Nedarim (32a) When Moses was lax in the performance of circumcision, Af and Hemah came and swallowed him up, leaving nought but his legs. Thereupon immediately Zipporah ‘took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son’; straightway he let him alone. In that moment Moses desired to slay them, as it is written, Cease from Af and forsake Hemah. Some say that he did slay Hemah, as it is written, I have not Hemah. But is it not written, for I was afraid of Af and Hemah? There were two angels named Hemah. An alternative answer is this: he slew the troop commanded by Hemah, but not Hemah himself.
The question I have is why did he delay the mitzvah of circumcision?
ReplyDeleteAnd then also why did this recur in the generation of the midbar, who were uncircumcised, and only did it when Joshua commanded them to before entering Israel?