Zipporah at the inn is the name given to an episode alluded to in three verses of the Book of Exodus. This much-debated passage is one of the more perplexing conundrums of the Torah. Passage The verses in question are Exodus 4:24–26, the context is Moses, his wife Zipporah and their son Gershom reaching an inn on their way from Midian to Egypt to announce the plagues to the Pharaoh: Leningrad Codex text: 24. 25. 26. King James Version translation: 24. And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the Lᴏʀᴅ met him, and sought to kill him. 25. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, "Surely a bloody husband art thou to me." 26. So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision. New Revised Standard Version translation: On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the Lᴏʀᴅ met him and tried to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched his feet with it, and said, "Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!" So he let him alone. It was then she said, "A bridegroom of blood by circumcision." The standard interpretation of the passage is that God wanted to kill Moses for neglecting the rite of circumcision of his son. Zipporah averts disaster by reacting quickly and hastily performing the rite, thus saving her husband from God's anger. (Shemot Rabbah 5:8) Various interpretations The details of the passage are unclear and subject to debate. One problem is that the text uses pronouns multiple times, without ever identifying which of the three individuals (God, Moses, or Zipporah's son) is being referred to by each instance. In particular, it is unclear whom God sought to kill (Moses or Zipporah's son), whose feet (God's, Moses's, or her son's) Zipporah touches with the foreskin, whom (God, Moses, or her son) Zipporah is addressing as her "bloody bridegroom," and the meaning of the phrase "bloody bridegroom" itself. Rabbinic The ambiguous or fragmentary nature of the verses leaves much room for extrapolation, and rabbinical scholarship has provided a number of explanations. The earliest Jewish interpretations almost unanimously infer that Moses failed to circumcise his son, thereby angering God and provoking the attack, but Zipporah's