And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.
Inn - Hebrew, the inn; a halting-place for the night.
Sought to kill him - i:e., he was either overwhelmed with mental distress or overtaken by a sudden and dangerous malady. The narrative is obscure; but the meaning seems to be, that, led during his illness to a strict self-examination, Moses was deeply pained and grieved at the thought of having, to please his wife, postponed or neglected the circumcision of one of his sons, probably the younger. To dishonour that sign and seal of the covenant was criminal in any Hebrew, peculiarly so in one destined to be the leader and deliverer of the Hebrews; and he seems to have felt his sickness as a merited chastisement for the sinful omission. Concerned for her husband's safety, Zipporah overcomes her maternal feelings of aversion to the painful rite, performs herself, by means of one of the sharp flints with which that part of the desert abounds, an operation which her husband, on whom the duty devolved, was unable to do; and having brought the bloody evidence, exclaimed, in the painful excitement of her feelings, that from love to him she had risked the life of her child (Calvin, Bullinger, Rosenmuller).