 1999. p. 161. For further discussion, see Day J. Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press; 1989; Levenson JD. The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press; 1993; and Glick LB. Marked in Your Flesh. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2005. pp. 22-4.
Exodus 13: 13, 15. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; 1999. p. 140.
See, for example, Jay N. Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press; 1992. See especially her introduction, pp. xxiii-xxvii.
The timely use of sacrifice to avert disaster is well illustrated in a biblical account, written about the same time as the Zipporah story, of a battle involving Mesha, king of Moab. His opponents, kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom, already had Yahweh’s blessing through the prophet Elisha, and Yahweh’s assistance had brought them inexorably close to total victory. Thereupon Mesha decided that he needed supernatural aid of his own. He “took his first-born son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him up on the wall as a burnt offering. A great wrath came upon Israel, so they withdrew from him …” Mesha’s deity was Chemosh, though the Israelite authors omit mention of this. The point was not that Chemosh’s power proved greater than Yahweh’s, it was that Mesha’s sacrifice was greater. And it handily excused the Israelites’ defeat. II Kings 3: 26-7. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; 1999. p. 781.
Leviticus 17:11-14. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; 1999. p. 248. See also Leviticus 19: 26, p. 252.
Leviticus 14: 14, 25. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; 1999. pp. 238, 239. These are instructions to cleanse a leper with a “guilt offering”: “When the lamb of guilt offering has been slaughtered, the priest shall take some of the blood of the guilt offering and put it on the ridge of the right ear of the one being cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot.” (Leviticus 14:25, p. 239). See also Leviticus 8:23-4 and 30, pp. 223 and 224.
I Samuel18:25-7, Genesis34. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society;1999. pp.614,71. See also Eilberg-Schwartz’s comments on domination, cited in note 9 (above).
Eilberg-Schwartz, among others, argues for this translation for theological reasons; see note 9, above. Eilberg-Schwartz H. God’s Phallus and Other Problems for Men and Monotheism. Boston: Beacon Press; 1994. pp. 151-61. If we follow his lead and assume that the word here means penis, we are able to explain Zipporah’s references to the “bridegroom of blood.”
M.E. Combs-Schilling argues precisely this in a chapter, “Bride’s Blood,” of her book, Sacred Performances. (Combs-Schilling ME. Sacred Performances: Islam, Sexuality, and Sacrifice. New York: Columbia University Press; 1989.) She comments that “anthropologists have been off the mark in single-mindedly concentrating on females and virginity in Mediterranean marriage practices, as opposed to males and their act of bloodspilling; it is striking how male-focused is the ritual …virginity, like the death of the animal in sacrifice, is a secondary rather than a primary factor in these rites …What is important is that the men spill blood in an act of some violence, so that they demonstrate for themselves and others their procreative role” (p. 209). She notes that, furthermore, “the groom must spill sacrificial blood, but this can be accomplished through substitute sacrifice” (p. 209; my emphasis); the substitute could be a bird smuggled into the bridal chamber and formally sacrificed over the bride’s genitals. Of her observations in Morocco (though we have to remember that this is contemporary evidence, not ancient), she says, “virginity is not always demanded, whereas bloodspilling is, a clear indication of what is culturally primary and what is secondary” (p. 210; her emphasis). Thus Zipporah’s circumcision of their son may have constituted a dual sacrifice. In the first place she has appeased Yahweh’s anger. And, as her comments seem to indicate, by smearing the sacrificial blood of the circumcision on her husband’s penis, she has, in effect, performed a substitute sacrifice that recreates Moses as “truly” a bridegroom of blood.
Deuteronomy illustrates how the virginity of a bride could be proved by preserving the spilled hymenal blood on a nuptial cloth. If a married woman’s parents must defend their daughter’s virginity at marriage, they need only produce the linen, declaring “‘…here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity!’ And they shall spread out the cloth before the elders of the town.” [Deuteronomy 22:16-17. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; 1999. p. 422.] This passage was composed a couple of centuries after the Zipporah narrative. Before nuptial bedlinens became common, the proof of a bride’s virginity might well have been her new husband’s blood-smeared penis, displayed before selected witnesses.
Joshua 5:2-8. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; 1999. pp. 464-5.
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Glick, N.S. (2006). Zipporah and the Bridegroom of Blood: Searching for the Antecedents of Jewish Circumcision. In: Denniston, G.C., Gallo, P.G., Hodges, F.M., Milos, M.F., Viviani, F. (eds) Bodily Integrity and the Politics of Circumcision. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4916-3_3
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