Why did God want to kill Moses on his way to Egypt?

Question

I don’t get it, one moment God wants Moses to go to Egypt to fulfill his destiny, the next moment God wants Moses dead. Literally after God announced Moses is ready to lead his people out of the bondage, God tries to kill him. It just doesn’t make sense! Am I misreading it from the Bible? It seems pretty clearly written, “The Lord sought to kill Moses.” It’s just seems so unreasonable...

Answer 1

I think the question “Why did God want to kill Moses on his way to Egypt?” is flawed in its own way. The real question would be, why Moses nearly died on his way to Egypt. God isn’t a killer, he isn’t a murderer, he is there to lead, warn and punish. And for Moses to receive a punishment, he needs to do something wrong in the first place. We need to understand the context of the incident first. Egypt at the time, particularly Israel, was still under the grace of Abraham and Israel is blessed by God for no other reason than that the people there are descendants of Abraham. The most important part to note of Abraham is that God bestowed him one single rule, “Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.” (Genesis 17:14). Circumcision is really a big deal, breaking it would be punishable by being “cut off”, not exiled, but eliminated.

Answer 2

Why did God want to kill Moses on his way to Egypt? Guess it’s on to the matter of the killing? God does not go around killing the uncircumcised, but the ones under his agreement with Abraham receive this punishment. God only sentence his death penalty onto the ones that disobey him. Moses being the descendant of Abraham, including his sons, would mean that they are deemed by God as disobedient and about to be punished as a result. “BUT HIS SON IS INNOCENT AND TOO YOUNG!” you excitedly exclaimed. Well, circumcision is never done personally to yourself, it always involved someone else doing the deed for you. That means Moses didn’t complete his role as the father to his son, like every other descendant, cutting off the foreskin at birth. He indirectly makes his son a sinner and that means death under God’s sometimes unreasonable rule. The omnipotent God would not have spent 80 years raising his vision of a leader only to have him disappointed. Remember, God does not kill without a reason, he punish. When Adam and Eve break his rule, he kicks them out of Garden of Eden. The only thing God hate the most is disobedience, punishable only by death.

Answer 3

Fast forward, Moses, his wife, and sons would partake on the journey to free Egypt from the bondage. He had been groomed by God for as long as  80 years, everything needs to be in order for him to become a spiritual leader to his own people. Moses, however, neglects God’s rule, being an Israelite, circumcision is a major practice that needs to be upheld. He didn’t circumcise one of his sons. The reason why he didn’t circumcise his son as per tradition has something to do with his non-Israelite wife, Zipporah. She found the practice revolting and persuaded Moses not to do to so on his son, probably after witnessing the circumcision on the first child. At the time that God approach Moses about the matter, Zipporah would circumcise her son and threw the foreskin at Moses’ feet. God promptly “let him go.”