circumcisions). Further: Eilberg-Schwartz (1990: 162–63) speaks of circumcision creating a “blood brotherhood” between fathers and sons, whose relatedness is of necessity presumptive, not provable. On one level, then, Zipporah is affirming that the child is Moses’, as well as her own. If a circumcised adolescent was originally called ḥătan dāmîm, what was the import of the second word? We have seen that the plural of dām ‘blood’ connotes the defilement of bloodshed, primarily from murder but also