If there was ever a man who appeared to be
indispensable to God’s purposes in the Old Testament, it was Moses. After an
80-year preparation process, God appeared to Moses, gave him miraculous powers,
and commissioned Him to lead God’s people out of bondage (Exodus 3-4). He went
on to prophesy the plagues of Egypt, part the Red Sea, receive the Ten
Commandments, habitually speak with God face to face, and perform many other
incredible works.
And yet, just after his commission, before he even
reached Egypt, God was ready to put Moses to death. Why? What could Moses
possibly have done to provoke such anger? Moses failed as a father. Exodus 4:24-26 says:
“Now it came about at the lodging place on the way
that the Lord met him and sought to put him to death. Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s
foreskin and threw it at Moses’ feet, and she said, ‘You are indeed
a bridegroom of blood to me.’ So He let him alone.”
God sought to put Moses to death because he had not
circumcised his son, Gershom. But was God really concerned about Gershom’s
foreskin? No, this was about something deeper. Moses’s outward negligence
pointed to the fact that he did not spiritually circumcise Gershom. He
was not an engaged father. (Moses himself taught that outward circumcision
pointed to a circumcised heart in Deuteronomy 30:6.) This is an incredible
illustration of the value God places on family. Even though world history was
going to be forever altered by Moses’s ministry, God almost ended it before it
even began because of his failure in this one crucial area.
This may seem like a strategically foolish move on
God’s part unless we realize this key concept: Moses’s call to fatherhood was
the foundation of his authority. Look at what God said to him immediately
before almost putting him to death (in verses 22-23):
“Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus
says the Lord, ‘Israel is My son, My firstborn. So
I said to you, ‘Let My son go that he may serve Me’; but you have refused to
let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your firstborn.’’”
Notice how God framed everything He was planning to do
through Moses in the context of fatherhood. Israel was God’s firstborn son.
Pharaoh would refuse to let God’s firstborn son go free. Therefore, God
would kill Pharaoh’s firstborn son.
This is why fatherhood was the foundation of Moses’s
authority as Israel’s deliverer. How could Moses identify with the Father’s
love for His firstborn son, Israel, if he was not even fathering his own
firstborn son? How could Moses comprehend the weight of telling Pharaoh his
hard heart would cost him the life of his firstborn son, and countless other
Egyptian sons, if he was not fathering his own firstborn son? The apostle Paul
affirmed the vital connection between fatherhood and ministry in 1 Timothy 3:5,
saying, “…if a man does not know how to manage his own
household, how will he take care of the church of God?”
The only thing that saved Moses was his wife
Zipporah’s intervention. She saw that Moses’s negligence was about to cost him
his life. She also likely saw what it was doing to Gershom. The fact that she
circumcised Gershom, I believe, indicates that she also took it upon herself to
spiritually circumcise him.
Moses’s Troubled Marriage
The Bible seems to draw a contrast between Moses’s
relationship with Zipporah and his relationship with Zipporah’s father Jethro.
Moses treated Jethro with respect. When God commanded Moses to go to Egypt, he
asked for Jethro’s permission. By contrast, all scripture says about Zipporah’s
role in this decision is: “So Moses took his wife and sons and mounted them
on a donkey, and returned to the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 4:20) Zipporah was
made to take her children, leave her home and her family, move to a new nation,
and it appears she wasn’t even consulted in the decision. On top of this, Moses
was so consumed with his divine mandate that he neglected to be a father. It
wasn’t long before Zipporah separated from Moses and took their children.
Later, in Exodus 18, Jethro brought Zipporah and the
children to visit Moses in the wilderness. Again, Moses treated Jethro with
great respect. He bowed down before him and shared everything the Lord had done
in Egypt. He also listened to Jethro’s counsel to delegate some of his
responsibilities and stop taking on so much. By contrast, it is unclear whether
Zipporah was even willing to see Moses. Nothing in scripture indicates that
Moses treated Zipporah as a partner or valued her input.
God entrusted Moses with immense responsibility
outside his home. Unfortunately, he allowed the weight of it to dominate his
life and he became unavailable to his wife and children. If Moses had been
intentional to invest in his family, perhaps he would have found in Zipporah a
wise, loving partner who could help bear his burdens. God gave Moses a helper,
but instead it appears he tried to do it alone.
It is well worth noting that Moses never fulfilled the
greatest part of his calling – leading Israel into the promise land (Numbers
20:12). Perhaps if Moses had been a more attentive husband and father, this
would not have been the case. Perhaps he would have dealt more fully with his
anger problem so that it didn’t resurface and disqualify him (Numbers 20:12).
Perhaps he would have seen the wisdom of delegating some of his
responsibilities to other leaders sooner so he didn’t exhaust himself (Exodus
18:14). With Zipporah’s and his children’s refining influence, perhaps Moses
would have enjoyed a longer, more glorious reign over Israel, since his eyes
had not dimmed and his strength had not abated, even at 120 years old
(Deuteronomy 34:7).
We Can Learn from Moses’s Failures
Moses is one of the greatest saints in history, but he
was not a perfect man. His mistakes are recorded in scripture for our sake, so
we can learn from them. Does God take a father’s responsibility to spiritually
circumcise his children seriously? You bet He does. Is a great spiritual leader
immune to taking on too much outside his home so that he can’t be a present
husband and father? Clearly not.
Other than our 1-on-1 relationship with God, nothing
is more foundational to a man’s life and ministry than his inside-the-home
calling. If a man fails to lead his first disciples – his wife and children –
can he really call his ministry a success? Just as God framed Moses’s mandate in the context of fatherhood, how we
steward our relationships inside the home is the foundation for our influence
outside the home.