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Then Zipporah took a Flint … Circumcision as a Rite of Passage in Exod 4,24-26

Bob Becking

To cite this article: Bob Becking (2023) Then Zipporah took a Flint … Circumcision as a Rite of Passage in Exod 4,24-26, Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, 37:1, 3-16, DOI:

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Vol. 37, No. 1, 3-16, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09018328.2023.2222036

Then Zipporah took a Flint …

Circumcision as a Rite of Passage in Exod 4,24-26

¹

Bob Becking

Utrecht University

De Hunze 8; NL-3448 XH Woerden, Netherlands [email protected]

ABSTRACT: This article about Exod 4,24-26 argues that God is willing to kill Moses since he had not circumcised his son. The ritual described in the textual unit is an example of circumcision as a life cycle ritual at the threshold of adulthood. Originally, circumcision in ancient Israel was not carried out on boys at the eighth day after birth. As a result of the construction of a new identity after the return from exile, the age of circumcision changed from early puberty to newborn. Exod 4,24-26 offers a glimpse at the earlier custom.

Key words: Exodus 4, Circumcision, Divine wrath

Introduction

Exodus 4,24-26 is an enigmatic text for at least two reasons: 1) Why is God willing to end the life of Moses? 2) What kind of ritual is described in the text? The Hebrew Bible suggests that circumcision after birth had been a ritual since times immemorial. It is, however, remarkable that the ritual is only described in post-exilic texts. D.L. Smith-Christopher has suggested that the Babylonian Exile provoked a shift from circumcision performed on the threshold of manhood to the seventh day of the life of a young boy and that this change was made normative in an attempt to redefine Israelite identity after the return.² While this idea is plausible, I will read Exod 4,24-26 as a relic from an older age, before this shift.

1. With this essay, I would like to thank Kåre Berge for his academic friendship over the years and for the subtle way in which he would indicate flaws in my arguments.

This contribution is based on an article I wrote for a volume Private Parts and Public Debate: Circumcision as a Contested Practice that was accepted by its editors but never saw the light of day.

2. D.L. Smith-Christopher, The Religion of the Landless: The Social Context of the Babylonian Exile (Bloomington, IN: Meyer-Stone Books, 1989).

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduc- tion in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

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1. Exodus 4,24-26 1.1. Text and Translation

The biblical book of Exodus narrates the deeds and doings of the Hebrew- born but Egyptian- raised Moses. His abrupt and brusque conduct against the Egyptian supervisors who were tyrannizing the Hebrew workforce forces Moses to live in exile in the Sinai desert. Here he meets his wife Zipporah and encounters the deity YHWH, who calls him through the tongues of the burning bush. Moses is given the task to liberate the suffering Hebrews from the house of slavery that Egypt had become. On his way from his desert dwelling to Pharaoh of Egypt, Moses has a second encounter with the divine:

It happened en route at the overnight encampment on the way, that the L^ORD encountered Moses,

and aimed to kill him.

So Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin.

And threw it at his feet and she said,

“You are indeed a groom of blood to me!”

So He left him alone.

At that time she said,

“You are a groom of blood”

—because of the circumcision.³

- The noun mālôn, “a place to stay overnight,” occurs eight times in the Hebrew Bible.⁴ It refers to a refuge where travelers can find shel- ter for the night.

- The verb pāgaš refers to the encounter of persons who meet in the course of travel. The verb has the connotation of a fortuitous meet- ing; the encounter was not planned but took place accidentally.⁵ - LXX—ἄγγελος κυρίου—and Targ אכאלמ—try to attenuate an inimi-

cal image of God by introducing an “angel.”⁶

3. Exod 4,24-26.

4. Gen 42,27; 43,21; Exod 4,24; Josh 4,3; Isa 10,19; 37,24; Jer 9,1; 2 Kgs 19,23; see also 4QShirb 3,6, and the remarks by C. Houtman, Exodus Volume 1 (HCOT;

Kampen: Kok, 1993), pp. 433-434.

5. See, for instance, Gen 32,18: “when Esau, my brother, happens to meet you”; F.

Rundgren, “Zum Lexicon des Alten Testaments,” Acta Orientalia 21 (1953), pp.

301-45; Houtman, Exodus Volume 1, p. 434; DCH VI, p. 651.

6. See, e.g., B.S. Childs, Exodus (OTL), London: SCM Press, 1974, p. 96; W.H.

Schmidt, Exodus1. Teilband Exodus 1-6 (BK, II/1), Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukir- chener, 1988, p. 217; Houtman, Exodus Volume 1, pp. 434-435; B. van ’t Veld, Exo- dus deel 1 (POT), Kampen 2007, p. 92; C.B. Hays, ““Lest ye perish in the way”:

Ritual and Kinship in Exodus 4: 24-26,” Hebrew Studies 48 (2007), pp. 39-54 (40);

T.B. Dozeman, Exodus, Eerdmans Critical Commentary (Grand Rapids, Cambridge:

Wm.B. Eerdmans, 2009), p. 147.

1.2. A few Exegetical Remarks

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- The verb bāqaš can be rendered with “to seek” or “to ask.” In this context, the most adequate translation would be “to be after some- thing.” The same connotation also occurs in Exod 2,15 and 4,19:

o When Pharaoh heard about this matter,⁷ he tried to kill Moses.

o Now the LORD said to Moses in Midian,

“Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were after your life have died.”

In Exod 4,24 the mortal threat has changed. No longer are the Egyp- tians after Moses, but YHWH. A motivation for the divine threat is not given.⁸

- The suffix 3.m.s. in hamîtô refers to Moses, the last named person.⁹ - The noun ṣor, “flint,” refers to a sharp implement made of stone or

rock that occasionally is used for circumcision.¹⁰ Such a stone knife is depicted on a wall painting inside the tomb of Ankh-ma-Hor at Saqqara in Egypt, dating to ca. 2500 BCE. The scene features boys of about sixteen being circumcised, probably as part of a rite de passage into adulthood.¹¹

- The name and age of Zipporah’s son are not mentioned. Although it is impossible to substantiate this claim, I assume that the boy was no longer a baby and probably reaching adolescence since some time must have elapsed after the birth of the child.

- All male primates—human and non-human—possess a foreskin (He- brew ‘ārlâ). This preputium is a fold of skin on the penis that pro- tects the underlying glans.

- Although the text is unclear at this point, I assume that the feet at which Zipporah smeared the blood were not those of her son but those of Moses since it makes sense that she was aiming at making a connection between father and son while implicitily blaiming Moses for not having executed the ritual earlier.

7. Moses killing an Egyptian supervisor; Exod 2,11-14.

8. See also Houtman, Exodus Volume 1, p. 435. Targ Ps Jonathan has an added narrative claiming that Rehuel forbad Moses to circumcise his son.

9. Thus correct Rainer Albertz, Exodus. Band I: Exodus 1-18 (Zürcher Bibelkommen- tare AT, 2,1), Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2012, p. 96; pace Schmidt, Exo- dus1, pp. 221-222; C. Berner, Die Exoduserzählung: Das literarische Werden einer Ursprungslegende Israels (FAT, 73; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), pp. 131-133, who construe the suffix as referring to the child.

10. See Josh 5,2.3; Dozeman, Exodus, p. 155; elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible the instrument used for circumcision is not mentioned.

11. N. Kanawati, A. Hassan. The Teti Cemetery at Saqqara: Volume II: The Tomb of Ankhmahor (Sydney: The Australian Centre for Egyptology, Macquarie University, 1997).

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2. Circumcision: Two Different Rituals

In various religions and customs worldwide, two circumcision rituals can be detected. On the one hand, in Judaism, Samaritanism, and Islam, infant males are circumcised roughly a week after birth. On the other hand, in many traditional cults around the world, boys are circumcised at puberty in a rite of passage to adulthood and membership of the tribe.

2.1. Shortly after Birth

Circumcision is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible some 50 times. On all occa- sions, the Hebrew verb mûl, “to circumcise,” refers to the removal of the foreskin from the penis of a newborn child. This act is not seen as a bodily mutilation but as a sign of a relationship with YHWH.¹² In ancient Israelite folklore and later Jewish, Samaritan, and Islamic practice, circumcision took place on the eighth day after the birth of a new male member of the community:¹³

And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.¹⁴

And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.”¹⁵

And everyone who is born, the flesh of whose foreskin is not circumcised on the eighth day, belongs not to the children of the covenant that YAHWEH made with Abraham, but to the children of destruction.¹⁶

A child may never be circumcised before the eighth day and never later than the twelfth day.¹⁷

And why did the Torah ordain circumcision on the eighth day? In order that the guests shall not enjoy themselves while his father and mother are not in the mood for it.¹⁸

It is not permitted to postpone the circumcision beyond the night of the eighth day.¹⁹

12. See, however, F. Stavrakopoulou, “Making Bodies: On Body Modification and Religious Materiality in the Hebrew Bible,” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 2 (2013), pp. 532-553.

13. It is intriguing to note that the composite, gnostic religion of the Mandeans that shares many elements with Judaism and Islam, disapproves of the act of circumcision. To the Mandeans, repeated baptism by immersion is the entrance rite that pre- pares them for the world of light. Even still, circumcision has been forced upon Mandeans by Muslims obsessed with the correctness of orthodox Islam; see E. Lu- pieri, The Mandaeans: The Last Gnostics (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publish- ing, 2001).

14. Lev 12,3.

15. Luke 1,59-60 (Jewish).

16. Jubilees 15:26.

17. Mishna Arakin 2:2 (Jewish).

18. Talmud Niddah 31b (Jewish).

19. Kitāb al-Kāfī XIII:2-6; Samaritan.

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Circumcise your sons when they are seven days old as it is cleaner and the flesh grows faster and because the earth hates the urine of the uncircumcised.

(Al-Sadiq; Shia Islam)²⁰

2.2. At the Threshold of Adolescence

The other age at which boys are circumcised is around puberty, at their entrance to the tribe. This practice is widespread; I will give only a few exam- ples. In Africa this custom is known among the Yoruba and Igbo of Nigeria.

In southern Africa boys of the Zulu, Lemba,²¹ and AmaXhosa tribes are also circumcised close to or after entering puberty. In the traditional Masai culture of Kenya, boys of about 12 are circumcised in a rite de passage to adulthood.²² Aboriginals of Australia traditionally take part in a comparable ritual.

As part of a ritual associated with attaining full tribal membership, initiates must sacrifice body parts such as teeth, hair, and foreskin as a test of brav- ery.²³ In the New World, Christopher Columbus reported that circumcision was practiced by Native Americans,²⁴ and the habit was known amongst the Incas, Mayas, and Aztecs.²⁵ In the Philippines, ritual circumcision (tuli) is still practiced as both a marker of male identity and an improvement to the penis; boys are circumcised as a sign of their transition into adulthood.²⁶ 2.3. Is there a Connection between the Two?

Both rituals are connected with the circle of life and both function as an entrance into the community. Even so, the two types of circumcision are performed at different thresholds of life. Is there any connection between them?

For an answer, I will now turn to the ancient Near East before presenting my position in §4.4.

20. Al-Kalini, Abu-Ja’afar Muhammad Ibn-Yaqub. Al-Furu’min al-Kafi Volume 6 (Teheran: Dar al-Kutub al-Islamiyyah, 1981), p. 34; (Al-Sadiq; Shia Islam).

21. See H.A. Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe, Vol. I: Social Life (London:

Macmillan, 1927), pp. 72-73, 94; M. le Roux, The Lemba – A Lost Tribe of Israel in Southern Africa? (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 2003), pp. 209-224.

22. See H. Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism: An Anthropology of Israelite Religion and Ancient Judaism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), esp.

pp. 149-153.

23. D. Doyle, “Ritual Male Circumcision,” Journal of the Royal College of Physi- cians Edinburgh 35 (2005), pp. 279-285.

24. D. Gairdner, “The Fate of the Foreskin: a Study of Circumcision,” British Medi- cal Journal (1949), 2:1,433-1,437; M.C. Alanis, R.S. Lucidi, “Neonatal Circumci- sion: A Review of the World’s Oldest and Most Controversial Operation,” Obstetri- cal and Gynaecological Survey 59 (2004), pp. 379-395.

25. Doyle, “Ritual Male Circumcision,” p. 279.

26. See L.B. Glick, “Real Men: Foreskin Cutting and Male Identity in the Philip- pines,” in: G.C. Denniston et al. (eds), Circumcision and Human Rights (Dordrecht:

Springer, 2009), pp. 155-174.

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3. The Ancient Near East

The custom of circumcision probably has deep roots in history. The oldest evidence is the tomb of Ankh-ma-Hor in Egypt at Saqqara (ca. 2500 BCE), already mentioned above.²⁷ The second oldest, a fragmentary relief discov- ered in the funerary temple of Pharaoh Djedkare (ca. 2400 BCE), similarly depicts a boy in his teens being circumcised.²⁸ The theme of circumcision also occurs in texts written in and about ancient Egypt. The Uha-stela at the Oriental Institute in Chicago, also dated ca. 2400 BCE, relates the following:

An offering which the king and Anubis, Who is Upon His Mountain, He Who is in Ut, the Lord of the Holy Land, give: An invocation-offering to the Count, Seal-Bearer of the King of Rekhyt [Lower Egypt], Sole Companion, and Lector Priest, honored with the great god, the Lord of Heaven, Uha, who says: I was one beloved of his father, favored of his mother, whom his broth- ers and sisters loved. When I was circumcised, together with one hundred and twenty men, and one hundred and twenty women, there was none thereof who hit out, there was none thereof who was hit, there was none thereof who scratched, there was none thereof who was scratched. I was a commoner of repute, who lived on his own property, plowed with his own span of oxen, and sailed in his own ship, and not through that which I had found in the pos- session of my father, honored Uha.²⁹

This text reports that men as well as women were circumcised in a collective ritual that, in the case of the son of Uha at least, involved an adult, not an adolescent, although the participants may have included both age groups.³⁰ In book 17 of the ancient Egyptian “Book of the Dead,” the sun-god Ra is said to have circumcised himself.³¹ In his Histories, Herodotus states that circumcision was a common custom in ancient Egypt.³²

Outside of Egypt, there is varied evidence for circumcision in the ancient Near East. From the ‘Amuq valley in upper Syria, three figurines of circum-

27. Kanawati, Hassan. The Teti Cemetery at Saqqara; Ph.J. King, L.E. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), pp. 43-44.

28. See M. Megahed, H. Vymazalová, “Ancient Egyptian Royal Circumcision from the Pyramid Complex of Djedkare,” Anthropologie 49 (2011), pp. 155-164 (156- 158).

29. E. Teeter, Ancient Egypt: Treasures from the Collection of the Oriental Institute University of Chicago. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2003, 33-34; see also J.M. Sasson, “Circumcision in the Ancient Near East,” JBL 85 (1966), 473-76.

30. See C. Eyre, “Funerals, Initiation and Rituals of Life in Pharaonic Egypt,” in: A.

Mouton, J. Patrier (eds), Life, Death and Coming of Age in Antiquity: Individual Rites of Passage in the Ancient Near East and adjacent Regions (PIHANS, 124; Lei- den: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2014), pp. 287-308.

31. The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani in the British Museum by E.A. Wallis Budge (London : British Museum, 1894).

32. Hist., ii 37:2; see J.E. Harris, K.R Weeks, X-raying the Pharaohs (New York:

Scribners, 1973); B. Halioua, B. Ziskind. Medicine in the Days of the Pharaohs (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), pp. 82-94.

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cised men are known.³³ Whether the custom of circumcision was known in the Sumerian, Babylonian, or Assyrian cultures of ancient Mesopotamia is debated.³⁴ A Bronze Age ivory from Megiddo depicts two naked Canaanite slaves who apparently are circumcised.³⁵ This would indicate that the custom was known in Canaan before the Hebrews settled there. The Ugaritic tablet KTU 1.24 contains a myth about the marriage of the moongod Yarikh and his bride Nikkal that is most probably based on a Hurrian precursor. R. Allan has suggested the following translation of lines 2 and 3:

Harhab counsellor of circumcision (qẓ), Harhab counsellor of weddings.³⁶

If correctly understood, the text would point to a custom of circumcision practiced either at puberty or before marriage, as a young adult, among the Hurrians. The absence of other corroborating evidence leaves both options open.³⁷

4. The Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel

Within the biblical narrative, the custom of circumcision is first mentioned in the stories about Abraham. Genesis 17 narrates the establishment of a covenant between God and Abraham, wherein Abraham is circumcised as a sign of this relationship, at age 99. However, he dutifully circumcises his thirteen- year-old son Ishmael and all male members of his house on the same day YHWH issues the command (17,23-27; cf. vv. 10-13). The norm thereafter, however, is to be the circumcision of all males, freeborn or slave, born into an Israelite household (Gen 17,10-13) on the eighth day after birth, and any male slaves added to a household, by implication, as soon as possible.

It is curious, then, that Josh 5,2-9 reports a mass ceremony of circumcision after the “conquest of the promised land” in which all males born during the desert wandering were circumcised. Read within the metanarrative from Genesis-Kings, the latter ceremony implies that for some reason, the Israel- ites failed to continue to observe the terms of the covenant established in Gen

33. R.J. Braidwood, L.S. Braidwood, editors, Excavations in the Plain of Antioch, I (OIP, 61; Chicago: OIP Press, 1960), pp. 516-518; see also Sasson, “Circumcision in the Ancient Near East.”

34. J.M. Glass, “‘Religious Circumcision: A Jewish View,” BJU International 83 (1999), pp. 17-21, is positive while M. Stol, F.A.M. Wiggermann, Birth in Babylonia and the Bible: Its Mediterranean Setting (Cuneiform Monographs, 14; Groningen:

Styx, 2000), p. 178, treat the evidence differently.

35. Edited by G. Loud, The Megiddo Ivories (Oriental Institute Publications, 52;

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939), Plate 4.2a. See R. De Vaux, The Early History of Israel (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), p. 287.

36. R. Allan, “Now that the Summer’s Gone: Understanding qẓ in KTU 1.24,” SEL 16 (1999), pp. 19-25.

37. See N. Wyatt, “Circumcision and Circumstance: Male Genital Mutilation in An- cient Israel and Ugarit,” JSOT 33 (2009), pp. 405-431.

4.1. Internal Image

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17 after leaving Egypt and entering the covenant at Sinai.³⁸ Only at this occa- sion, the ritual that elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible is presented as an act on an individual within the constraint of the family is now carried out collective- ly. The collective circumcision functions as a threshold-ritual for those who would become members of the community in Canaan.

The ritual narrated in Exod 4,24-26 is, at the very least, also strange and an anomaly when read in conjunction with Gen 17. I will make two sets of remarks that show that the view contained in this short narrative unit does not reflect the historical image.

4.2. The Consequences of Literary Criticism

As we now have it, the Hebrew Bible is the result of a long and complex scribal tradition.³⁹ It is sufficient to note that by the end of the monarchic period (by 586 BCE), the ancient traditions—transmitted both orally and in written sources—were merged into what scholars call the Primary History.

This history, which forms the fabric of Genesis 2-2 Kings 25, narrates the deeds and actions of the Israelites from shortly after the creation to the threshold of the Babylonian Exile.⁴⁰ After the Babylonian Exile, a Priestly thread, in which all sorts of cultic and moral conduct were stipulated, was woven into the story, while later redactions modified minor points of the text.⁴¹

The majority of the references to the act of circumcision in the Hebrew Bible are to be found in the Priestly thread.⁴² This P-document (or redaction) stresses the importance of priesthood, cult, and ritual cleanliness for the con- tinuity of the community.⁴³ According to P, the world we live in was created

38. See next to J. Goldingay, “The Significance of Circumcision,” JSOT 25 (2000), 3-18; King, Stager, Life in biblical Israel, 45-46; see, however, the critical remarks by F. Stavrakopoulou, “Making Bodies: On Body Modification and Religious Mate- riality in the Hebrew Bible,” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 2 (2013), 532-553.

39. See next to the various “introductions to the Old Testament,” K. van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007).

40. See, e.g., A. Rofé, Introduction to the Composition of the Pentateuch (The Bibli- cal Seminar, 58; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999).

41. See, e.g., K. Grünwaldt, Exil und Identität. Beschneidung, Passa und Sabbat in der Priesterschrift (BBB, 85; Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1992); J.A. Wagenaar, Origin and Transformation of the Ancient Israelite Festival Calendar (BZAR, 6; Wiesbaden:

Harrasowitz, 2006); Smith-Christopher, Religion of the Landless; M. Emmendörffer, Gottesnähe. Zur Rede von der Präsenz JHWHs in der Priesterschrift und verwandten Texten (WMANT, 155; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019).

42. For my purposes here, the question of whether P was an independent document that was later combined with the existing tradition or merely a redaction of the traditional text is unimportant.

43. See, e.g., Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism and N. Margalit, “Priestly Men and Invisible Women: Male Appropriation of the Feminine and the Exemption of Women from Positive Time-Bound Commandments,” AJS Review 28/2 (2004), pp. 297-316.

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in an orderly way. The layout of the cosmos and the animal kingdom is char- acterized by order. The world is portrayed as an intelligent design in which there are clear, often contrasting distinctions, such as above-below, dark- light, and clean-unclean. A comparable organizational idea is present in the P-source about time as experienced by humankind. The priestly writers most probably introduced the scheme of the seven-day week and rearranged the cultic calendar into a system of two spring festivals (Passover and the Feast of Weeks) and three autumnal festivals (the New Year festival, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Booths).⁴⁴

In P, circumcision functions as an identity marker for the “real Israel.”

Genesis 17 is a typical Priestly text that narrates how God concluded a covenant with Abraham. Circumcision is seen as a sign of this covenant: all male members of the community who are circumcised will enjoy the benefits of this divine relationship.⁴⁵ The circumcision has to take place on the eighth day after birth:

He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant.⁴⁶

This week-related scheme—the eight day is after one week—is characteristic of P and is paralleled by the cleansing period for women after the birth of male offspring:

If a woman conceives and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days. As at the time of her menstruation, she shall be unclean.⁴⁷

4.3. The Exile and Return

The Babylonian Exile was a traumatic event for ancient Israel. Although daily life in Babylonia was relatively positive for the deportees and their offspring, the devastation of the temple and the loss of independence left deep marks.⁴⁸ After the Persians took over the Babylonian Empire, a process of

44. See Grünwaldt, Exil und Identität; Wagenaar, Origin and Transformation.

45. See D.A. Bernat, Sign of the Covenant. Circumcision in the Priestly Tradition (SBL: Ancient Israel and its Literature, 3; Atlanta: SBL, 2009).

46. Genesis 17,12-13.

47. See Lev 12,2; This seven day period, which is seen as a transition between “unclean” and “clean,” is also present in the laws of “leprosy”; see Lev 14,8-9.

48. See R. Albertz, Die Exilszeit: 6. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (BE, 7; Stuttgart: Kohlham- mer, 2001); O. Lipschits, The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2005); H.M. Barstad, History and the Hebrew Bible: Studies in Ancient Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography (FAT, 61; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), pp. 90-134; B. Becking, “In Babylon: The Exile in Historical (Re)construction,” in B. Becking, A. Cannegieter, W. van de Poll, A.- M. Wetter (eds), From Babylon to Eternity: The Exile Remembered and Constructed in Text and Tradition (London: Equinox, 2009), pp. 4-33; B. Becking, “Global

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return took place, though the return from Exile was neither instantaneous nor massive. In the century after Cyrus’ conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE, waves of returnees settled in Jerusalem and its surroundings. These people found themselves in conflict with the descendants of those who had remained in the land. Both groups claimed to be the “real Israel.”⁴⁹ The biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which are later than the P-sources, show traces of this often contentious negotiation of a new identity. The fact that circumcision is not mentioned in Ezra and Nehemiah may indicate that this custom was not a bone of contention between the various groups, meaning that the habit of circumcising boys on the eighth day after their birth—as prescribed in P—

was relatively quickly accepted in post-exilic Israel.

The exilic experience was formative in the process of reformulating the custom of circumcision as part of the new post-exilic identity. Three dimen- sions are important:

First, it is debated whether the Babylonians or the Persians practiced circumcision. It is conceivable that during the Exile, the memory of this traditional rite de passage gave more importance to the custom of circumcision, which then functioned as a boundary marker and a sign of distinction between the Babylonian and exilic cultures.⁵⁰ During the Persian period, the need for separation from the ruling culture might have reified this process.

Second, the seven-day scheme was an early post-exilic “invention.” This consensus among scholars is based on the following four observations: (1) The fact that texts like Gen 2,2–3 that imply a seven-day scheme are post- exilic and fit the designed time ideology of the P-source. (2) The seven-day scheme cannot be reconciled with the celestial rhythms. Lunar periods are not completed in seven days and the number of days in the solar year is not a multiple of seven. (3) The seven-day scheme is not corroborated by the con- cepts of time in surrounding cultures. No calendric systems that reckon time by a seven-day week are known from the ancient Near East. (4) During the

Warming and the Babylonian Exile,” in J. Ahn, J. Middlemass (eds.), By The Irriga- tion Canals Of Babylon: Approaches To The Study of The Exile (LHB/OTS, 526;

London: T&T Clark, 2012), pp. 49-62.

49. See, e.g., K.E. Southwood, Ethnicity and the Mixed Marriage Crisis in Ezra 9- 10: An Anthropological Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); D. Rom- Shiloni, Exclusive inclusivity: identity conflicts between the exiles and the people who remained (6th-5th centuries BCE (LHBOTS, 543; London, New York: Blooms- bury, 2013), pp. 33-47; D.P. Moffat, Ezra’s social drama: identity formation, mar- riage and social conflict in Ezra 9 and 10 (LHBOTS, 579; London, New York:

Bloomsbury, 2013).

50. Thus Smith-Christopher, Religion of the Landless; R. Albertz and R. Schmitt, Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant (Winona Lake, IN:

Eisenbrauns, 2012), pp. 393-395. S. Johnsdotter and B. Essén, “Cultural Change after Migration: Circumcision of Girls in Western Migrant Communities,” Best Practice &

Research Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology 32 (2016), pp. 15-25, give good comparable material for the influence of migration on cultural-religions patterns from recent times.

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exile, the Israelites must have become familiar with the Babylonian creation epic Enūma Eliš.⁵¹ This text, which was recited yearly at the Babylonian New Year festival (akītu) and narrates the emergence of the cosmos and the establishment of order therein, is seven tablets (or “chapters”) long. The number seven then influenced the P-concept of time.

Third, the prophet Ezekiel lived and worked during the early days of the Babylonian Exile. The biblical book that arose out of his words and deeds, Ezekiel, contains a group of oracles against the nations.⁵² As a means of com- fort and in an attempt to have the Judean deportees cope with their situation, these chapters proclaim the downfall of all nations that troubled Israel’s existence. In three instances, remarks are made on the fate of the heroes of these nations in their afterlives. They can be found in the uttermost parts of the pit, and they share the fate of those who have not been circumcised:

The mighty chiefs shall speak of them, with their helpers, out of the midst of Sheol: ‘They have come down, they lie still, the uncircumcised, slain by the sword.’⁵³

From these words, it can be inferred that according to the book of Ezekiel, circumcision was understood as a condition for a better existence in the neth- erworld. Combined with high child mortality rates in ancient times, this idea could have been an impetus for making circumcision a ceremony for new- borns, as opposed to being part of a ritual for entering adulthood.⁵⁴

It has often been remarked that in ancient Israel, circumcision was not executed in the temple precinct by a priest but in a household context by the head of the family. It can be construed as part of family religion.⁵⁵ After the exile, the traditional tribal structures were no longer in existence. It was the bêt ’āb, “house of the father; family,” that had become the central unit of the

51. For the text of this composition, see P. Talon, Enuma Eliš, The Standard Babylo- nian Creation Myth (State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts, 4; Helsinki: Neo- Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2005); on the influence of Enūma Eliš on Gen 1,1-2,3 see K.L. Sparks, ““Enūma Elish” and Priestly Mimesis: Elite Emulation in Nascent Judaism,” JBL 126 (2007), pp. 625-648.

52. Ezek 25-32; on the book of Ezekiel see: P.M. Joyce, Ezekiel: A Commentary (LHBOTS, 482; London: T&T Clark, 2007).

53. Ezek 32,17; see also Ezek 28,10; 31,18.

54. See A. Lods, “Notes sur deux croyances hébraïques relatives à la mort et à ce qui la suit: le sort des incirconcis dans l’au-delà et la victoire sur Léviatan,” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 87 (1943), pp.

271-297; W.H. Propp, “The Origins of Infant Circumcision in Israel,” Hebrew Annual Review 11 (1987), pp. 355-370.

55. R. Albertz, Religionsgeschichte Israels in alttestamentlicher Zeit 2 (ATDEB, 8/2 ; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1992), pp.422-423; R. Albertz and R.

Schmitt, Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012), pp. 393-395; Miller, Religion of Ancient Israel, pp. 70- 71.

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community.⁵⁶ This sociological shift might have been important to the central place newborn circumcision occupied in the post-exilic era.

After the Exile, Israel had to reformulate its traditional identity in a radically changed context. The Priestly Code is the literary deposit of this process. During the Exile, the cultural practice of circumcision was appropriated as a religious sign, and the concept of circumcision was reframed as part of the paradigm of covenantal theology. Circumcision now functioned as an identity marker indicating the boundary between inclusion and exclusion.

The custom had become both an internal and external marker for the community.⁵⁷ It defined the boundary of the community as well as its membership.

Through the act of circumcision, the male body was “materially marked and manifested as a site of YHWH-religion.”⁵⁸

4.4. Conclusion

In sum: I am of the opinion that as a result of the exilic experience and the reflection on it leading to a reformulation of Israel’s religious identity, the traditional life-stage for circumcision had radically been changed to the early days in the life of a new-born boy. This shift influenced the customs of Juda- ism, Samaritanism, and Islam but did not touch the folklore elsewhere.

As for the question whether the childbirth ritual and the puberty interven- tion relate, my answer would be that they both go back to a very old ritual in which by offering a small part of the body, a boy became member of the community.

5. Back to Exod 4,24-26

The short story in Exod 4,24-26 can be seen as an erratic narrative block from early times.⁵⁹ The text reflects the pre-exilic custom of circumcision.

56. See, e.g., J.P. Weinberg, The Citizen-Temple Community, trans. D.L. Smith- Christopher (JSOTSup, 151; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992).

57. See, e.g., V. Wagner, “Profanität und Sakralisierung der Beschneidung im Alten Testament,” Vetus Testamentum 60 (2010), pp. 447-464; Jacobs, The Body as Pro- perty, pp. 35-46; A. Faust, “The Bible, Archaeology, and the Practice of Circum- cision in Israelite and Philistine Societies,” JBL 134 (2015), pp. 273-290; T. Römer,

“Beschneidung in der hebräischen Bibel und ihre literarische Begründung in Genesis 17,” in M. Jung, M. Bauks, A. Ackermann (eds.), Dem Körper eingeschrieben: Ver- körperung zwischen Leiberleben und kulturellem Sinn, Studien zur Interdisziplinären Anthropologie (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2016), pp. 227-241.

58. Stavrakopoulou, “Making Bodies,” p. 535.

59. See also Childs, Exodus, p. 95; K. Berge, “Litteraerkritikkens svanesang?:

metodekritiske bemerkninger til litteraerkritikken med utgangspunkt i Exodus 3-4,”

Norsk Teologisk Tidsskrift 97 (1996), pp. 189-203; T.C. Vriezen and A.S. van der Woude, Ancient Israelite and Jewish Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2005), p. 223; Berner, Die Exoduserzählung, 131-42; Albertz, Exodus 1-18, 71; K. Berge, “Was there a wisdom-didactical Torah-redaction in the Exodus story (Exodus 1-15)?,” Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok 75 (2010), 57-76; C. Berner, “The Exodus Narrative Between His- tory and Literary Fiction: The Portrayal of the Egyptian Burden as a Test Case,” in:

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Moses’ son is circumcised at the threshold of adulthood.⁶⁰ It is remarkable that the act is performed by his mother and not by a male person.⁶¹ In my view, her actions are prompted by an observation and a conviction. She “ob- serves” the divine threat and construes the observation that YHWH is after the life of Moses to be rooted in the fact that their son had not yet entered the tribal community through the ritual of circumcision. This absence made the small family vulnerable because they lacked divine patronage and protection.

It is her conviction that this impediment should be removed. Hence, she takes a flint and makes her son a member of the tribe as well as a member of the religious community of persons fearing YHWH.⁶² Her act is clearly one of inclusion. The unit was preserved as a short didactic narrative about how to act when confronted with a deity threatening human existence.⁶³

In a second part of the ritual, Zipporah smears the blood from her son’s membrum virile on the feet of her husband.⁶⁴ The noun raglāyim, “feet,” is sometimes used as a euphemism for genitals.⁶⁵ I interpret this ritual act of bringing the blood of the son to the corresponding body-part of his father as an act of inclusion. In so doing, Zipporah ritually underscores the family relations among the three.⁶⁶ With her repeated declaration, “You are, indeed, a groom of blood to me!” she (re)confirmed the marriage bond between her- self and Moses.⁶⁷ Although there is no formal account of their marriage,⁶⁸

Th.E. Levy, Th. Schneider, W.H.C. Propp (eds), Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective, Cham: Springer Verlag, 2015. 285-92.

60. A comparable memory about circumcision around puberty might be present at Gen 17,24-25: “ Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised, and his son Ishmael was thirteen”; see J. Milgrom, Leviticus 1-6. A New Translation with Commentary, AB 3 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), p. 747.

61. See also Van ’t Veld, Exodus deel 1, p. 92.

62. See Dozeman, Exodus, pp. 154-155.

63. See K. Berge, “Didacticism in Exodus?” SJOT 22 (2008), pp. 3-28.

64. On this section, see now S. Jacobs, The Body as Property: Physical Disfigurement in Biblical Law, LHBOTS 582 (New York, London: Bloomsbury, 2014), pp. 57-60; M. Bauks, “Beschneidung zwischen Identitätsmarkierung und substituierter Opferhandlung: kulturelle Deutungen eines schwierigen Ritualtexts (Exodus 4, 24-26),” in M. Jung, M. Bauks, A. Ackermann (eds), Dem Körper einge- schrieben: Verkörperung zwischen Leiberleben und kulturellem Sinn, Studien zur Interdisziplinären Anthropologie (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2016), pp. 243-270; R. Al- bertz and R. Schmitt, Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012), pp. 393-395.

65. See Deut 28,57; Judg 3,14; 1 Sam 24,4; 2 Kgs 18,27 // Isa 36,12; Isa 7,20; with Van ’t Veld, Exodus deel 1, p. 93.

66. Also Schmidt, Exodus1, p. 225; Van ’t Veld, Exodus deel 1, pp. 93-94.

67. I do not construe her words as referring to circumcision as requirement for marriage; contra, for instance, R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (New York: McGraw Hill, 1961), pp. 46-48; Milgrom, Leviticus 1-6, p. 747; Hays, “Lest ye perish in the way,” pp. 49-54; Dozeman, Exodus, p. 155.

68. Some scholars accept, that a formal marriage has been concluded, see for instance D.E. Fleming, Yahweh before Israel: Glimpses of History in a Divine Name.

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Exod 2,21 indicates that Reuel gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses after Moses had helped all seven daughters water their father’s flock ahead of other local shepherds who has been harassing them (2,16-20).⁶⁹

6. An Enigma Solved?

With my remarks, I hope to have put Exod 4,24-26 in a clarifying light. I do not claim to have solved all the enigmas of this rara avis. It seems to me, however, that my reading takes away some of the strangeness of these three verses, even if the divine attempt to end the life of Moses, who was destined to fulfill the promises of God, remains an inscrutable mystery.⁷⁰

(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2021), 101. Various translations add “in marriage” or “as his wife” at the end of the clause in v. 21 (LXX: γυναῖκα, “as wife”;

AMP; CSB; CEV; EHV; NIV; TLB; Dutch: NBV; this list in incomplete), even though no corresponding word is in the Hebrew text.

69. Within the story line, at Exod 4,21, the identity of Reuel and his daughters is still Midianite. Later on Moses’ father in law—now named Jethro turns out to be a devo- tee of YHWH (Exod 18). If these Midianites were Yhwh worshippers from the begin- ning is difficult to decide, see recently Fleming, Yahweh before Israel, 97-110.

70. C. Houtman, “Exodus 4: 24-26 and its Interpretation,” JNSL 11 (1983), pp. 81- 105; Wyatt, “Circumcision and Circumstance,” pp. 405-431; Goldingay, “The Signif- icance of Circumcision,” pp. 10-11; Albertz, Exodus 1-18, p. 96; A.E. Gorospe, Nar- rative and Identity: An Ethical Reading of Exodus 4, BIS 86 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 93-118; K. Cherney Jr, “The Enigmatic Divine Encounter in Exodus 4: 24- 26,”Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly 113 (2016), pp. 195-203.