Moses Was Uncircumcised... Of Lips!

Moses is a reluctant leader.^[1] After YHWH appoints him messenger to Pharaoh to free the Israelites, Moses balks. He first asks מִי אָנֹכִי, “Who am I” to speak to Pharaoh or to save Israel from bondage (Exod 3:11). After YHWH responds (3:12), Moses then notes that he doesn’t even know God’s name: how can he prove that he was sent by the Israelite God (3:13)?^[2] YHWH then reveals the Tetragrammaton, and explains further the divine plan for Israel (3:14–22). Moses then objects that the people won’t believe him (4:1), to which YHWH furnishes him with three miraculous signs (4:2–9).

Moses then complains that he is not a good speaker:

^{שמות ד:י} וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אֶל יְ־הוָה בִּי אֲדֹנָי לֹא אִישׁ דְּבָרִים אָנֹכִי גַּם מִתְּמוֹל גַּם מִשִּׁלְשֹׁם גַּם מֵאָז דַּבֶּרְךָ אֶל עַבְדֶּךָ כִּי כְבַד פֶּה וּכְבַד לָשׁוֹן אָנֹכִי.

^{Exod 4:10} Moses said to YHWH, “Please, my Lord, I am not a man of words — not yesterday, nor the day before, nor since you have spoken to your servant — for I am heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue.”^[3]

The exact meaning of Moses’ complaint is unclear.^[4]

Linguistic Ignorance—Moses may mean that he would be unable to communicate with Pharaoh, as Pharaoh speaks Egyptian. This, for instance, is the reading of Rashbam (R. Samuel ben Meir, ca. 1085–1158):

^{רשב"ם שמות ד:י} איני בקי בלשון מצרים בחיתוך לשון, כי בקטנותי ברחתי משם ועתה אני בן שמונים.

^{Rashbam Exod 4:10} I am not expert in the Egyptian language fluently, since I ran away from there when I was young, and now I am eighty years old.

And yet, given that in the non-Priestly backstory Moses is brought up in the Egyptian court (Exod 2:10), and only in the Priestly story is Moses so old, this meaning is improbable.^[5]

Linguistic Ineloquence—Moses’ protestation can be read as meaning that he is inarticulate,^[6] like what Jeremiah says upon his calling:

^{ירמיה א:ו} וָאֹמַר אֲהָהּ אֲדֹנָי יְ־הֹוִה הִנֵּה לֹא יָדַעְתִּי דַּבֵּר כִּי נַעַר אָנֹכִי.

^{Jer 1:6} Ah, Lord YHWH! I do not know how to speak, for I am (only) a boy.

Clearly, Jeremiah possesses the power of speech, so his point is that he does not know how to speak eloquently or persuasively.

Linguistic Incapacity—The most common interpretation is that the passage refers to a speech impediment;^[7] such an interpretation goes back at least to Ezekiel the Tragedian (2^nd cent. B.C.E.), who has Moses say “I stammer” in The Exagōgē, and is common in rabbinic midrash.^[8] Indeed, as Jeffrey Tigay notes, in biblical parlance, declaring a vital organ to be “heavy” is medical terminology referring to “a malfunction of the organ: the heavy ear cannot hear.”^[9] Thus, when Jacob/Israel’s eyes are heavy with age (ועיני ישׂראל כבדו מזקן; Gen 48:10), he is unable to see properly.

I propose reading Moses’ protestation not as a single idea expressed in parallel, a hendiadys, but rather that the phrases “heavy of mouth” and “heavy of tongue” refer to ineloquence and incapacity respectively. This becomes clear in God’s two-part response to Moses’ protestations. YHWH first declares that YHWH makes humans as they are, with physical defects and without:

^{שמות ד:יא} וַיֹּאמֶר יְ־הוָה אֵלָיו מִי שָׂם פֶּה לָאָדָם אוֹ מִי יָשׂוּם אִלֵּם אוֹ חֵרֵשׁ אוֹ פִקֵּחַ אוֹ עִוֵּר הֲלֹא אָנֹכִי יְ־הוָה.

^{Exod 4:11} YHWH said to him, “Who put a mouth in humans, or who makes (one) mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, YHWH?

This reaction implies that Moses was claiming to have a corresponding disability. Next, YHWH says that he will tell Moses what to say, which implies that Moses was also worried about general ineloquence:

^{שמות ד:יב} וְעַתָּה לֵךְ וְאָנֹכִי אֶהְיֶה עִם פִּיךָ וְהוֹרֵיתִיךָ אֲשֶׁר תְּדַבֵּר.

^{Exod 4:12} Now go! I will be with your mouth and instruct you what you will say.”

While YHWH solves this latter problem with a promise to dictate the required message, for the former, in this scene at least, YHWH merely explains to Moses that he is not disabled, but rather he is differently abled, and the solution to his “problem” is for Moses to realize that God formed Moses this way. And yet, all of Moses’ other objections are solved with specific divine interventions, including miracles.^[10]

Is Moses Cured?

It seems strange that only Moses’s protestation that “I am heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue” would go unresolved. At the same time, Exodus is silent on whether Moses is cured of the physical problem.^[11]

Curing a stutter is hardly beyond the other miraculous interventions in Genesis. Moreover, elsewhere in the Bible, it is taken for granted that the deity has the power to cure a speech condition, as Isaiah says about a glorious future day:

^{ישעיה לב:ד} וּלְבַב נִמְהָרִים יָבִין לָדָעַת וּלְשׁוֹן עִלְּגִים תְּמַהֵר לְדַבֵּר צָחוֹת.

^{Isa 32:4} And the minds of the thoughtless shall attend and note, and the tongues of stutterers shall speak with fluent eloquence.^[12]

Whether God heals Moses or not, though, a supposed stammer makes no appearance in Moses’ many subsequent speeches.^[13]

Moses’ Uncircumcised Lips

The Priestly source’s call narrative has its own version of Moses expressing self-doubt.^[14] It begins when YHWH orders Moses to speak to the Israelites and tell them that YHWH will redeem them from bondage (Exod 6:2–8). Moses makes no protestations and conveys the message immediately, but the Israelites do not hear Moses מִקֹּצֶר רוּחַ וּמֵעֲבֹדָה קָשָׁה, “out of shortness of spirit and hard labor” (6:9).

God then tells Moses to speak to Pharaoh and demand he let the Israelites leave. At this point, Moses objects:

^{שמות ו:יב} וַיְדַבֵּר מֹשֶׁה לִפְנֵי יְ־הוָה לֵאמֹר הֵן בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֹא שָׁמְעוּ אֵלַי וְאֵיךְ יִשְׁמָעֵנִי פַרְעֹה וַאֲנִי עֲרַל שְׂפָתָיִם.

^{Exod 6:12} Moses spoke before YHWH, saying, “Here, the Israelites did not listen to me. How then will Pharaoh listen to me? For I am uncircumcised of lips.”

Unlike in non-P, where Moses preempts his mission with protests, here Moses has good reason to protest, since his first mission in fact failed. (P moves the discussion of Moses’ speech impediment to later in its narrative, thus improving Moses’ behavior from looking to avoid the assignment in non-P to being willing but failing in P.) Also altered is that when Moses claims to have some sort of communication difficulty, this time the terminology has changed from being “heavy” (כבד) of lips in non-P to being “uncircumcised” (ערל) of lips, a phrase unique to this passage.

The metaphor of an uncircumcised body part appears elsewhere in the Bible. For example, Leviticus speaks of sinners with uncircumcised hearts:

^{ויקרא כו:מא} אַף אֲנִי אֵלֵךְ עִמָּם בְּקֶרִי וְהֵבֵאתִי אֹתָם בְּאֶרֶץ אֹיְבֵיהֶם אוֹ אָז יִכָּנַע לְבָבָם הֶעָרֵל וְאָז יִרְצוּ אֶת עֲוֺנָם.

^{Lev 26:41} When I, in turn, have been hostile to them and have removed them into the land of their enemies, then at last shall their uncircumcised heart humble itself, and they shall atone for their iniquity.^[15]

In Jeremiah, we hear the phrase uncircumcised ear:

^{ירמיה ו:י} עַל מִי אֲדַבְּרָה וְאָעִידָה וְיִשְׁמָעוּ הִנֵּה עֲרֵלָה אָזְנָם וְלֹא יוּכְלוּ לְהַקְשִׁיב...

^{Jer 6:10} To whom shall I speak, give warning that they may hear? Their ears are uncircumcised, and they cannot listen.

P’s phrase “uncircumcised lips” fits with this biblical idiom, but I believe there was a specific reason why P made the change from heavy of mouth/tongue to the clunky and unclear uncircumcised of lips: It is connected to another non-Priestly story about Moses, now found in the same chapter.

When YHWH Wished to Kill Moses

After reluctantly accepting YHWH’s appointment as emissary to Pharaoh to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses travels with his wife and son to Egypt.^[16] On the way, YHWH meets him (again) where he is sleeping, and wishes to kill him:

^{שמות ד:כד} וַיְהִי בַדֶּרֶךְ בַּמָּלוֹן וַיִּפְגְּשֵׁהוּ יְ־הוָה וַיְבַקֵּשׁ הֲמִיתוֹ.

^{Exod 4:24} At a night encampment on the way, YHWH encountered him and sought to kill him.

The narrative parallels other nighttime, mid-return-journey encounters between YHWH or YHWH’s representative and an Israelite hero, such as Jacob’s wrestling match with an angel (Gen 27–28). At the same time, it does not explain why YHWH wants to kill him right after sending him on a mission, leading many scholars to suggest it has been edited or truncated.^[17]

In any event, Zipporah seems to know why because she quickly takes action, cutting her son’s foreskin with a flint, touching “his” legs/genitals (most probably Moses’—the Hebrew is ambiguous and can refer also to the boy’s or YHWH’s) and pronouncing a semi-poetic incantation.

^{שמות ד:כה} וַתִּקַּח צִפֹּרָה צֹר וַתִּכְרֹת אֶת עָרְלַת בְּנָהּ וַתַּגַּע לְרַגְלָיו וַתֹּאמֶר כִּי חֲתַן דָּמִים אַתָּה לִי.

^{Exod 4:25} 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!”

The emergency circumcision works: YHWH leaves Moses be and Zipporah reiterates what she had said with further explanation:

^{שמות ד:כו} וַיִּרֶף מִמֶּנּוּ אָז אָמְרָה חֲתַן דָּמִים לַמּוּלֹת.

^{Exod 4:26} And when he let him alone, she added, “A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision.”

Explaining Zipporah’s actions, R. Joseph Bechor Shor (12^th century) writes:

^{בכור שור שמות ד:כה} "ותקח צפרה צר" – היתה מפשפשת במעשיו, על איזה עון חלה, וסברה שמא על שאין בנו מהול.

^{Bechor Shor Exod 4:25} “So Zipporah took a flint”—she was sifting through Moses’s actions to determine what sin was the cause of the illness, and she thought perhaps it was because his son was uncircumcised.

And yet, given that she holds the bloody foreskin to Moses’ legs, probably a euphemism for genitals, I suggest that she was using the blood of her son’s circumcision, transferring it to Moses to appease YHWH. Perhaps the issue was that Moses was merely circumcised like an Egyptian, i.e., while still having a prepuce.^[18] Alternatively, as circumcision was merely optional among Egyptians, perhaps he was entirely uncircumcised.

According to this reading, Moses is uncircumcised when God called him to action, and he remains uncircumcised when liberating the Israelites from Pharaoh. As mentioned earlier, the story is exceedingly terse as presented, and many scholars have argued that it has been truncated, and it is possible that the controversial implication that Moses was uncircumcised is one of the reasons why. If so, P may have been aware of the fuller version or at least the tradition behind it, and would have found such a claim unacceptable.^[19]

Circumcision in P

Circumcision was likely a part of Israelite culture for much of its history.^[20] The rite plays a significant role in the narrative of Dinah and Shechem (Genesis 34); Deuteronomistic authors often hurl “uncircumcised” at the Philistines as an insult (Judg 14:3; 1 Sam 17:26, 36), and David had to “earn” Michal through the delivery of one hundred Philistine foreskins (1 Sam 18:26–28; cf. 2 Sam 3:14).

In Priestly texts, however, circumcision is taken for granted as a requirement for all boys on their eighth day (Lev 12:3). God chooses circumcision as the sign of his covenant of land, blessing, and Godship with Abraham in Genesis 17.^[21] Moreover, the uncircumcised may not partake of the Paschal offering (12:48) or enter the Temple precinct (Ezek 44:9, Isa 52:1). In other words, while circumcision was an ancient Israelite and ancient Near Eastern practice, P and texts that post-date it take circumcision as a sine qua non of Judean practice and identity.^[22]

To the Priestly authors, who make no mention of Moses’s childhood, it was a given in their narrative that Moses would have been circumcised of flesh, since he is a beneficiary of the Abrahamic covenant (Exod 6:3). Ignoring the non-Priestly tradition was not enough, though. The Priestly authors wished to respond to the problematic tradition.

Circumcising Moses

P often recasts non-P stories in ways that show God and the heroes of Israel to better effect.^[23] In this case, P transforms Moses’s call narrative entirely, with Moses’s reluctance changed from a stalling tactic to a reasonable response with Moses having already attempted to do as YHWH asked. It then recasts Moses’s uncircumcision from the literal (foreskinned of penis) to the metaphorical (foreskinned of lips).

The Priestly authors were not the only ones bothered by the implication of Moses’ uncircumcision. Various rabbinic texts propose that some thirteen men, including Moses, were born “perfect” and already circumcised. In the Talmud, for instance, one of the explanations for what it means that Moses as a baby was “good” reads:

^{בבלי סוטה יב:} רבי נחמיה אומר: "נולד מהול."

^{b. Sotah 12b} R. Nehemiah says: “He was born circumcised.”^[24]

Similarly, Exodus Rabbah claims that Zipporah knew that the uncircumcision of her son was the problem since a snake had swallowed all of Moses, leaving only his circumcised corona exposed.

^{שמות רבה ה:ח} וְכִי מִנַּיִן יָדְעָה צִפּוֹרָה שֶׁעַל עִסְקֵי מִילָה נִסְתַּכֵּן משֶׁה, אֶלָּא בָּא הַמַּלְאָךְ וּבָלַע לְמשֶׁה מֵרֹאשׁוֹ וְעַד הַמִּילָה. כֵּיוָן שֶׁרָאֲתָה צִפּוֹרָה שֶׁלֹא בָּלַע אוֹתוֹ אֶלָּא עַד הַמִּילָה הִכִּירָה שֶׁעַל עִסְקֵי הַמִּילָה הוּא נִיזֹּק, וְיָדְעָה כַּמָּה גָדוֹל כֹּחַ הַמִּילָה שֶׁלֹא הָיָה יָכוֹל לְבָלְעוֹ יוֹתֵר מִכָּאן...

^{Exod Rab 5:8} How did Zipporah know that Moses was in danger because of circumcision? The angel came and swallowed Moses from his head to his circumcised penis. Once Zipporah saw that he only swallowed him up to the corona, she understood that it was on account of circumcision that he was in danger, and she understood how great was the power of circumcision, that [the angel] could not swallow him past that spot….

Perhaps the Priestly authors hope to transform the popular tradition that Moses was uncircumcised: they cannot deny or expunge what might have been a well-known fact in Israelite tradition, but they can redefine its nature: Torah audiences had been told previously that Moses was uncircumcised. But now they can understand that Moses was uncircumcised of lips, not of foreskin.