about another first born son, Moses's. Accordingly, it can only mean that Yahweh wants to take possession of the son of Moses because he is entitled to the first-born male. The mother undertakes the circumcision, an ancient matriarchal relic, and touches Yahweh's genitals with the child's foreskin. Only this makes sense when she uses the marriage formula "you are my bridegroom of blood". For in doing so, she transfers the child of Moses into a marriage with Yahweh, making him a child of Yahweh. The complete sacrifice of the boy is replaced by the sacrifice of a part of the penis. The biblical redactor still bore this in mind when he added: "At that time she said 'bridegroom of blood,' referring to circumcision." Originally, young boys were sacrificed to the pantheistic Cretan and Phoenician goddesses only after the priestesses had consummated ritual intercourse, the sacred marriage, with them. Thus, some scholars argue this text comes from the same category as such practices. Meanwhile, William H. Propp argues that, assuming that this episode derives from the Jahwist ("J") source, links God's attack with Moses's killing of the Egyptian taskmaster (Ex. 2:11-12), which had not yet been expiated. Just as the paschal sacrifice would later on cause the Angel of Death to "pass over" the homes of the Hebrews, here the ritualistic spilling of his son's blood through circumcision atones for Moses's wrongdoing – "the bloodied child became a symbol of the paschal night, when the endangered first-born of Israel were saved by the blood of a lamb." Identity of the attacker The Masoretic text of Exodus suggests that Yahweh himself performed the attack on Moses (or on his son). However, the Septuagint makes the attacker an "angel of the Lord" ("angelos kyriou"), although this change may have been done to "mitigate the harshness of the account." The version in the Book of Jubilees (2nd century BC) attributes the attack to Prince Mastema, a title that was another name for Satan: ... and what Prince Mastema desired to do with you when you returned to Egypt, on the way when you met him at the shelter. Did he not desire to kill you with all of his might and save the Egyptians from your hand because he saw that you were sent to execute judgment and vengeance upon the Egyptians? And I delivered you from his hand and you did the signs