Why was God going to kill Moses in Exodus 4?

Only three verses long, this is one of the strangest, most puzzling short passages in the whole Bible—and genuinely unclear even to careful scholars (Exodus 4:24–26).

Here's what we know: God had just commissioned Moses to confront Pharaoh and free Israel. On the journey back to Egypt, at an overnight stop, "the Lord confronted him and intended to put him to death" (Exodus 4:24). Moses' wife Zipporah quickly circumcises their son and touches the foreskin to Moses, and the threat passes.

The most widely held explanation is that Moses had failed to circumcise his son, breaking the covenant sign God gave Abraham (Genesis 17:14)—a serious matter for the very leader about to bring that covenant people out of Egypt.

Honest scholars admit real uncertainty about several details here—whose son, exactly why this moment, and precisely what Zipporah's actions meant. This stays one of the genuinely hardest passages in the Old Testament to fully pin down.