Yes. The immediate context most naturally indicates that the LORD sought to kill Moses. Exodus 4:24 itself identifies the threatened person only as “him,” but the surrounding narrative strongly points to Moses, and the danger ends immediately after Zipporah circumcises their son. Scripture makes the connection to circumcision clear, while leaving some details—such as exactly why the son had remained uncircumcised and precisely how Moses bore responsibility—unexplained.
What the Bible Says
The controlling passage says:
Exodus 4:24 — “And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.”
The first thing to notice is what the verse explicitly says. The LORD met someone and “sought to kill him.” This was a genuine divine threat of death. The passage does not merely say that the LORD was angry, displeased, or warning someone of possible danger.
The difficulty is that verse 24 does not name the person. It says only “him.” Therefore, if we isolated Exodus 4:24 from its context, we could say with certainty that the LORD sought to kill someone, but we could not identify that person by name.
The surrounding verses substantially clarify the matter.
Exodus 4:20 — “And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt: and Moses took the rod of God in his hand.”
Moses is the dominant person in the narrative. The LORD has been speaking directly to Moses, Moses is returning to Egypt, and Moses is traveling with his wife and sons. Nothing before verse 24 shifts the central singular male subject from Moses to one of his sons.
Then the incident itself continues:
Exodus 4:25 — “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.”
Exodus 4:26 — “So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.”
That sequence is extremely important. The LORD seeks to kill “him.” Then Zipporah circumcises her son. Then the threatened person is released: “So he let him go.”
The episode therefore follows a clear narrative progression:
death threat → circumcision → release.
The passage also expressly ends by identifying the issue as “the circumcision.” The circumcision is not an unrelated event that happens to occur at the same time. It is the action that immediately precedes the end of the deadly confrontation.
This fits the covenant requirement God had already given concerning circumcision:
Genesis 17:14 — “And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.”
Genesis 17 establishes that circumcision was a serious covenant obligation. It helps explain why the uncircumcised condition of Moses’ son could be connected with such severe divine judgment. However, Genesis 17:14 should not be made to say more than it says: its expression “cut off from his people” should not automatically be treated as identical to the statement in Exodus 4:24 that the LORD “sought to kill him.” The actual death threat is established directly by Exodus 4:24.
Why This Answers the Question
The strongest contextual reading is that Moses is the “him” whom the LORD sought to kill.
Moses is the central singular male figure immediately before the incident. Then, when Zipporah performs the circumcision that resolves the crisis, she says:
Exodus 4:25 — “Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.”
Her husband is Moses. That fits naturally if Moses is the man under the threat.
The sequence then makes straightforward sense: the LORD confronts Moses, Zipporah circumcises their son, she addresses Moses as her “bloody husband,” and the LORD lets the threatened man go.
The text therefore strongly supports this conclusion: the LORD sought to kill Moses, and Moses’ mortal danger was directly connected with the uncircumcised condition of his son.
There are, however, details we should not pretend Scripture explains.
The passage does not tell us which son was circumcised. It does not say that Moses deliberately refused to circumcise him. It does not say that Zipporah had previously prevented the circumcision. It does not explain exactly why Moses rather than the uncircumcised child was under the mortal threat. It also does not tell us how the LORD physically sought Moses’ death—whether through sickness, some visible manifestation, or another means.
Likewise, although Exodus 4:22–23 has just spoken about Israel as God’s firstborn and the coming death of Pharaoh’s firstborn, Scripture does not explicitly say that this firstborn language directly explains the incident at the inn.
Those matters should remain where Scripture leaves them: unresolved.
Strongest Objection
The strongest competing interpretation is that the LORD was seeking to kill Moses’ son, not Moses.
That view has some genuine reasons behind it. Sons have just been mentioned in the narrative, Exodus 4:22–23 immediately precedes the incident with language concerning sons and firstborn death, and verse 25 immediately focuses upon Zipporah circumcising “her son.” It is therefore understandable why someone might identify the child as the threatened person.
But the immediate context favors Moses more strongly.
Before verse 24, Moses—not one of his sons—is the dominant singular male subject. When the son becomes the focus in verse 25, Scripture specifically calls him “her son,” rather than simply continuing the unidentified “him.” Zipporah then speaks of her “husband,” naturally pointing to Moses, and verse 26 closes the crisis with “So he let him go.”
The Moses interpretation therefore follows the narrative more naturally without repeatedly reassigning the pronouns.
Another objection argues that God could not really have intended to kill Moses because God had already commissioned him to deliver Israel from Egypt. But that conclusion would weaken the actual wording of Exodus 4:24. Scripture does not say that God merely frightened Moses. It says that the LORD “sought to kill him.”
Moses’ commission did not make him exempt from divine judgment. The narrative itself places the deadly confrontation after Moses had been chosen and sent. The crisis is resolved not by denying the reality of the threat, but by the circumcision occurring before the threatened death took place.
Bottom Line
Yes—the immediate context most naturally identifies Moses as the man whom the LORD sought to kill in Exodus 4:24. The threat was real, and Exodus 4:25–26 directly connects the ending of that threat with the circumcision of Moses’ son. The son-as-victim interpretation is the strongest alternative, but it fits the narrative less naturally. Scripture does not tell us exactly why the son had remained uncircumcised, which son it was, precisely how Moses bore responsibility, or how the LORD was going to kill him.
