Letter to the Editor

Sirs,

Rabbi Jeffrey M. Cohen in “Hatan Damim – The Bridegroom of Blood” (XXXIII:2, April-June 2005) discusses what he described as “arguably the single most bizarre and baffling passage in all of the Hebrew Bible.” His textual and midrashic analyses are quite wonderful. He points out the connection between hatan [son-in-law] and “to circumcise” in Arabic. An Arab male could not marry before he was circumcised. In modern times, the rite is usually performed when a boy is up to 13 years old. In Hebrew, “hatan” means “bridegroom” and sometimes “father-in-law”; “hatunah” means “marriage.” Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, is rarely mentioned without the qualification “hatan moshe.”

We could have a play on the Hebrew word hatan and the Arabic word hatana [circumcision]: ‘You are my bridegroom of blood’ could be read ‘You are mine, circumcised with blood’ (see David Daiches, “Moses, The Man and His Vision,” [NewYork: Praeger Publishers, 1975] p. 55.) The “you” could be Moses or the son.

But Moses had been married to Zipporah for some years, and is no longer a bridegroom, so she is more likely referring to her just-circumcised son. The word for a child in Arabic is also “hatan.” Zipporah then combines hatan with the Hebrew mulot [circumcisions]: not “a bridegroom of blood for all circumcisions,” but “circumcised with blood for all future circumcisions.” The Arabic hatana is connected to faith in God. This recognizes that the circumcision is the faith-ritual with God. This is equally true for Jews, but having lost the dual meaning of hatana they lost this double meaning. At the burning bush Moses tells God he is not good at speaking (Ex. 4:10). After Zipporah circumcises the child and after Moses fails in his first confrontation with Pharaoh, he twice says to God not “I am a poor speaker,” but ‘I am a man of uncircumcised lips’ (6:12,30). He uses this term uncircumcised lips only after this very odd incident with Zipporah. The Hebrew word “milah” [circumcision] also means “word.” Thus, the man with the uncircumcised son has uncircumcised lips because people will not listen to him. Beit Shemesh