Exodus 4:22-23

"And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith Jehovah, Israel is my first-born: and I have said unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me; and thou hast refused to let him go: behold, I will slay thy son, thy first-born."

"Israel is my first-born ..." This remarkable statement establishes the Old Israel as the type of the New Israel; and later, in this study, we shall point out the extensive parallels between them. All of the marvelous experiences of Israel throughout the Book of Exodus "have counterparts in the experience of `the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ' (Galatians 3:26)."[29]

"I will slay thy son, thy first-born ..." Visible here is the final and most devastating of the plagues visited upon Egypt After such a blow, Pharaoh was willing indeed to let the people go.

GOD TRIED TO KILL MOSES

These next three verses relate an incident that occurred on the way to Egypt. Of course, no one ought to think that God ever tried to do anything and failed. We must receive some other interpretation of these words. It is by far the prevailing opinion among scholars that all that could be meant by this is that God had sent an especially dangerous illness upon Moses as punishment for his neglected circumcision of one of his sons. As most suppose, Moses, out of deference to the wishes of Zipporah had neglected circumcising Eliezer. As Jamieson noted, "To dishonor that sign and seal of the covenant was criminal in any Hebrew, especially in one called to be the leader and deliverer of the nation."[30] Just how Moses and Zipporah connected the near-fatal disease with the neglect of circumcision we are not told. Jamieson thought that Moses himself felt that "his sickness was merited on account of it."[31] It could also be that God revealed it directly to them. Here is the text in the following lines.