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Gershon Hepner

Bloody Bridegroom

Bloody bridegroom of a wife

he married as a refugee,

he fled from Egypt when his life

was threatened and in jeopardy

because a witness had observed

him killing a most cruel oppressor.

Some think that God thought he deserved

to meet his end as well, no lesser

the punishment for him than that

which he’d inflicted on another,

a man who’d acted like a rat

towards a Hebrew man, his brother.

But others think his punishment

was like what God made Jacob suffer,

escaping without God’s consent

a confrontation with his tougher

sibling, Esau, to avoid

bloodshed, hiding from his foe.

Because these tactics God annoyed,

an angel wounded Jacob’s bow,

and ever afterwards he limped

but, renamed Israel, he had learned

that confrontation can’t be crimped

and battles cannot be adjourned.

Like Jacob, Moses also fled

from God, and hoped to save his life

avoiding conflicts with a dread

that seemed pathetic to his wife,

though God commanded him: “Return

to Egypt, — Pharaoh do not fear!”

Hoping this command to spurn,

he preferred to disappear

from God and Egypt and the mission

God had just commanded him;

lacking leadership ambition,

he jeopardized both life and limb.

Like skipping bail, escaping from

the Lord is wrong; He’s not impartial,

and those who flee Him will succumb

when apprehended by His marshal.

A foreskin cut turned out to save

his life, yet who received the cut

and how did Moses misbehave

and when is most intriguing, but

we can’t be certain who, when, why,

because the case is very muddy,

a black hole darkening the sky

from which no light escapes. The bloody,

impenetrable tale remains

an unsolved mystery the Torah

appears to take the greatest pains

to hide, like darkness of Zipporah.

Exod. 4:24-26 states:

וַיְהִ֥י בַדֶּ֖רֶךְ בַּמָּל֑וֹן וַיִּפְגְּשֵׁ֣הוּ יְהֹוָ֔ה וַיְבַקֵּ֖שׁ הֲמִיתֽוֹ׃

At a night encampment on the way, יהוה encountered him and sought to kill him.

וַתִּקַּ֨ח צִפֹּרָ֜ה צֹ֗ר וַתִּכְרֹת֙ אֶת־עׇרְלַ֣ת בְּנָ֔הּ וַתַּגַּ֖ע לְרַגְלָ֑יו וַתֹּ֕אמֶר כִּ֧י חֲתַן־דָּמִ֛ים אַתָּ֖ה לִֽי׃

 So Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched his legs with it, saying, “You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!”

וַיִּ֖רֶף מִמֶּ֑נּוּ אָ֚ז אָֽמְרָ֔ה חֲתַ֥ן דָּמִ֖ים לַמּוּלֹֽת׃ {פ}

And when [God] let him alone, she added, “A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision.”

Moses’ failure to circumcise one of his sons when traveling to Egypt, a failure corrected by his Midianite wife Zipporah, foreshadows the failure of the Israelites to circumcise their sons from the time they left Egypt until they reached the land of Canaan (Josh. 5:5).

About the Author
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored "Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel." He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
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