Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married; for he had married a Cushite woman. They said, “Has Yahweh indeed spoken only with Moses? Hasn’t he spoken also with us?” And Yahweh heard it.
Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all the men who were on the surface of the earth. Yahweh spoke suddenly to Moses, to Aaron, and to Miriam, “You three come out to the Tent of Meeting!” The three of them came out.
Yahweh came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the door of the Tent, and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forward. He said, “Now hear my words. If there is a prophet among you, I, Yahweh, will make myself known to him in a vision. I will speak with him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so. He is faithful in all my house. With him, I will speak mouth to mouth, even plainly, and not in riddles; and he shall see Yahweh’s form. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?” Yahweh’s anger burned against them; and he departed.
The cloud departed from over the Tent; and behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. Aaron looked at Miriam, and behold, she was leprous.
Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, please don’t count this sin against us, in which we have done foolishly, and in which we have sinned. Let her not, I pray, be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he comes out of his mother’s womb.”
Moses cried to Yahweh, saying, “Heal her, God, I beg you!”
Yahweh said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, shouldn’t she be ashamed seven days? Let her be shut up outside of the camp seven days, and after that she shall be brought in again.”
Miriam was shut up outside of the camp seven days, and the people didn’t travel until Miriam was brought in again.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14 Zipporah Moses’ wife was a Midianite, and because Midian…
Zipporah Moses’ wife was a Midianite, and because Midian bordered on Ethiopia, it is sometimes in the Scriptures comprehended under this name.
Or, murmured.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Num 12:1 And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses…
Num 12:1 And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.
Ver. 1. And Miriam and Aaron spake.] She is set first, because chief in the transgression. Her discontent might arise from this, that, being a prophetess, she was not one of those seventy that were chosen to be helps in government. {Num 11:24} According to her name, Miriam would be exalted: ambition rides without reins.
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Because of the Ethiopian woman.] Zipporah the Midianitess, {see Hab 3:7} to whom he had been married many years before; but they were resolved to pick a hole in Moses’ coat. An ungodly man diggeth up evil, {Pro 16:27} but for Moses to be thus used by his brother and sister, was some trial to his patience. To be derided by Egyptians, is threatened as a misery, {Hos 7:16} but to be reproached by professors, is very grievous. Zedekiah feared more to be mocked by the Jews, than by the Chaldees. {Jer 38:19}
For he had married an Ethiopian.] That was an old fault, if any; and should have been buried in oblivion. Luther married a wife unseasonably, when all Germany was now embroiled, and embrewed in the blood of the Bores; and when all Saxony was in heaviness for the death of their good Prince Elector Frederick. This, his best friends disliked and bewailed. As for Melancthon, Quoniam vero, inquit, ipsum Lutherum quodammodo tristiorem esse cerno, et perturbatum ob vitae mutationem, omni studio et benevolentia consolari eum conor. {a} Because I see him somewhat cast down, saith he, at the late change of his condition, I strive all I can to comfort him.
{a} Mel, Epist. ad Camerar.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 God permitted
God permitted
Miriam and
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Aaron to murmur against their brother, partly to exercise and discover his admirable meekness and patience for the instruction of after-ages; and partly, that by this shaking Mose’s authority might take the deeper root, and the people might be deterred from all sedition and rebellion against him by this example. Miriam seems to be first named, because she was the chief instigator or first mover of the sedition; wherefore she also is more eminently punished.
The Ethiopian woman was either 1. Zipporah, who is here called an Ethiopian, in the Hebrew a Cushite, because she was a Midianite; the word Cush being generally used in Scripture, not for Ethiopia properly so called below Egypt, but for Arabia, as some late learned men have evidently proved from 2Ki 19:9; 2Ch 21:16; Eze 29:10; 30:8,9; Hab 3:7, and other places. If she be meant, as it is commonly conceived, I suppose they did not quarrel with him for marrying her, because that was done long since, but for indulging her too much, and being swayed by her and her relations, by whom they might think he was persuaded to make this innovation, and to choose seventy rulers, as he had been formerly, Exo 18; by which copartnership in government they thought their authority and reputation much diminished, especially when no notice was taken nor use made of them in the choice, but all was done by the direction of Moses, and for his assistance in the government. And because they durst not accuse God, who was the chief Agent in it, they charge Moses, his instrument, as the manner of men is. Or,
2. Some other woman, though not named in Scripture, whom he married either whilst Zipporah lived, or rather because she was now dead, though that, as really other things, be not recorded. For as the quarrel seems to be about his marrying a stranger, so it is probable it was a late and fresh occasion about which they contended, and not a thing done forty years ago. And it was lawful for him as well as any other to marry an Ethiopian or Arabian woman, provided she were, as doubtless this woman was, a sincere proselyte, which were by the law of God admitted to the same privileges with the Israelites, Exo 12:48; so there might be many reasons why Moses might choose to marry such a person rather than an Israelite, or why God so ordered it by his providence, either because she was a person of eminent worth and virtue, or because God intended that the government should not be continued in the hands of Moses’s children, and therefore would have some political blemish to be upon the family, as being strangers by one parent. And this they here urge as a blemish to Moses also.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 10 Here is, I. The unbecoming passion of Aaron and…
Here is, I. The unbecoming passion of Aaron and Miriam: they spoke against Moses, Num 12:1. If Moses, that received so much honour from God, yet received so many slights and affronts from men, shall any of us think such trials either strange or hard, and be either provoked or discouraged by them? But who would have thought that disturbance should be created to Moses, 1. From those that were themselves serious and good; nay, that were eminent in religion, Miriam a prophetess, Aaron the high priest, both of them joint-commissioners with Moses for the deliverance of Israel? Mic 6:4, I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. 2. From those that were his nearest relations, his own brother and sister, who shone so much by rays borrowed from him? Thus the spouse complains (Sol 1:6), My mother's children were angry with me; and quarrels among relations are in a special manner grievous. A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city. Yet this helps to confirm the call of Moses, and shows that his advancement was purely by the divine favour, and not by any compact or collusion with his kindred, who themselves grudged his advancement. Neither did many of our Saviour's kindred believe on him, Joh 7:5. It should seem that Miriam began the quarrel, and Aaron, not having been employed or consulted in the choice of the seventy elders, was for the present somewhat disgusted, and so was the sooner drawn in to take his sister's part. It would grieve one to see the hand of Aaron in so many trespasses, but it shows that the law made men priests who had infirmity. Satan prevailed first with Eve, and by her with Adam; see what need we have to take heed of being drawn into quarrels by our relations, for we know not how great a matter a little fire may kindle. Aaron ought to have remembered how Moses stood his friend when God was angry with him for making the golden calf (Deu 9:20), and not to have rendered him evil for good. Two things they quarrelled with Moses about: - (1.) About his marriage: some think a late marriage with a Cushite or Arabian; others because of Zipporah, whom on this occasion they called, in scorn, an Ethiopian woman, and who, they insinuated, had too great an influence upon Moses in the choice of these seventy elders. Perhaps there was some private falling out between Zipporah and Miriam, which occasioned some hot words, and one peevish reflection introduced another, till Moses and Aaron came to be interested. (2.) About his government; not the mismanagement of it, but the monopolizing of it (Num 12:2): "Hath the Lord spoken only by Moses? Must he alone have the choice of the persons on whom the spirit of prophecy shall come? Hath he not spoken also by us? Might not we have had a hand in that affair, and preferred our friends, as well as Moses his?" They could not deny that God had spoken by Moses, but it was plain he had sometimes spoken also by them; and that which they intended was to make themselves equal with him, though God had so many ways distinguished him. Note, Striving to be greatest is a sin which easily besets disciples themselves, and it is exceedingly sinful. Even those that are well preferred are seldom pleased if others be better preferred. Those that excel are commonly envied.
II. The wonderful patience of Moses under this provocation. The Lord heard it (Num 12:2), but Moses himself took no notice of it, for (Num 12:3) he was very meek. He had a great deal of reason to resent the affront; it was ill-natured and ill-timed, when the people were disposed to mutiny, and had lately given him a great deal of vexation with their murmurings, which would be in danger of breaking out again when thus headed and countenanced by Aaron and Miriam; but he, as a deaf man, heard not. When God's honour was concerned, as in the case of the golden calf, no man more zealous than Moses; but, when his own honour was touched, no man more meek: as bold as a lion in the cause of God, but as mild as a lamb in his own cause. God's people are the meek of the earth (Zep 2:3), but some are more remarkable than others for this grace, as Moses, who was thus fitted for the work he was called to, which required all the meekness he had and sometimes more. And sometimes the unkindness of our friends is a greater trial of our meekness than the malice of our enemies. Christ himself records his own meekness (Mat 11:29, I am meek and lowly in heart), and the copy of meekness which Christ has set was without a blot, but that of Moses was not.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–15 And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses,.... Miriam is…
And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses,.... Miriam is first mentioned, because she was first in the transgression, and so was only punished; Aaron was drawn into the sin by her, and he acknowledged his fault, and was forgiven: it must be a great trial to Moses, not only to be spoken against by the people, as he often was, but by his near relations, and these gracious persons, and concerned with him in leading and guiding the people through the wilderness, Mic 6:4,
because of the Ethiopian woman, whom he had married, for he had married an Ethiopian woman; not a queen of Ethiopia, as the Targum of Jonathan; nor Tharbis, a daughter of a king of Ethiopia, whom Josephus (h) says he married, when he was sent upon an expedition against the Ethiopians, while he was in Pharaoh's court; nor the widow of an Ethiopian king whom he married after his death, when he fled from Pharaoh into Ethiopia, and was made a king there, as say some Jewish writers (i): for there is no reason to believe he was married before he went to Midian; nor was this some Ethiopian woman he had married since, and but lately, Zipporah being dead or divorced, as some have fancied; but it was Zipporah herself, as Aben Ezra, Ben Melech, and so the Jerusalem Targum, which represents her not as truly an Ethiopian, but so called, because she was like to one; indeed she was really one; not a native of Ethiopia, the country of the Abyssines, but she was a Cushite, a native of Arabia Chusea, in which country Midian was, from whence she came; hence the tents, of Cushan, and the curtains of Midian, are spoken of together, Hab 3:7. Now it was not on account of Moses's marriage with her that they spoke against him, for that was an affair transacted in Midian some years ago, which at first sight may seem to be the case; nor because he now had divorced her, as Jarchi, which perhaps would have given them no uneasiness; and for the same reason, not because he abstained from conversation with her, that he might give up himself to the service of God in his house, and perform it in a more holy and faithful manner, which is the common sentiment of the Jewish writers: but rather, as it is thought by others, because of a suspicion they had entertained, that she had interested herself in the affair of the choice of the seventy elders, and had prevailed upon Moses to put in such and such persons into the list she had a mind to serve; at least this seems to be the case, for the displeasure was against Moses himself; they were angry with him, because he transacted that affair without them, and chose whom he pleased, without consulting them; and therefore, though they cared not to ascribe it entirely to him, and his neglect of them, they imputed it to his wife, as if she had over persuaded him, or her brother through her means, to take such a step as he did.
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(h) Antiqu. l. 2. c. 10. sect. 2. (i) Dibre Hayamim, fol. 7. 2. Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 5. 2. so some in Aben Ezra in loc.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 Miriam and Aaron murmur against Moses, ver. 1-3. God…
Miriam and Aaron murmur against Moses, ver. 1-3. God calls them to an account for it, ver. 4-9. Miriam becoming leprous, Aaron humbles himself, and Moses prays for her, ver. 10-13. She is healed, but shut out of the camp for seven days, ver. 14-16.
Miriam - Miriam seems to be first named, because she was the first mover of the sedition; wherefore she is more eminently punished. The Ethiopian - Either,
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1. Zipporah, who is here called an Ethiopian, in the Hebrew a Cushite, because she was a Midianite: the word Cush being generally used in scripture, not for Ethiopia properly so called below Egypt, but for Arabia. If she be meant, probably they did not quarrel with him for marrying her, because that was done long since, but for being swayed by her and her relations, by whom they might think he was persuaded to chose seventy rulers, by which co-partnership in government they thought their authority and reputation diminished. And because they durst not accuse God, they charge Moses, his instrument, as the manner of men is. Or,
2. some other woman, whom he married either whilst Zipporah lived, or rather because she was now dead, though that, as many other things, be not recorded. For, as the quarrel seems to be about his marrying a stranger, it is probable it was a fresh occasion about which they contended. And it was lawful for him as well as any other to marry an Ethiopian or Arabian woman, provided she were, a sincere proselyte.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 14 Miriam and Aaron raise a sedition against Moses, because…
CHAPTER XII
Miriam and Aaron raise a sedition against Moses, because of the
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Ethiopian woman he had married, 1,
and through jealousy of his increasing power and authority, 2.
The character of Moses, 3.
Moses, Aaron, and Miriam are suddenly called to the tabernacle, 4.
The Lord appears in the pillar of the cloud, and converses with
them, 5.
Declares his purpose to communicate his will to Moses only, 6-8.
His anger is kindled against Miriam, and she is smitten with
the leprosy, 9, 10.
Aaron deplores his transgression, and entreats for Miriam, 11,12.
Moses intercedes for her, 13.
The Lord requires that she be shut out of the camp for seven
days, 14.
The people rest till she is restored, 15,
and afterwards leave Hazeroth, and pitch in the wilderness of
Paran, 16.
NOTES ON CHAP. XII
Verse 1. Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses] It appears that jealousy of the power and influence of Moses was the real cause of their complaint though his having married an Ethiopian woman - האשה הכשית haishshah haccushith - THAT WOMAN, the Cushite, probably meaning Zipporah, who was an Arab born in the land of Midian - was the ostensible cause.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15 Num 12:1. And Miriam — Miriam seems to be…
Num 12:1. And Miriam — Miriam seems to be first named, because she was the first mover of the sedition; wherefore she is more eminently punished. The Ethiopian — Either, 1st, Zipporah, who is here called an Ethiopian, in the Hebrew, a Cushite, because she was a Midianite: the word Cush being generally used in Scripture, not for Ethiopia, properly so called, above Egypt, but for Arabia. If she be meant, probably they did not quarrel with him for marrying her, because that was done long since, but for being swayed by her and her relations, by whom they might think he was persuaded to choose seventy rulers; by which copartnership in government they thought their authority and reputation diminished. And because they durst not accuse God, they charge Moses, his instrument, as the manner of men is. Or, 2d, Some other woman whom he married, either while Zipporah lived, or rather because she was now dead, though that, as many other things, be not recorded. For, as the quarrel seems to have been about marrying a stranger, it is probable it was a flesh occasion about which they contended. And it was lawful for him as well as any other to marry an Ethiopian or Arabian woman, provided she were a sincere proselyte.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On v1 Miriam, as a prophetess (compare Exo 15:20-21) no less…
Miriam, as a prophetess (compare Exo 15:20-21) no less than as the sister of Moses and Aaron, took the first rank among the women of Israel; and Aaron may be regarded as the ecclesiastical head of the whole nation. But instead of being grateful for these high dignities they challenged the special vocation of Moses and the exclusive authority which God had assigned to him. Miriam was the instigator, from the fact that her name stands conspicuously first Num 12:1, and that the punishment Num 12:10 fell on her alone. She probably considered herself as supplanted, and that too by a foreigner. Aaron was misled this time by the urgency of his sister, as once before Exo. 32 by that of the people.
Num 12:1
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The Ethiopian woman whom he had married - (Hebrew, “Cushite,” compare Gen 2:13; Gen 10:6) It is likely that Zipporah Exo 2:21 was dead, and that Miriam in consequence expected to have greater influence than ever with Moses. Her disappointment at his second marriage would consequently be very great.
The marriage of Moses with a woman descended from Ham was not prohibited, so long as she was not of the stock of Canaan (compare Exo 34:11-16); but it would at any time have been offensive to that intense nationality which characterized the Jews. The Christian fathers note in the successive marriage of Moses with a Midianite and an Ethiopian a foreshadowing of the future extension to the Gentiles of God’s covenant and its promises (compare Psa 45:9 ff; Son 1:4 ff); and in the complaining of Miriam and Aaron a type of the discontent of the Jews because of such extension: compare Luk 15:29-30.
Num 12:2
Hath the Lord ... - i. e. Is it merely, after all, by Moses that the Lord hath spoken?
Num 12:3
The man Moses was very meek - In this and in other passages in which Moses no less unequivocally records his own faults (compare Num 20:12 ff; Exo 4:24 ff; Deu 1:37), there is the simplicity of one who bare witness of himself, but not to himself (compare Mat 11:28-29). The words are inserted to explain how it was that Moses took no steps to vindicate himself, and why consequently the Lord so promptly intervened.
Num 12:8
Mouth to mouth - i. e. without the intervention of any third person or thing: compare the marginal references.
Even apparently - Moses received the word of God direct from Him and plainly, not through the medium of dream, vision, parable, dark saying, or such like; compare the marginal references.
The similitude of the Lord shall he behold - But, “No man hath seen God at any time,” says John (Joh 1:18 : compare 1Ti 6:16, and especially Exo 33:20 ff). It was not therefore the Beatific Vision, the unveiled essence of the Deity, which Moses saw on the one hand. Nor was it, on the other hand, a mere emblematic representation (as in Eze 1:26 ff, Dan 7:9), or an Angel sent as a messenger. It was the Deity Himself manifesting Himself so as to be cognizable to mortal eye. The special footing on which Moses stood as regards God is here laid down in detail, because it at once demonstrates that the supremacy of Moses rested on the distinct appointment of God, and also that Miriam in contravening that supremacy had incurred the penalty proper to sins against the theocracy.
Num 12:12
As one dead - leprosy was nothing short of a living death, a poisoning of the springs, a corrupting of all the humors, of life; a dissolution little by little of the whole body, so that one limb after another actually decayed and fell away. Compare the notes at Lev. 13.
Num 12:13
Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee - Others render these words: “Oh not so; heal her now, I beseech Thee.”
Num 12:14
If her father ... - i. e. If her earthly parent had treated her with contumely (compare Deu 25:9) she would feel for a time humiliated, how much more when God has visited her thus?
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 14 Ethiopian. Sephora, the wife of Moses, was of Madian,…
Ethiopian. Sephora, the wife of Moses, was of Madian, which bordered upon the land of Chus, or Ethiopia; and therefore she is called an Ethiopian: where note, that the Ethiopia here spoken of, is not that of Africa, but that of Arabia, (Challoner) on the east side of the Red Sea, Exodus ii. 15. Jealousy instigated Aaron and his sister on this occasion. (Calmet) --- Perhaps Sephora had claimed some pre-eminence on account of her husband’s gorly, in being a mediator between God and his people, and therefore they pretend to the same honour, ver. 2. (Haydock) --- The Hebrew insinuates, that they laid hold on the pretext of Moses having married, or received again, a woman of a different nation contrary to the law which he had promulgated, "for it adds, he had married or retaken an Ethiopian woman." Others believe that he had put her away, and that Aaron and Mary stood up in her defence. "Mary and Aaron murmured against Moses, on account of the wife whom he had taken, who was a perfect beauty, because he had separated himself from his beautiful wife." (Onkelos) --- Some are of opinion, that this woman was Tarbis, the daughter of the king of Ethiopia, whom Moses espoused after he had terminated the wars between him and the Egyptians, before he retired to Madian. But this account of Josephus, (Antiquities ii. 5,) and the explication of Onkelos, and of the Rabbins, seem to be destitute of any solid foundation. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 1And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of…
C.—MIRIAM AND AARON AGAINST MOSES. MIRIAM’S LEPROSY
Num_12:1-16
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1And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the 1Ethiopian woman whom he had 2married: for he had 2married an 1Ethiopian woman. 2And they said, Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the Lord heard it. 3(Now the man Moses was very meek, above all 4the men which were upon the face of the earth.) And the Lord spake suddenly unto Moses, and unto Aaron, and unto Miriam, Come out ye three unto the 3tabernacle 5of the congregation. And they three came out. And the Lord came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of the 4tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam: and they both came forth. 6And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a 5prophet among you I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. 7My servant Moses is not so, who Isaiah 8 faithful in all mine house. With him 6will I speak mouth to mouth, 7even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord 8shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant 9Moses? 9And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them: and he departed. 10And the cloud 10departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow: and Aaron 11looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous. 11And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned. 12Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother’s womb. 13And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee.
14And the Lord said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? let her be 12shut out from the camp seven days, and after that le her be received in again. 15And Miriam was kshut out from the camp seven days: and the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again. 16And afterward the people removed from Hazeroth, and pitched in the wilderness of Paran.13
[Num_12:6. נְבִיא לָכֶם = נְבִיאֲכֶם, the nominal suffix standing for the dative of the personal pronoun; as Gen_39:21 וַיִּתֵּן חִנּוֹ “he gave his grace,” for “he gave him grace;” comp. Lev_15:3. Naegelsbach, § 78, 1 c, rem. Thus also נביא stands in the constr. state with יהוה, “a prophet of Jehovah to you.” So also Keil. The LXX. construes יהוה with נביא, προφήτης ὑμῶν κυρίῳ; also the Vulg.—Tr.].
Num_12:13. Ought one, instead of the strange form אֵל נָא, to read with Michaelis and others אַל־נָא? It might even be more expressive of the emotion that Moses felt. [“The connection of the particle נָא with אֵל is certainly unusual; but yet it is analogous to the construction with such exclamations as אוֹי (Jer_4:31; Jer_45:3), and הְנֵה (Gen_12:11; Gen_16:2, etc.); since אֵל in the vocative is to be regarded as equivalent to an exclamation; whereas the alteration into אַל does not even give a fitting sense, apart altogether from the fact that the repetition of נָא after the verb, with אל־נא before it; would be altogether unexampled.” Keil.—Tr.].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. From the Graves of Lust the children of Israel marched to Hazeroth, where they abode for a season. Here Moses had to sustain another insurrection. It was in so far the worst of all as it proceeded from his own brother and sister, Miriam and Aaron, who were his assistants, and it assumed the garb of a higher holiness by virtue of which they would supersede him, or at least would assume equal rank. Female, fanatical enthusiasm and ruffled clericalism had combined against his freedom of spirit, the word of God and his vocation. The occasion was a marriage, which in Israelitish pride they regarded as an objectionable, mongrel marriage; but the consequence was this, that they were at least prophets of equal authority, who, if they did even let him be of account in their college, could conveniently outvote him. Thus, indeed, female fanaticism and priestly presumption in combination have often outvoted the representatives of God’s word.
Our section is brief, but its contents are rich in relation to the outbreaks of fanaticism, to mixed marriages, the forms of revelation, the true divine interdicts that may authenticate theocratic sanctuaries, and the higher power of spiritual intercession when opposed to the condemnatory spirit of a carnal fanaticism.
2. And Miriam, Num_12:1. She was the real instigator, as indeed, time out of mind, sisters have inclined to meddle with the marriage affairs of their brothers; hence the form תְּדַבֵּר. Aaron suffered himself to be carried away, as he had before done in the affair of the golden calf. A fancy for images, dependence on female fanaticism, meddling with the marriage rights of men has ever been an infirmity of priests.
3. Because of his wife the Cushite, whom he had married, Num_12:1. According to the propensity of fanaticism in all ages to exaggerate, to caricature, and to abuse, one might suppose that Zipporah were meant. Such was the view of Calvin and many others, Knobel among them, for whom of course this supposition offers the opportunity of detecting a contradiction. But, apart from the fact that the matter is treated as something quite new, it is against this view that it is added: for he had married a Cushite. This latter, therefore, makes necessary the assumption of Michaelis, Ewald, Keil and others, that Zipporah had died some time previously. The history of Joseph proved that marriage with an Egyptian woman was not antitheocratic. The prohibition to marry with the daughters of Canaan had special reasons of religious self-preservation. The union of Moses with an Ethiopian woman has been ascribed to theological motives. Baumgarten conceives the motive to have been, to represent the fellowship between Israel and the heathen. According to Gerlach it signified the future calling of the Gentiles. There may be more reason in the “Jewish fabling,” according to which the Cushite woman was in the train of the army of God even from Egypt, even if the statement that Moses married the Ethiopian princess Tharbis in Meroe, before the Exodus (Josephus, Antiq. 2, 10, 2) may be fabulous. That a feminine spirit out of heathendom might be carried away by the theocratic hope as a disciple of Moses, is proved by the history of Tamar, of Rahab and of Ruth. It is true that the High-Priest was allowed to marry only a Hebrew virgin; but that was a limitation belonging to his symbolic position, and the remark that Moses for this reason gave up all claim to the priesthood has no value. The prophetic class, on the other hand, had the task of illustrating the greatest possible letting down of legal restraint, and it offers a remarkable parallel that the next greatest man of the law, Elijah, lived for a considerable time as the table companion of a heathen widow of Zarephath.
4. Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses, Num_12:2. They appear to be willing to allow him still co-ordination, whereas their mind is to bring about the subordination of the younger brother. Thus, also, the older brothers of Jesus asserted themselves presumptuously against Him. Aaron wore the breast-plate, Urim and Thummim; Miriam, as a prophetess, had already led the chorus of the women of Israel. There appears to crop out a prelude of the spiritualism of the rebellion of Korah.
5. Now the man Moses was very meek, Num_12:3. An intimation that he endured in silence and committed his justification to God. If we assume a later redaction of the memorabilia of Moses, then this statement is easily explained as a gloss. Anyway the defence of the view that Moses wrote this himself is no affair affecting faith. See Keil for the discussions relating to this. [The defence of the integrity of this text may be of great importance even if it be not an “affair affecting faith.” There is really no more ground for impugning it than any other simple statement about Moses made by himself; as for instance: “O my Lord, I am not eloquent; but I am slow of speech.” Exo_4:10; Exo_11:3; Num_12:7, may also be compared. The common objection to it, that it is self-praise, is urged from the view-point of Christian ethics. Certainly before the day of David, who sang the praises of the meek (עָנָו) and of their meekness, no one would have been charged with praising himself who called himself meek. Calvin’s sensible comment touches the core of the matter: “The eulogium of his meekness amounts to this: as if Moses would say, he swallowed that injury in silence, inasmuch as he imposed a law of patience on himself because of his meekness.” Only it need not be admitted that the text was an “eulogium,” though it is such now. It would not even now-a-days be thought a proof of self-conceit, or more than a modest man might say, if one were to state that he swallowed more affronts than any man of his time. Apart from this unreasonable objection to the words, it is “manifest that the observation referred to occupies a necessary place in the history, being called forth by the occasion, and that the object of its insertion was by no means to magnify Moses.” Macdonald on The Pentateuch, I., p. 346.—Tr.]
6. Num_12:4-5. Moses, Aaron and Miriam, whose discourse Jehovah had heard, are suddenly cited to the fore-court of the Tent. This notice affords Knobel another opportunity for detecting a contradiction. Women in the Sanctuary! Yes, indeed, in the fore-court; in fact there was at a later period an entire fore-court for women. The three presented themselves there and are summoned. The cloud sinking down parts Aaron and Miriam from Moses, after they had approached before the door of the Tent. What they now hear seems to have the form of an inspiration from Jehovah, who manifested Himself in the dividing cloud.
7. If there be a prophet among you, etc., Num_12:6-8 b. The usual form of revelation is: Jehovah makes himself known in an appearance, or in a dream. The dream-vision as a third form is to be understood as included. The form of revelation in which Jehovah makes Himself known to Moses is superior, because Moses is faithful in all His [Jehovah’s] house. נֶאֶמָן may be taken to mean “entrusted with;” but the בְּ seems to favor the other rendering. But, of course, the house of Jehovah is not merely the Sanctuary, but all Israel as the house of Jehovah (Keil).
[My house, when said by Jehovah, must mean the same as “the house of Jehovah,” when said by Moses. The latter in the Pentateuch never means anything but the Tabernacle. Comp. Exo_23:19; Deu_23:18 (19); also Jos_6:24; Jos_9:23. Keil says: “It is not primarily His dwelling, the holy Tent (Baumgarten),—for in that case the word ‘whole’ (כָּלּ־) would be quite superfluous.” But כל cannot so extend the meaning of “house of God,” any more than “all the apple” can be made to comprehend the apple and the tree on which it grows. It is better to understand by “my house” the Tabernacle, including the economy that it represents. The Apostle’s reference to this phrase, Heb_3:2-6, quite consists with this, and most of all his words: “whose house we are,” which Keil quotes in favor of the other view. For these words in their context present an antithesis to “His (God’s) house.” Moses ministered in a house of types; Christ in the real house, of which believers are the ingredients.—Tr.]
To him Jehovah speaks mouth to mouth, i.e. the sound of the words objectively as inspiration and subjectively as law, is thoroughly correct. And it may subserve this that Moses is denied the dangerous gift of eloquence, and that he must speak in lapidary style. Hence, too, his sort of vision is peculiar; free from obscure or enigmatical forms of fantasy or poesy (חִידָה), ideal realism. He beholds the form of Jehovah, His essential form (Exo_33:11; Deu_34:10). Still one could not take these words absolutely, without being in conflict with Joh_1:18, and even Exodus 33 [No more conflict than Joh_5:37, οὔτε εἶδος αὐτοῦ ἑωράκατε.—Tr.] If the prophets saw what was divine only piece-meal and in various forms (Heb_1:1), so then Moses, too, did not see it synthetically, but analytically. It is therefore saying too much when one affirms: “God spake with Moses without figure and in the complete transparency of spiritual communication.”—What distinguishes him in the Old Testament is the totality and the objective precision of his perception of the law, but still on that account conditioned by visions, as e.g. the vision of the Burning Bush; and if “all the prophets only continued to build on the foundation that Moses laid,” still, on the other hand, each prophet saw a special aspect of the kingdom of God in such a light as Moses had not yet seen it. Keil says: “On this unique position of Moses to God and to the Theocracy, clearly affirmed in our verses, the Rabbins have justly founded the view of the superior degree of the inspiration of the Thorah.” But we may add: on this misunderstanding of this conditioned uniqueness, the Sadducees, too, founded their doctrine. The New Testament, also, is, according to historical relations, founded on the Old Testament; but, according to inward, essential relations that well up out of the divine depths into the light of day, the Old Testament is rather founded on the New, and in a certain sense John the Baptist is called the greatest prophet of the Old Testament.
8. Wherefore were ye not afraid? Num_12:8 c. They lived with him so long, and yet knew so little his exalted position. He stood too near to them, and they themselves, with their self-consciousness, stood too much in their own light. Again an old history that becomes ever new.
9. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them; and He departed, Num_12:9; the cloud removed from off the Tent, Num_12:10. It removes; “it mounts aloft.” This lifting up and moving off of the cloud might be portrayed without its significance being regarded. It was the first punishment and a chief one. Aaron was inwardly crushed, the fire on his altar went out, the pillar of smoke no longer mounted up as a token of grace, the cultus was for the moment at a stand-still, and it was as if an interdict of Jehovah lay on the cultus of the Sanctuary. Hence Miriam is not the only one punished when suddenly she stood there snow-white from leprosy. She would stand above Moses snow-white in righteousness, while she looked down on him as unclean. She would be a lady over the Church, for she dominated over Aaron, and now, even as a leper, she must be excluded from the Church. Now Aaron implores Moses, as his lord, to intercede. Here only the spiritual high-priesthood of a divine compassion can deliver the helpless high-priest himself. Lay not the sin upon us, Num_12:11; let us not atone for it. We have played the fool (יָאַל, Niph.). So, too, Luther once said, when looking back to the deliverance concerning the double marriage of Philip of Hesse. His sister seems to him as it were already consumed by the leprosy, as a still-born child may already appear almost corrupted at birth. Mournful image under which Miriam now appears here! He almost speaks as if Moses should heal her. Moses understands it as an indirect request to intercede for her. The reply of Jehovah is the granting of the request in the form of a sharp reproof (Num_12:14). The figurative expression compares her, who desired to be the prophetic regent of the nation, to a dependent maiden in whose face her father had spit on account of unseemly behaviour. Such an one must conceal herself seven days on account of her shame. The same is dictated to Miriam. “A usage among the Arabs is that, when a son and competitor in a race is beaten, the father spits in his face as a sign of his reproof (von Shubert, Reise II., p. 403).” Knobel. She is shut up seven days as a leper. Confounded by the sense of guilt, Aaron could not see the sign of hope in the snow-white leprosy. At bottom the confession of Miriam appeared already in that, because the blow proceeded from conscience. In ordering her to a seclusion of seven days, there was implied, however, even already the divine sentence of pronouncing her clean, because the leper pronounced clean could only after seven days be received again (Lev_14:8). The reception back again required the prescribed sacrifice. Therefore so long the people must remain encamped in Hazeroth. After the seven days the departure from Hazeroth took place. Knobel cannot see how the stern features and the mild features in Moses are to be harmonized (p. 30). Of course this is [for him] another contradiction!
HOMILETICAL HINTS
Miriam and Aaron in their would-be pious zeal against the alleged mixed marriage of Moses. Two-fold character of the so-called mixed marriages (see on Gen_6:1-8, Doct. and Eth., § 3; 1 Corinthians 7). The intercession of Moses must mediate again and again.
Footnotes:
[1]Or, Cushite
[2]Heb., taken.
[3]Tent of Meeting.
[4]Tent.
[5]prophet of Jehovah, among you, I make myself, etc.
[6]omit will.
[7]and as an appearance.
[8]he beholds.
[9]against Moses.
[10]removed.
[11]turned.
[12]shut up Without the, etc.
[13]received.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15 Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath…
Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not also spoken by us?--The prophetical name and character was bestowed upon Aaron (Exo 4:15-16) and Miriam (Exo 15:20); and, therefore, they considered the conduct of Moses, in exercising an exclusive authority in this matter, as an encroachment on their rights (Mic 6:4).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–15 THE SEDITION OF MIRIAM, Num_12:1-8.
THE SEDITION OF MIRIAM, Num_12:1-8.
Up to this time the various insurrections against Moses had arisen in consequence of the peculiar hardships of the journey through the wilderness. In these outbreaks against his authority he had been sustained by the loyalty and sympathy of his own kindred. But now he is to find disloyalty and bitter envy in his own father’s family. In this respect Moses resembled his great antitype, the Prophet like unto himself, who went forth to proclaim the “kingdom of God” as at hand, notwithstanding the unbelief of his brethren. Mar_3:21; Joh_7:5, note. A high spiritual vocation is always an enigma to worldly minds; and, if accompanied by authority, awakens envy and resistance on the part of equals in worldly circumstances.
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1. Miriam — The only sister of Moses named in history, (Num_26:59,) was older by several years. Exo_2:4. From the fact that she is mentioned first, and from the feminine form of the Hebrew verb, we infer that she was the prime mover in this revolt, and that Aaron, with characteristic pliancy and instability, as in the affair of the golden calf, (Exodus 32,) yielded to his misjudging sister, and was led into an act which tarnishes his fair name. Though Jehovah was angry with both of them, punishment fell only on Miriam.
Because of the Ethiopian woman — The subsequent account shows that the marriage with the “Cushite woman” (R.V.) was rather the occasion, and the envy rankling in Miriam’s heart was the real cause, of her collision with her brother. Some have supposed that Zipporah, the Midianite wife of Moses, was the occasion of offence. Against this are: (1.) The fact that this marriage had occurred forty years before, while Moses was a fugitive from Pharaoh’s wrath. There had been ample time for chagrin to be allayed. (2.) The Midianites are called Cushites, or Ethiopians, only once, and that at least seven centuries after the exode. Hab_3:7. A more reasonable theory is that Zipporah had died and Moses had married a Cushite wife from Arabia, or from the foreigners who had come out of Egypt with Israel. This was lawful, since only intermarriage with the Canaanites was forbidden. Exo_34:16. Yet Ezra (Ezr_9:1) includes the Amorites, Moabites, and Egyptians among the nations with whom it was unlawful for Israelites to intermarry.
Edersheim says: “For the first time we here encounter that pride of Israel after the flesh, and contempt for other nations, which often appeared throughout their after history, and in proportion as they have misunderstood the spiritual meaning of their calling.” The suggestion of Ewald, that the Cushite was a concubine taken while the first wife was still living, is an irreverent reflection upon the purity of the great lawgiver. The lofty character of Moses is a sufficient answer to such an assertion.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14 1. the Cushite woman] Cush is usually the Heb.…
1. the Cushite woman] Cush is usually the Heb. equivalent for Ethiopia. But it has recently been maintained, owing to the occurrence of the name Kusi in some Assyrian inscriptions, that there was also a place of that name in N. Arabia. Of an Ethiopian wife of Moses we hear nothing elsewhere, and the verse would seem to suggest that his marriage was recent. If, then, the wife was a native of N. Arabia, it would be possible to identify her with Ẓippôrah whom Moses had married in Midian (ch. Num_10:29, Exo_2:15-21; Exo_3:1); according to Jdg_1:16; Jdg_4:11 she was a Kenite.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (1) And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses.—Miriam appears…
XII.
(1) And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses.—Miriam appears to have been the leader in this insurrection against the authority of Moses. Her name occurs before that of Aaron, either as the nearer or as the more prominent subject; and the verb which is rendered “spake” is in the feminine gender. Moreover, the judgment which was inflicted (Num_12:10) fell upon Miriam, not upon Aaron. who seems to have yielded to the suggestions of Miriam, as he had previously done to the request of the Israelites in regard to the golden calf.
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Because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married.—Some suppose that the reference is to Zipporah, who may have been included amongst the Asiatic division of the Ethiopians, or Cushites (comp. Hab_3:7, where the tents of Cushan, or Cush, are coupled with the curtains of Midian), and that the occasion of the opposition to Moses was the undue influence which he is supposed to have allowed Hobab and other members of Zipporah’s family to exercise over him. This supposition, however, seems improbable on many accounts. The words, “for he had married an Ethiopian (or Cushite) woman,” naturally point to some recent occurrence, not to one which had taken place more than forty years previously, and which is, therefore, very unlikely to have given occasion to the murmuring of Miriam and Aaron at this time. Moreover, the murmuring is expressly connected with the Cushite herself, not with any of the subsequent or incidental results of the marriage. It seems, therefore, much more probable that Zipporah was dead, and that Moses had married one of the African Cushites who had accompanied the Israelites in their march out of Egypt, or one of the Cushites who dwelt in Arabia, and who were found at this time in the neighbourhood of Sinai. A similar marriage had been contracted by Joseph, and such marriages were not forbidden by the Law, which prohibited marriage with the Canaanites (Exo_34:16).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain On v1 Numbers 12
Numbers 12
The brief section of our book to which we now approach may be viewed in two distinct aspects; in the first place, it is typical or dispensational; and, in the second, moral or practical.
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In the union of Moses with "the Ethiopian woman," we have a type of that great and marvellous mystery, the union of the Church with Christ her Head. This subject has come before us in our study of the Book of Exodus; but we see it here, in a peculiar light, as that which evokes the enmity of Aaron and Miriam. the sovereign actings of grace draw forth the opposition of those who stand upon the ground of natural relationship and fleshly privilege. We know, from the teaching of the New Testament, that the extension of grace to the Gentiles was that which ever elicited the fiercest and most terrible hatred of the Jews. They would not have it; they would not believe in it; nay, they would not even hear of it. There is a very remarkable allusion to this in the eleventh chapter of Romans, where the apostle, referring to the gentiles, says," For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: even so have these [Jews] also now not believed in your mercy [or in mercy to you] that they also may obtain mercy." Verses 30, 31; see Greek.
This is precisely what we have typically presented in the history of Moses. He, first of all, presented himself to Israel, his brethren according to the flesh; but they, in unbelief, rejected him. They thrust him from them, and would not have him. This became, in the sovereignty of God, the occasion of mercy to the stranger, for it was during the period of Moses’ rejection by Israel that he formed the mystic and typical union with a Gentile bride. Against this union Miriam and Aaron speak, in the chapter before us; and their opposition brings down the judgement of God. Miriam becomes leprous - a poor defiled thing - a proper subject of mercy, which flows out to her through the intercession of the very one against whom she had spoken.
The type is complete and most striking. The Jews have not believed in the glorious truth of mercy to the Gentiles, and therefore wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. But they will be brought in, by and by, on the ground of simple mercy, just as the Gentiles have come in. This is very humiliating to those who sought to stand on the ground of promise and national privilege; but thus it is in the dispensational wisdom of God, the very thought of which draws forth from the inspired apostle that magnificent doxology, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgements, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen."
Thus much as to the typical bearing of our chapter; Let as now look at it in its moral and practical bearing. "And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman. and they said, Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the Lord heard it. (Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.) And the Lord spake suddenly unto Moses, and unto Aaron, and unto Miriam, Come out ye three unto the tabernacle of the congregation. And they three came out. And the Lord: came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam: and they both came forth. And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord. will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to month, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them; and he departed. And the cloud departed-from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow: and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous. Verses 1-10.
It is a most serious thing for any one to speak against the Lord’s servant. We may rest assured that God will deal with it, sooner or later. In the case of Miriam, the divine judgement came down suddenly and solemnly. It was a grievous wrong, yea, it was positive rebellion, to speak against the one whom God had so markedly raised up and clothed with a divine commission; and who, moreover, in the very matter of which they complained, had acted in full consonance with the counsels of God, and furnished a type of that glorious mystery which was hidden in His eternal mind, even the union of Christ and the Church.
But, in any case, it is a fatal mistake to speak against the very feeblest and humblest of God’s servants. If the servant does wrong - if he is in error, if he has failed in anything - the Lord Himself will deal with him; but let the fellow servants beware how they attempt to take the matter into their hands, lest they be found like Miriam, meddling to their own hurt.
It is very awful to hear, at times, the way in which people allow themselves to speak and write about Christ’s servants. True, these latter may give occasion; they may have made mistakes, and manifested a wrong spirit and temper; but we must confess we feel it to be a very dreadful sin against Christ to speak evil of His dear servants. Surely we ought to feel the weight and solemnity of these words, "Wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak. against my servant?"
May God give as grace to watch against this sore evil Let us see to it that we be not found doing that which is so offensive to Him, even speaking against those who are dear to His heart. There is not a single one of God’s people in whom we cannot find some good thing, provided only we look for it in the right way. Let us be occupied only with the good; let us dwell upon that, and seek to strengthen and develop it, in every possible way. And, on the other hand, if we have not been able to discover the good thing in our brother and fellow-servant; if our eye has only detected the crooked thing; if we have not succeeded in finding the vital spark amid the ashes - the precious gem among the surrounding rubbish; if we have only seen what was of mere nature, why then let us, with a loving and delicate hand, draw the curtain of silence around our brother, or speak of him only at the throne of grace.
So also when we happen to be in company with those who indulge in the wicked practice of speaking against the Lord’s people, if we cannot succeed in changing the current of the conversation, let us rise and leave the place, thus bearing testimony against that which is so hateful to Christ. Let us never sit by and listen to a backbiter. We may rest assured he is doing the work of the devil, and inflicting positive injury upon three distinct parties, namely, Himself, his hearer, and the subject of his censorious remarks.
There is something perfectly beautiful in the way. in which Moses carries himself, in the scene before us. Truly he proved himself a meek man, not only in the matter of Eldad and Medad, But also in the more trying matter of Miriam and Aaron. As to the former, instead of being jealous of those who were called to share his dignity and responsibility, he rejoiced in their work, and prayed that all the Lord’s people might taste the same holy privilege. and, as to the latter, instead of cherishing any feeling of resentment against his brother and sister, he was ready, al once, to take the place of intercession. "And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned. Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother’s womb. And Moses cried unto The Lord, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee." Verses 11-13.
Here Moses breathes the spirit of His Master, and prays for those who had spoken so bitterly against him. ’This was victory - the victory of a meek man - the victory of grace. a man who knows his right place in the presence of God is able to rise above all evil speaking. He is not troubled by it, save for those who practice it. He can afford to forgive it. He is not touchy, tenacious, or self-occupied. He knows that no one can put him lower than He deserves to be; and, hence, if any speak against him, he can meekly bow his head and pass on, leaving himself and his cause in the hands of Him who judgeth righteously, and who will assuredly reward every man according to his works.
This is true dignity. May we understand it somewhat better, and then we shall not be so ready to take fire if any one thinks proper to speak disparagingly of us or of our work; nay, more, we shall be able to lift up our hearts in earnest prayer for them, and thus draw down blessing on them and on our own souls.
The few closing lines of our chapter confirm the typical or dispensational view which we have ventured to suggest. "And the Lord said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? Let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again. And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days: and the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again. And afterward the people removed from Hazeroth and pitched in the wilderness of Paran." (Ver. 14-16.) We may regard Miriam, thus shut out of the camp, as a figure of the present condition of the nation of Israel, who, in consequence of their implacable opposition to the divine thought of mercy to the gentile, are set aside. But when the "seven days" have run their course, Israel shall be restored, on the ground of sovereign grace exercised toward them through the intercession of Christ.
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–15 THE SEDITION AND PUNISHMENT OF MIRIAM (chapter 12).
THE SEDITION AND PUNISHMENT OF MIRIAM (chapter 12).
And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses. While the people were encamped at Hazeroth (see verse 16), and therefore probably very soon after the events of the last chapter. That Miriam"s was the moving spirit in the matter is sufficiently evident,
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(1) because her name stands first;
(2) because the verb "spake" is in the feminine (rBedTy, "and she said");
(3) because the ground of annoyance was a peculiarly feminine one, a mesalliance;
(4) because Miriam alone was punished;
(5) because Aaron never seems to have taken the lead in anything.
He appears uniformly as a man of weak and pliable character, who was singularly open to influence from others, for good or for evil. Superior to his brother in certain gifts, he was as inferior to him in force of character as could well be. On the present occasion there can be little question that Aaron simply allowed himself to be drawn by his sister into an opposition with which he had little personal sympathy; a general discontent at the manifest inferiority of his position inclined him to take up her quarrel, and to echo her complaints. Because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman. Hebrew, a Cushite woman. The descendants of Cush were distributed both in Africa (the Ethiopians proper) and in Asia (the southern Arabians, Babylonians, Ninevites, &c.). See Ge 10. Some have thought that this Ethiopian woman was none other than the Midianite Zipporah, who might have been called a Cushite in some loose sense by Miriam. The historian, however, would not have repeated in his own name a statement so inaccurate; nor is it at all likely that that marriage would have become a matter of contention after so many years. The natural supposition undoubtedly is that Moses (whether after the death of Zipporah, or during her lifetime, we cannot tell) had taken to himself a second wife of Hamite origin. Where he found her it is useless to conjecture; she may possibly have been one of the "mixed multitude" that went up out of Egypt. It is equally useless to attribute any moral or religious character to this marriage, of which Holy Scripture takes no direct notice, and which was evidently regarded by Moses as a matter of purely private concern to himself. In general we may say that the rulers of Israel attached neither political, social, nor religious significance to their marriages; and that neither law nor custom imposed any restraint upon their choice, so long as they did not ally themselves with the daughters of Canaan. (see Exo_34:16) It would be altogether beside the mark to suppose that Moses deliberately married a Cushite woman in order to set forth the essential fellowship between Jew and Gentile. It is true that such marriages as those of Joseph, of Salmon, of Solomon, and others undeniably became invested with spiritual importance and evangelical significance, in view of the growing narrowness of Jewish feeling, and of the coming in of a wider dispensation; but such significance was wholly latent at the time. If, however, the choice of Moses is inexplicable, the opposition of Miriam is intelligible enough. She was a prophetess, (Exo_15:20) and strongly imbued with those national and patriotic feelings which are never far removed from exclusiveness and pride of race. She had to use modern words led the Te Deum of the nation after the stupendous overthrow of the Egyptians. And now her brother, who stood at the head of the nation, had brought into his tent a Cushite woman, one of the dark-skinned race which seemed oven lower in the religious scale than the Egyptians themselves. Such an alliance might easily seem to Miriam nothing better than an act of apostasy which would justify any possible opposition.
The contradiction of sinners.
We have in this chapter, spiritually, the contradiction of the Jews against their brother after the flesh; morally, the sin and punishment of jealousy and envy in high places. Consider, therefore
I THAT AS MOSES IS THE TYPE OF HIM WHO WAS THE MEDIATOR OF A BETTER COVENANT, WHO WAS MEEK AND LOWLY IN HEART; SO AARON AND MIRIAM, WHEN ARRAYED AGAINST MOSES, REPRESENT THE LEVITICAL PRIESTHOOD AT THE TIME OF OUR LORD, AND THE JEWISH SYNAGOGUE, IN THEIR CARNAL PRIDE AND EXCLUSIVENESS. Nor is this typical character arbitrary or unreal, for we may clearly see in them the same tendencies which afterwards ripened into utter blasphemy and Deicide.
II THAT THE OFFENCE OF MOSES IN THE EYES OF MIRIAM WAS HIS HAVING ALLIED HIMSELF WITH A GENTILE WIFE OF A DESPISED RACE. Even so the crime of our Lord, in the sight of a narrow and bigoted Judaism, was that he went about to present unto himself a Gentile Church, of the dregs of the nations, to be his spouse. (cf. Son_1:4-6 Luk_15:28 Act_22:21, 22 Eph_5:25-32)
III THAT MIRIAM AND AARON JUSTIFIED THEIR OPPOSITION TO MOSES BY DWELLING UPON THEIR OWN SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. Even so the synagogue and priesthood of the Jews magnified themselves against the Lord"s Christ and their own Messiah, on the ground that they themselves were commissioned of God. (cf. Joh_7:48 Joh_8:33 Joh 9:28, Joh_9:29)
IV THAT THEY WERE ABLE TO BE OBLIVIOUS OF HIS TRUE GREATNESS, BECAUSE HE WAS THEIR BROTHER, AND THEIR YOUNGER BROTHER. Even so Christ was despised by the Jews because he was (as it were) one of themselves, and because they seemed to be familiar with his antecedents and training. (cf. Mat_13:55-57 Luk_4:22, 28 Joh_6:42)
V THAT MOSES DISPLAYED A MEEKNESS WHICH SEEMED MORE THAN HUMAN. Even so our Lord endured the contradiction of sinners with a meekness which was more than human. (cf. Isa_42:19 Isa_53:7 Mat_11:29 Heb_12:3 Jam_5:6 1Pe_2:23)
VI THAT GOD INTERVENED TO ADVANCE HIS FAITHFUL SERVANT TO BE ABOVE ALL PROPHETS, AND TO BE MUCH NEARER TO HIMSELF THAN MIRIAM AND AARON. Even so did God vindicate his holy servant Jesus against all the blasphemy of the Jews, and give him a name which is above every name. (cf. Act_2:22-24, 32 4:10, 27, 30 Rom_1:4 Php_2:9 Heb_3:1-3)
VII THAT GOD INTERFERED TO PUNISH MIRIAM WITH LEPROSY FOR HER PRIDE AND RANCOUR. Even so the synagogue of the Jews became the synagogue of Satan, and they themselves are in exile, political and religious, until they shall cry for mercy to their Brother, the one Mediator. (Rom_11:25 1Th_2:15, 16 Rev_2:9 Rev_3:9)
Consider again
I THAT THE SECRET CAUSE OF ALL THIS DISTURBANCE WAS PROBABLY MIRIAM"S JEALOUSY OF HER BROTHER"S WIFE. It is likely she hoped to have exercised a growing influence over him herself. Even so history and experience testify that personal jealousies and envies are at the root of very many of the disorders in churches and congregations. (cf. 2Co_12:20 1Pe_2:1)
II THAT A COINCIDENT CAUSE WAS A SECRET DISSATISFACTION ON THE PART OF AARON AT THE INFERIORITY OF HIS OWN POSITION AND INFLUENCE AS COMPARED WITH HIS BROTHER"S. Even so ambition and lust of power have betrayed many a highly-gifted and perhaps really religious soul into making claims, and taking up a position derogatory to Christ, and inconsistent with his sole pre-eminence. (cf. Col_2:19)
III THAT THEY EXCUSED THEIR SEDITION UNDER THE PLEA (WHICH WAS TRUE IN ITSELF) THAT THEY TOO ENJOYED DIVINE FAVOURS AND PRIVILEGES. How often do men speak and act as if the fact of being spiritual, (Gal_6:1) or of being called to some ministry, authorized them to ignore all distinctions, refuse all control, and give the rein to their own enmities and evil feelings.
IV THAT MOSES TURNED A DEAF EAR TO THEIR INVECTIVES, BUT ALL THE MORE GOD TURNED A LISTENING EAR. MOSES WOULD NOT TAKE UP HIS OWN QUARREL, THEREFORE GOD TOOK IT UP FOR HIM, AND GREATLY MAGNIFIED HIM. Even so they that will avenge themselves must be content with the results of their own efforts, and they that will fight their own battles must take their chance of victory; but they that will not avenge themselves, God will vindicate, and that gloriously. The meek shall inherit the earth, because at the present they are dispossessed of the earth. (cf. Psa_76:9 Isa_11:4 Mat_5:5 Rom_12:19 Heb_10:30)
V THAT THE PUNISHMENT OF MIRIAM WAS THE MOST TERRIBLE OF DISEASES A LIVING DEATH. A jealous spirit, stirring up dissensions, reckless of the souls for which Christ died, incurs awful guilt, and is in danger of hell-fire. (cf. Mat_18:7-9 1Ti_6:4 Jam_4:5)
VI THAT AARON CRIED HUMBLY TO THE BROTHER WHOM HE HAD SPOKEN AGAINST; AND THAT BROTHER INTERCEDED FOR THEM, AND THUS AARON"S FAITH SAVED HIMSELF AND HIS SISTER. Even so the Lord Jesus is ever ready to intercede for his enemies; much more for those whom he loves as brethren, when they cry to him, even if they have treated him ill (cf. Luk_23:34 Rom_5:8, 9 Heb_2:11, Heb_2:12, and of the synagogue itself. (Rom_11:26, 28 2Co_3:16)
VII THAT MIRIAM"S FAULT, ALTHOUGH FORGIVEN, WAS NOT TO BE LIGHTLY FORGOTTEN BY HERSELF OR THE PEOPLE; SHE WAS TO BE ASHAMED FOR SEVEN DAYS. Even so it is not according to the will of God, nor for the edification of the Church, nor for the good of the sinner, that a sin which is also a scandal should be straightway smoothed over and forgotten, because it is acknowledged and forgiven. There is a natural impatience to be rid of tile disagreeable consequences of sin in this life, which is purely selfish on the part of every one concerned, and is dishonouring to God. Shame is a holy discipline for those who have done wrong, and they should not be hastily removed from its sanctifying influences. (cf. Eze_39:26 2Co_2:6 2Co_7:9-11)
VIII THAT MIRIAM, PROPHETESS AS SHE WAS, AND SISTER OF THE LAWGIVER, HAD TO PASS THROUGH THE ORDINARY CEREMONIAL FOR THE CLEANSING OF LEPERS A CEREMONIAL DESIGNED TO SET FORTH THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. Even SO there is one only way to restoration for all sinners, however highly placed or gifted, and that through the sprinkling of the precious blood. (cf. Lev_14:2 Act_4:12 Rom_3:22, Rom_3:23)
IX THAT GOD WOULD NOT GIVE THE SIGNAL FOR DEPARTURE UNTIL MIRIAM WAS RESTORED. Even so God, who will have all men to be saved, waiteth long and delayeth the entry of the Church into her rest, lest any who will come in should be shut out (cf. Luk_18:7b.; 2Pe_3:9, 15 Rev_7:3).
Consider also THAT THE OPPOSITION OF HIS OWN ONLY LED TO THE SUPREME AND SOLITARY GREATNESS OF MOSES BEING MADE FAR MORE CLEAR THAN EVER, AND BEING PLACED BEYOND CAVIL OR MISTAKE. Even so the persecution of our Lord by the Jews only led to his being declared the Son of God with power; and still more, the efforts of heretics to deny or to explain away his Divine glory, have only led to that glory being much more clearly defined, and much more devoutly believed than ever.
HOMILIES BY W. BINNIE Vers. 1-6. The sedition of Miriam and Aaron.
Here is another sedition in Israel. What is worse, the sedition does not, at this time, originate among the mixed multitude, the pariahs of the comp. The authors of it are the two leading personages in the congregation, after Moses himself. Nor are they strangers to him, such as might be deemed his natural rivals; they are his own kindred, his sister and brother.
I THE STORY OF THE SEDITION was, in brief, this: Moses was not the only member of the family of Amram whom the Lord had endowed with eminent gifts. Aaron, his elder brother, was a leading man among the Israelites before Moses received his call at Horeb. Miriam also was a woman of high and various gifts, both natural and gracious. She was a prophetess the earliest recorded example of a woman endowed with the gift of prophecy and she excelled also in song. (Exo_15:20 Mic_6:4) The eminent gifts of these two were not passed over. They found such recognition and scope, that next to Moses, Aaron and Miriam were the two most honoured and influential individuals in the comp. But they were not content with this. Moses was set in yet higher place, and this roused their jealousy. They could not bear to see another, one brought up in the same family, a younger brother too, elevated above them. Miriam could not brook the thought of being subject to the younger brother whose infancy she had tended, and whose ark of bulrushes she had been set to watch when their mother committed him to the unfeeling bosom of the Nile. "Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us?" Envy is a root tenacious of life in the human heart. When some one whom you have known familiarly as your junior or inferior is raised above you in office or wealth, in gifts or grace, watch and pray, else you will be very apt to fall into Miriam"s sin. I say Miriam"s sin, for it is plain that the sedition originated with her. Not only is her name put first, but in the Hebrew the beginning of the narrative runs thus: "Then she spake, even Miriam and Aaron, against Moses." When there is envy in the heart, it will soon find occasion to break out. Very characteristically, the occasion in this instance was some misunderstanding about Moses" wife. She was not of the daughters of Israel. Miriam affected to despise her as an unclean person, and persuaded Aaron to do the same. It was an instance of a thing not rare in history, a family quarrel, a fit of ill-feeling between two sisters-in-law, stirring up envy and strife between persons in high office, and troubling the community. There was something very petty in the conduct of Miriam and Aaron, but it was not, therefore, a trifling offence. When they were giving vent to their envy "the Lord heard.
II THE PUNISHMENT OF THE SEDITION. It does not appear that Moses made any complaint; he was the meekest of men, humble and patient. All the rather does the Highest take the defense of his servant in hand. "Suddenly," i.e., in sharp displeasure, Miriam and the two brothers were commanded to present themselves before the Lord, at the entrance of the tabernacle. Whereupon,
1. The Lord pronounced a warm eulogy upon, Moses. Observe the terms in which he is described, for there is much more in them than is perceived at first. "My servant Moses, in all mine house, in all mine house.
(1) Moses was "the servant of the Lord," "the man of God," in a sense more ample than any other individual who ever lived excepting only Christ himself; and one can perceive a tone of singular love in the way in which the title is here used: "my servant Moses.
(2) The commission of Moses extended to every part of the Lord"s house, and in every department of his service he showed fidelity. As a prophet, he was more extensively employed and more faithful than Miriam; as a priest, he was more honourable and faithful than Aaron; and he was, moreover, king in Jeshurun, the valiant and faithful leader and commander of the people. These were facts, and Moses might well have appealed to them in vindication of himself against the complainers. But he did better to leave the matter in the Lord"s own hand. (Psa_37:5, Psa_37:6)
2. Besides vindicating Moses and rebuking his detract ors, the Lord put a mark of his displeasure on Miriam. The ringleader in the sedition, she bears the brunt of the punishment. She has affected to abhor her sister-in-law as unclean; she is herself smitten with leprosy, a disease loathsome in itself, and which entailed ceremonial defilement in the highest degree. This done, the cloud of the Divine presence rose as suddenly as it had come down. Miriam and Aaron stood before the tabernacle utterly confounded, till Aaron was fain to humble himself before his brother, saying: We have done foolishly, we have sinned; forgive us, and do not let the sad affair go further; have pity on poor Miriam especially; see how pitiable a sight she is. "Like the dead thing of which the flesh is half consumed when it cometh out of its mother"s womb." Moses was not the man to resist so touching an appeal. Miriam was healed; but she was shut out from the camp as an unclean person for the space of a week, as the law prescribed. The lesson lies on the surface. Do not give harbour to envy because of the welfare or honour of your neighbour, rather "rejoice with them that do rejoice." It is not always easy to rejoice when some one younger, or of humbler birth than ourselves, is exalted above us. Nor is the difficulty lessened when the person exalted is of our own kindred. Nevertheless envy must be cast forth. The author of all gifts and honours is God. To envy the receivers is to rebel against him and provoke his displeasure. And God"s ordinary method in punishing envious pride is to inflict some peculiarly ignominious stroke. When Miriam swells with pride she is smitten with leprosy. B.
HOMILIES BY E.S. PROUT Vers. 1-16. God the vindicator of his calumniated servants.
The serpent"s trail was found in Eden, and "a devil" among the apostles. No wonder then at this narrative of strife in a godly family. We notice
I AN UNJUST INSINUATION. Neither Moses" marriage nor his conduct to his relatives (verse 3) had given fair cause of provocation. If his wife had done so, the charge Aaron and Miriam brought against the man who chose her was utterly irrelevant (verse 2). "The wife of Moses is mentioned, his superiority is shot at" (Bp. Hall). No wonder if the most conscientious and cautious are calumniated since false charges were brought against Moses, Job, Jeremiah, and Jesus Christ. The assault was aggravated because
1. It came from his nearest kindred. (Ps 65 Jer_12:6) Miriam apparently began it, perhaps through a misunderstanding between the sisters-in-law, and drew Aaron into the plot. (1Ti_2:14)
2. Because it was in the form of an unjust insinuation that Moses claimed exclusive prophetic gifts. (verse 2; cf. Exo_15:20 Mic_6:4)
II A TRIUMPHANT VINDICATION. Moses apparently had taken no notice of the charge; perhaps acting on Agricola"s rule, "omnia scire, non omnia exsequi. (cf. Psa_38:12-15 Joh_8:50) But the Lord heard it and interposed.
1. The three are summoned before an impartial judge, but with what different feelings.
2. The calumniated servant of God is distinguished by special honours (verses 6-8).
3. The murmurers are rebuked, and a humiliating punishment is inflicted on the chief offender. The punishment of Aaron, the accomplice, only less severe (through sympathy with his sister) than that of Miriam. (Job_12:16)
4. They are indebted for deliverance to the intercession of the man theyhave wronged. Illustration) Jeroboam. (1Ki_13:6; Job"s friends, Job_42:7-10) Thus God will vindicate all his calumniated servants. (Psa_37:5, Psa_37:6) Protection; (Psa_31:20) peace; (Pro_16:7) honour; (Isa_60:14 Rev_3:9) and final reward. (Psa_91:14-16; and Rom_8:31) Such are the privileges of the faithful but maligned servants of God. P.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG Vers. 1, 2. A hideous manifestation of pride.
Amid much obscurity we discern that family jealousies were the occasion of this outbreak. Some occasion certainly would have arisen, so we need not trouble ourselves whether this Cushite wife was Zipporah or a wife lately taken. There is room for much conjecture, and real need for none. Out of the heart cometh pride. Pride was in Miriam"s heart; it must come out sooner or later. We specify Miriam, as she was evidently the principal transgressor. Aaron simply and easily followed where she led. Let us fix our attention on the hideous revelation of her pride.
I It was A PRIDE THAT OVERWHELMED NATURAL AFFECTION. To whom in all Israel might Moses have more confidently looked for sympathy than his own sister? Especially if it were she who stood afar off, and watched the ark of bulrushes. (Exo_2:4) It was an unworthy thing of a sister to hinder one on whom God had laid such great and anxious duties. But when self-esteem is once hurt, the wound soon inflames beyond all control; and even those on whom we are most dependent, and to whom we owe the most, are made to feel the grievous irritation of our spirits.
II It was A PRIDE THAT MADE MIRIAM FORGET THE OBLIGATIONS OF HER OWN HONOURABLE OFFICE. She was a prophetess, even as Moses was a prophet. She does, indeed, in one sense recollect her office. "Hath the Lord not spoken also by us?" True; and this was the very reason why she should have been specially careful of what she said, even when the Lord was not speaking by her. A prophet"s tongue should be doubly guarded at all times. Those who speak for God ought never to say anything out of their own thoughts incongruous with the Divine message. If Miriam and Aaron had ever been obliged to deal with Moses as once Paul had to deal with Peter, and withstand him to the face because he was to be blamed, then the prophet element in them would have been more glorious than ever. But here Miriam stoops from her high rank to give effect to a mean personal grudge.
III It was PRIDE THAT PUT ON A PRETENCE OF BEING BADLY TREATED. It is very easy for the proud to persuade themselves that they have been badly treated. They are so much in their own thoughts that it becomes easy for them to believe that they are much in the thoughts of other people; and from this they can soon advance to the suspicion that there may be elaborate designs against them. Men will go step by step to great villainies, justifying themselves all the way. The scribes who sat in Moses" seat no doubt made their conspiracy against Jesus look very laudable to their own eyes. Miriam does not speak here with the arrogance of a straightforward, brutal, "I wish it, and it must be so." The iniquity of her heart sought to veil itself in a plausible plea for justice.
IV It was the WORST OF ALL PRIDE, SPIRITUAL PRIDE. Pride of birth, of beauty, of wealth, of learning, all these are bad, often ridiculous; but spiritual pride is such a contradiction, such an amazing example of blindness, that we may well give it a pre-eminence among the evil fruits of the corrupt heart. It is the chief of all pride, most dangerous to the subject of it, and most insulting to God. Contrast Miriam with Mary, the mother of Jesus: the one all chafed and swelling within, who thinks the people should attend her as much as her brother; the other having the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, humbly submissive to Gabriel"s word, nothing doubting, yet prostrate in amazement that she should have been chosen as the mother of Messiah, sending forth her Magnificat like a lark soaring from its humble bed, singing its song, and straightway returning to the earth again. Or contrast her with Paul, saying, because he truly felt, that he was less than the least of all saints an earthen vessel, the chief of sinners. Amid our greatest privileges we are still in the greatest danger if without a sense, habitually cherished, of our natural unworthiness. The more God sees fit to make of us, the more we should wonder that he is able to make so much out of so little. Y.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 10 Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses.
Num_12:1-2
Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses.
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Miriam and Aarons sedition
1. The noblest disinterestedness will not preserve us from the shafts of envy. The poet has said, in regard to another virtue, Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny; and no matter how unselfish we are, we may lay our account with some envenomed attacks which shall plausibly accuse us of seeking our own things and not the things that are Jesus Christs. Nay, the more conspicuous we are for devotion to the public good, we may be only thereby more distinctly marked as a target for the worlds scorn. I am weary of hearing always of Aristides as the Just, was the expression of one who plotted for that patriots banishment; and if a mans character be in itself a protest against abounding corruption, he will soon be assailed by some one in the very things in which he is most eminent.
2. This envy of disinterested greatness may show itself in the most unexpected quarters. If Aaron and Miriam were capable of such envy, we may not think that we are immaculate. It asks the minister to examine himself and see whether he has not been guilty of depreciating a brothers gifts, because he looked upon him as a rival rather than as a fellow-labourer; it bids the merchant search through the recesses of his heart, if haply the terms in which he refers to a neighbour, or the tales he tells of him, be not due to the fact that, either in business or in society, he has been somehow preferred before him; it beseeches the lady, who is engaged in whispering the most ill-natured gossip against another in her circle, to inquire and see whether the animus of her deed be not the avenging of some fancied slight, or the desire to protest against an honour which has been done to the object of what Thackeray has called her due Christian animosity. Ah! are we not all in danger here? How well it would be if we repelled all temptations to envy as John silenced those who tried to set him against Jesus; for, as Bishop Hall has said, That man hath true light who can be content to be a candle before the sun of others.
3. The utter meanness of the weapons which envy is content to employ. A mans house is his castle. No personal malice should enter into it with its attack; and no mean report should be received from the eavesdroppers who have first misunderstood and then misrepresented. If a mans public life has been blamable, then let him be arraigned; but let no Paul Pry interviewer cross his threshold to get hold of family secrets, or descend into the area to hear some hirelings moralisings. Even the bees, when put into a glass hive, go to work at the very first to make the glass opaque, for they will not have their secrets made common property; and surely we busy human beings may sometimes be allowed to be by ourselves.
4. The assaults of envy are always best met by a silent appeal to Heaven. Let the victims of unjust assault take comfort, for God will be their defence. But let the envious ones take heed, for God hears their words, and He will one day confront them with His judgment. He may do that long before the day of final assize. He may meet them in His providence, and give them to understand that they who touch His faithful servants are touching the apple of His eye; nay, He may bring such trouble upon them that they will be glad to accept of the intercession of those whom they have maligned. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
The sin of Miriam and Aaron: evil speaking, Divine hearing, and saintly silence
I. The sin of Miriam and Aaron.
1. Its root: jealousy and vaulting ambition.
2. Its occasion.
3. Its expression.
II. The divine cognisance of their sin. And the Lord heard. No one utterance of all the myriads of voices in His universe ever escapes His ear. There is a Divine hearer of every human speech. This is clear from--
1. His omnipresence (Psa_139:7-12).
2. His infinite intelligence.
3. His interest in His servants.
III. The commendable conduct of Moses under the provocation of their sin.
1. He was sorely tried (cf. Psa_55:12-15)
.
2. He bore his sore trial most nobly.
Conclusion:
1. In the conduct of Miriam and Aaron we have a beacon. Let us shun their sin, &c.
2. In the conduct of Moses we have a pattern. Let us imitate his meekness. (W. Jones.)
The modern application of an ancient incident
I. The possession of the greatest gifts does not exempt men from the liability to meanness and sin.
II. The most excellent and eminent servants of god are not exempt from the reproaches of men.
III. Our greatest trials sometimes arise from the most unlikely quarters.
IV. The lord takes cognisance of the reproaches which are cast upon his servants.
V. The servants of the Lord do well in bearing patiently the reproaches which are cast upon them. (W. Jones.)
Miriams sin
;--
I. Miriams sin.
1. Jealousy.
2. Envy.
3. Evil-speaking. Privately sought to undermine the power of Moses among the people.
4. Folly. Could she have succeeded in destroying the power of Moses, she would have failed in getting them to recognise her as their leader. She did not see that she shone in the borrowed light of her great brother.
5. Rebellion against God. Moses was the servant of God: to resist him was to resist the Master.
6. Vain excuses. Because, and because . . . Sinners are often prolific in excuses; called by them reasons.
II. Miriams detection. And the Lord heard it. Moses may have heard of it. This seems to be implied By the allusion to his meekness (Num_12:3). If the Lord hear, then no sin passes undetected. Moses gave himself no concern about it. Could Miriam meet her brother without shame? The Lord spake suddenly. God pronounced Moses faithful. What must Miriam have thought of her faithfulness?
III. Miriams punishment. She was smitten with leprosy, and under circumstances that much heightened the effect of the punishment.
1. It was in the presence of the person she had injured.
2. In the presence of her fellow-conspirators.
3. By the great God, against whose authority she had rebelled.
4. Was excluded from the camp publicly.
5. Humbled, by being cleansed in answer to the prayer of him she had wronged.
Learn--
1. The great sin of evil-speaking. Especially against ministers of religion, whose influence for good ought to be preserved not only by themselves but by all about them. The character of public men is their strength. Destroy their character, their power is gone. By this loss the public itself is impoverished and injured. Hence such slander is suicidal.
2. God the defender of His servants. The severe punishment--and upon no other than Miriam--shows the Divine abhorrence of the sin.
3. Moses, leaving the exposure and punishment with God, and interceding for Miriam, teaches us how to regard attacks upon our character, and act under them, and towards such unhappy offenders. (J. C. Gray.)
Envy and pride meekly met
I. what sinful principles will prompt a man to do. Here we see the ties of nature disregarded; the bonds of professed fellowship burst asunder; Gods interest disregarded. Pride and envy had entered the heart, and all consequences were unheeded, even though Moses should be brought into contempt before the whole congregation. Let us fear lest such principles should ever get possession of our minds; the first feeling must be mourned over and prayed against.
II. What divine grace will enable us to bear. If we imbibe the spirit of our Lord and Master we shall offer prayer for those who use us ill. If the approbation of God be ours, though all the world be against us it will do us no harm. It was said of one of the martyrs that he was so like Christ that he could not be roused by injuries to say one word that was revengeful. Oh, if this spirit were universal, what a happy world would this be! See how the grace of God can enable us to return good for evil, and thus feel an indescribable peace and happiness in our own spirit, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost. The power of man can never impart this meek and quiet spirit; it can alone come from the blessed influence of the Holy Spirit. (George Breay, B. A.)
The great evil of ambition
The true cause of this their murmuring was pride and ambition, self-love, ostentation, and vainglory. Hereby we learn that there cometh no greater plague to the Church of God than by ambition and desire of pre-eminence. The ambition and pride of Amaziah, the priest of Beth-el, would not suffer the prophet Amos in the land of Israel, but he commanded him to fly away into the land of Judah and prophesy there (Amo_7:10; Amo_7:12). We see this apparently afterward (Num_16:1-50.) in Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Neither is this evil dead with these; for this is a great plague of the Church to this day, and very pernicious. Nothing hath more ruined the Church of God, overthrown piety, corrupted religion, hindered the gospel, discouraged the pastors and professors of it, nothing hath more erected the kingdom of anti-Christ than these petty popes, the true successors of Diotrephes, such as desire to be universal bishops and to reign alone. The mischief hereof appeareth by sundry reasons.
1. It causeth a great rent and division in the Church, and disturbeth the peace of it (Num_16:1).
2. It setteth up men and putteth down the Lord and His ordinances, urging, compelling, and commanding against the truth (Act_4:18-19).
3. It proceedeth from very evil roots, and bringeth forth very evil effects, as an evil tree bringeth forth evil fruits. The causes from whence it floweth are Satan, pride, disdain of others, self-love, no love of the truth, no zeal of Gods glory, no desire of the good of the Church.
The effects thereof are trouble, disquietness, fear, flattery, envy, and subtilty. Let us come to the uses.
1. It reproveth those who bear themselves as lords over the flock of Christ.
2. Acknowledge this ambition to be a general corruption, the remainders whereof are in all the servants of God, yea, in all the children of Adam; we have drawn it from him, and thereby it hath leavened and corrupted all mankind. If any man ask what it is, I answer, It is an immoderate desire after dignity, and of dignity upon dignity; it is a thirst that never can be quenched; for as the covetous person hath never enough money, so the ambitious hath never enough honour. It is a secret poison, a hidden plague, the mother of hypocrisy, the father of envy, the fountain of vices, the moth of piety, a blind guide and leader of the hearts of men. The farther we think ourselves from it the nearer commonly it cometh unto us; and therefore let nothing be done through strife and vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves (Php_2:3).
3. Lastly, let all learn to beware of this evil. (W. Attersoll.)
Claiming equality
If the Lord did speak by Miriam and Aaron, what then? The Lord Himself acknowledges that He speaks in different ways to different men. To some--perhaps to most--He comes in vision and in dream; things are heard as if they were spoken beyond the great mountain; they are echoes, wanting in shape and directness, yet capable of interpretations that touch the very centres and springs of life, that make men wonder, that draw men up from flippancy, and write upon vacant faces tokens of reverence and proofs that the inner vision is at the moment entranced by some immeasurable revelation. To other men God speaks apparently--that is, in broad and visible figure. He is quite near; it is as if friend were accosting friend, as if two interlocutors were mutually visible and speaking within hand-range of one another. There is nothing superstitious about this; it is the fact of to-day. Take a book of science--what do you find in that rational and philosophical bible? You find certain names put uppermost. Why should not every boy that has caught his first fly, or cut in two his first worm, say, Hath not the Lord spoken unto me as well as unto Darwin, or Cuvier, or Buffon?--who are they? But it does so happen that outside the Bible we have the Moses of science--the chief man of letters, the prince of song. Take the history of music, and we find names set by themselves like insulated stars-great planetary names. What would be thought of a person who has just learned the notes of music, saying, Hath not the Lord spoken unto me as well as unto Beethoven? He has; but He has not told you so much. There is a difference in kind; there is a difference in quality. We find this same law operating in all directions. There are books that say, Are not we inspired as well as the Bible? The answer is, Certainly you are. The Lord had spoken to Miriam and to Aaron as certainly as He had spoken to Moses, but with a difference; and it is never for Moses to argue with Miriam. Moses takes no part in this petty controversy. He would have disproved his superior inspiration if he had stooped to this fray of words. So some books seem to say, Are not we also inspired? The frank and true answer is, Yes. Is not many a sentence in the greatest of dramatists an inspired sentence? The frank, Christian, just answer is, Yes. Is not many a discovery in the natural world quite an instance of inspiration? Why hesitate to say, Yes; but always with a difference? The Bible takes no part in the controversy about its own inspiration. The Bible lives--comes into the house when it is wanted, goes upstairs to the sick-chamber, follows the lonely sufferer into solitude, and communes with him about the mystery of disappointment, discipline, pain of heart; goes to the grave-side, and speaks about the old soldier just laid to rest, the little child just exhaled like a dewdrop by the morning sun. It lives because no hand can slay it; it stands back, or comes forward, according to the necessity of the case, because of a dignity that can wait, because of an energy that is ready to advance. Some books claim to be as inspired as the Bible. Then they become leprous, and all history has shown that they are put out of the camp. Many books have arisen to put down the Bible; they have had their day: they have ceased to be. We must judge by facts and realities. When a man who has no claim to the dignity asserts that he is upon an equality with the great musician, the great musician takes no part in the fray; when the competitor has played his little trick, one touch of the fingers regulated by the hand Divine will settle the controversy. By this token we stand or fall with our Christianity, with our great gospel. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Hatred between brothers and sisters
What were Aaron and Miriam to Moses? Even his own brother and sister. And cannot such agree? Will there be jars and grudgings in such? Would God it were not too true. Nay, such is our corruption, if the Lord lead us not with His loving Spirit, that not only we disagree being brothers and sisters, but with a far more bitter and implacable wrath than others that are farther off. What a venom was in Cain to his brother Abel when nothing but blood would appease it? What was in Esaus heart towards his brother Jacob? Oh, what venom is this that lurketh in our nature if God leaves us to ourselves! May we not justly marvel at some men, otherwise of great wisdom and judgment, that dare break out unto the praise of these perturbations as virtues and badges of noble minds? For what is this but as if a man would praise the diseases of the body and the nettles and weeds and hurtful plants of the earth. Should not he be accounted mad that would set his own house on fire? And I pray you what be that will cast fire into his own heart to set it on a flame? Saint Augustine was wont to say, Look how vinegar put into a vessel thereby is made sour and corrupted; so is the malicious person by his own anger made filthy and most distasteful to all good men. And if thus among strangers, oh, what among brothers and sisters! Wherefore what council is given to refrain all anger, venom, and hatred, let it in particular be applied to bridle all rage or dislike among such near ones as now we speak of. (Bp. Babington.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Numbers 12
THE JEALOUSY OF MIRIAM AND AARON
Numbers 12
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IT may be confidently said that no representative writer of the post-exilic age would have invented or even cared to revive the episode of this chapter. From the point of view of Ezra and his fellow-reformers, it would certainly appear a blot on the character of Moses that he passed by the women of his own people and took a Cushite or Ethiopian wife. The idea of the "holy seed," on which the zealous leaders of new Judaism insisted after the return from Babylon, was exclusive. It appeared an abomination for Israelites to intermarry either with the original inhabitants of Canaan, or even with Moabites, Ammonites, and Egyptians. At an earlier date any disposition to seek alliance with Egypt or hold intercourse with it was denounced as profane. Isaiah and Jeremiah alike declare that Israel, whom Jehovah led forth from Egypt, should never think of returning to drink of its waters or trust in its shadow. As the necessity of separateness from other peoples became strongly felt, revulsion from Ethiopia would be greater than from Egypt itself. Jeremiahs inquiry, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin?" made the dark colour of that race a symbol of moral taint.
To be sure, the prophets did not all adopt this view. Amos, especially, in one of his striking passages, claims for the Ethiopians the same relation to God as Israel had: "Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto Me, O children of Israel, saith the Lord?" No reproach to the Israelites is intended; they are only reminded that all nations have the same origin and are under the same Divine providence. And the Psalms in their evangelical anticipations look once and again to that dark land in the remote south: "Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God"; "I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know Me: behold Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia; this man was born there." The zeal of the period immediately after the captivity carried separateness far beyond that of any earlier time, surpassing the letter of the statute in Exo_34:11 and Deu_7:2. And we may safely assert that if the Pentateuch did not come into existence till after the new ideas of exclusion were established, and if it was written then for the purpose of exalting Moses and his law, the reference to his Cushite wife would certainly have been suppressed.
All the more may this be maintained when we take into account the likelihood that it was not entirely without reason Aaron and Miriam felt some jealousy of the woman. The story is usually taken to mean that there was no cause whatever for the feeling entertained; and if Miram alone had been involved, we might have regarded the matter as without significance. But Aaron had hitherto acted cordially with the brother to whom he owed his high position. Not a single disloyal word or deed had as yet separated him in the least, personally, from Moses. They wrought together in the promulgation of law, they were together in transgression and judgment. Aaron had every reason for remaining faithful; and if he was now moved to a feeling that the character and reputation of the lawgiver were imperilled, it must have been because he saw reason. He could approach Moses quietly on this subject without any thought of challenging his authority as leader. We see that while he accompanied Miriam he kept in the background, unwilling, himself, to appear as an accuser, though persuaded that the unpleasant duty must be done.
So far as Moses is concerned these thoughts, which naturally arise, go to support the genuineness of the history. And in like manner the condemnation of Aaron bears out the view that the episode is not of legendary growth. If priestly influence had determined to any extent the form of the narrative, the fault of Aaron would have been suppressed. He agrees with Miriam in making a claim the rejection of which involves him and the priesthood in shame. And yet, again, the theory that here we have prophetic narrative, critical of the priesthood, will not stand; for Miriam is a prophetess, and language is used which seems to deny to all but Moses a clear and intimate knowledge of the Divine will.
Miriam was the spokeswoman. She it was, as the Hebrew implies, who "spake against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married." It would seem that hitherto in right of her prophetical gift she was to some extent an adviser of her brother, or had otherwise a measure of influence. It appeared to her not only a bad thing for Moses himself but absolutely wrong that a woman of alien race, who probably came out of Egypt with the tribes, one among the mixed multitude, should have anything to say to him in private, or should be in his confidence. Miriam maintained, apparently, that her brother had committed a serious mistake in marrying this wife, and still more in denying to Aaron and to herself that right of advising which they had hitherto used. Was not Moses forgetting that Miriam had her share in the zeal and inspiration which had made the guidance of the tribes so far successful? If Moses stands aloof, consults only with his alien wife, will he not forfeit position and authority and be deprived of help with which he has no right to dispense?
Miriams is an instance, the first instance we may say, of the womans claim to take her place side by side with the man in the direction of affairs. It would be absurd to say that the modern desire has its origin in a spirit of jealousy like that which Miriam showed; yet, parallel to her demand, "Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? Hath he not also spoken by us?" is the recent cry, "Has man a monopoly either of wisdom or of the moral qualities? Are not women at least equally endowed with ethical insight and sagacity in counsel?" Long excluded from affairs by custom and law, women have become weary of using their influence in an unrecognised, indirect way, and many would now claim an absolute parity with men, convinced that if in any respect they are weak as yet they will soon become capable. The claim is to a certain extent based on the Christian doctrine of equality between male and female, but also on the acknowledged success of women who, engaging in public duties side by side with men, have proved their aptitude and won high distinction.
At the same time, those who have had experience of the world and the many phases of human life must always have a position which the inexperienced may not claim; and women, as compared with men, must continue to be at a certain disadvantage for this reason. It may be supposed that intuition can be placed against experience, that the womans quick insight may serve her better than the mans slowly acquired knowledge. And most will allow this, but only to a certain point. The womans intuition is a fact of her nature-to be trusted often and along many ways. It is, indeed, her experience, gained half unconsciously. But the modern claim is assuming far more than this. We are told that the moral sense of the race comes down through women. They conserve the moral sense. This is no Christian claim, or Christian only in outdoing Romanism and setting Mary far above her Son. Seriously put forward by women, this will throw back their whole claim into the middle ages again. That a finer moral sense often forms part of their intuition is admitted: that as a sex they lead the race must be proved where, as yet, they do not prove it. Nevertheless, the world is advancing by the advance of women. There is no need any longer for that jealous intriguing which has often wrecked governments and homes. Christianity, ruling the questions of sex, means a very stable form of society, a continuous and calm development, the principle of charity and mutual service.
Miriam claimed the position of a prophet or nabi for herself, and endeavoured to make her gift and Aarons as revealers of truth appear equal to that of Moses. At the Red Sea she led the chorus "Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea." That, so far as we know, was her title to count herself a prophetess. As for Aaron, we often find his name associated with his brothers in the formula, "The Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron." He had also been the nabi of Moses when the two went to Pharaoh with their demand on behalf of Israel. But the claim of equality with Moses was vain. Poor Miriam had her one flash of high enthusiasm, and may have now and again risen to some courage and zeal in professing her faith. But she does not seem to have had the ability to distinguish between her fitful glimpses of truth and Moses Divine intelligence. Aaron, again, must have been half ashamed when he was placed beside his brother. He had no genius, none of the elevation of soul that betokens an inspired man. He obeyed well, served the sanctuary well; he was a good priest, but no prophet.
The little knowledge, the small gifts, appear great to those who have them, so great as often to eclipse those of nobler men. We magnify what we have, -our power of vision, though we cannot see far; our spiritual intelligence, though we have learned the first principles only of Divine faith. In the religious controversies of to-day, as in those of the past, men whose claims are of the slightest have pushed to the front with the demand, Hath not the Lord spoken by us? But there is no Moses to be challenged. The age of the revealers is gone. He who seems to be a great prophet may be taken for one because he stands on the past and invokes voluminous authority for all he says and does. In truth, our disputations are between the modern Eliphaz, Bildad, and Job-all of them today men of limited view and meagre inspiration, who repeat old hearsays with wearisome pertinacity, or inveigh against the old interpretations with infinite assurance. Jehovah speaks from the storm; but there is no heed paid to His voice. By some the Word is declared unintelligible; others deny it to be His.
While Moses kept silence, ruling his spirit in the meekness of a man of God, suddenly the command was given, "Come out, ye three, unto the tent of meeting." Possibly the interview had been at Moses own tent in the near portion of the camp. Now judgment was to be solemnly given; and the circumstances were made the more impressive by the removal of the cloud-pillar from above the tabernacle to the door of the tent, where it seems to have intervened between Moses on the one side and Miriam and Aaron on the other; then the Voice spoke, requiring these two to approach, and the oracle was heard. The subject of it was the position of Moses as the interpreter of Jehovahs will. He was distinguished from any other prophet of the time.
We are here at a point where more knowledge is needful to a full understanding of the revelation: we can only conjecture. Not long is it since the seventy elders belonging to different tribes were endowed with the spirit of prophecy. Already there may have been some abuse of their new power; for though God bestows His gifts on men, they have practical liberty, and may not always be wise or humble in exercising the gifts. So the need of a distinction between Moses and, the others would be clear. As to Miriam and Aaron, their jealousy may have been not only of Moses, but also of the seventy. Miriam and Aaron were prophets of older standing, and would be disposed to claim that the Lord spoke by them rather in the way He spoke by Moses than after the manner of His communications through the seventy. Were members of the sacred family to be on a level henceforth with any persons who spoke ecstatically in praise of Jehovah? Thus claim asserted itself over claim. The seventy had to be informed as to the limits of their office, prevented from taking a place higher than they had been assigned: Miriam and Aaron also had to be instructed that their position differed entirely from their brothers, that they must be content so far as prophecy was concerned to stand with the rest whose respiration they may have despised. With this view the general terms of the deliverance appear to correspond.
The Voice from the tent of meeting was heard through the cloud; and on the one hand the function of the prophet or nabi was defined, on the other the high honour and prerogative of Moses were announced. The. prophet, said the Voice, shall have Jehovah made known to him "in vision, or in dream,"-in his waking hours, when the mind is on the alert, receiving impressions from nature and the events of life; when memory is occupied with the past and hope with the future, the vision shall be given. Or again, in sleep, when the mind is withdrawn from external objects and appears entirely passive, a dream shall open glimpses of the great work of Providence, the purposes of judgment or of grace. In these ways the prophet shall receive his knowledge; and of necessity the revelation will be to some extent shadowed, difficult to interpret. Now the name prophet, nabi, is continually applied throughout the Old Testament, not only to the seventy and others who like them spoke in ecstatic language, and those who afterwards used musical instruments to help the rapture with which the Divine utterance came, but also to men like Amos and Isaiah. And it has been made a question whether the inspiration of these prophets is to come under the general law of the oracle we are considering. The answer in one sense is clear. So far as the word nabi designates all, they are all of one order. But it is equally certain, as Kuenen has pointed out, that the later prophets were not always in a state of ecstasy when they gave their oracles, nor simply reproducing, thoughts of which they first became conscious in that state. They had an exalting consciousness of the presence and enlightening Spirit of Jehovah bestowed on them, or the burden of Jehovah laid on them. The visions were often flashes of thought; at other times the prophet seemed to look on a new earth and heaven filled with moving symbols and powers. But the whole development of national faith and knowledge affected their flashes of thought and visions, lifting prophetic energy into a higher range.
Now, returning to the oracle, we find that Moses is not a prophet or nabi in this sense. The words that relate to him carefully distinguish between his illumination and that of the nabi. "My servant Moses is not so; he is faithful in all Mine house: with him will I speak mouth to mouth, even manifestly, and not in dark speeches; and the form of Jehovah shall he behold." Every word here is chosen to exclude the idea of ecstasy, the idea of vision or dream, which leaves some shadow of uncertainty upon the mind, and the idea of any intermediate influence between the human intelligence and the disclosure of Gods will. And when we try to interpret this in terms of our own mental operations, and our consciousness of the way in which truth reaches our minds, we recognise for one thing an impression made distinctly word by word of the message to be conveyed. There is given to Moses not only a general idea of the truth or principle to be embodied in his words, but he receives the very terms. They come to him in concrete form. He has but to repeat or write what Jehovah communicates. Along with this there is given to Moses a power of apprehending the form or similitude of God. His mind is made capable of singular precision in receiving and transmitting the oracle or statute. There is complete calmness and what we may call self-possession when he is in the tent of meeting face to face with the Eternal. And yet he has this spiritual, transcendent symbol of the Divine Majesty before him. He is no poet, but he enjoys some revelation higher and more exalting to mind and soul than poet ever had.
The paradox is not inconceivable. There is a way to this converse with God "mouth to mouth" along which the patient, earnest soul can partly travel. Without rhapsody, with full effort of the mind that has gathered from every source and is ready for the Divine synthesis of ideas, the Divine illumination, the Divine dictation, if we may so speak, the humble intelligence may arrive where, for the guidance of the personal life at least, the very words of God are to be heard. Beyond, along the same way, lies the chamber of audience which Moses knew. We think it an amazing thing to be sure of God and of His will to the very words. Our state is so often that of doubt, or of self-absorption, or of entanglement with the affairs of others, that we are generally incapable of receiving the direct message. Yet of whom should we be sure if not of God? Of what words should we be more certain than those pure, clear words that come from His mouth? Moses heard on great themes, national and moral-he heard for the ages, for the world: there lay his unique dignity. We may hear only for our own guidance in the next duty that is to be done. But the Spirit of God directs those who trust Him. It is ours to seek and to receive the very truth.
With regard to the similitude of Jehovah which Moses saw, we notice that there is no suggestion of human form; rather would this seem to be carefully avoided. The statement does not take us back to the appearance of the angel Jehovah to Abraham, nor does it point to any manifestation like that of which we read in the history of Joshua or of Gideon. Nothing is here said of an angel. We are led to think of an exaltation of the spiritual perception of Moses, so that he knew the reality of the Divine life, and was made sure of an originative wisdom, a transcendent source of ideas and moral energy. He with whom Moses holds communion is One whose might and holiness and glory are seen with the spiritual eye, whose will is made known by a voice entering into the soul. And the distinction intended between Moses and all other prophets corresponds to a fact which the history of Israels religion brings to light. The account of the way in which Jehovah communicated with Moses remains subject to the condition that the expressions used, such as "mouth to mouth," are still only symbols of the truth. They mean that in the very highest sense possible to man Moses entered into the purposes of God regarding His people. Now Isaiah certainly approached this intimate knowledge of the Divine counsel when long afterwards he said in Jehovahs name: "Behold My Servant, whom I uphold; Mine Elect, in whom My soul delighteth; I have put My Spirit upon Him: He shall bring forth judgment unto the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street." Yet between Moses and Isaiah there is a difference. For Moses is the means of giving to Israel pure morality and true religion. By the inspiration of God he brings into existence that which is not. Isaiah foresees; Moses, in a sense, creates. And the one parallel with Moses, according to Scripture, is to be found in Christ, who is the creator of the new humanity.
When the oracle had spoken, there was a movement of the cloud from the door of the tent of meeting, and apparently from the tabernacle-a sign of the displeasure of God. Following the idea that the cloud was connected with the altar, this withdrawal has been interpreted by Lange as a rebuke to Aaron. "He was inwardly crushed; the fire on his altar went out; the pillar of smoke no longer mounted up as a token of grace; the cultus was for a moment at a standstill, and it was as if an interdict of Jehovah lay on the cultus of the sanctuary." But the cloud-pillar is not, as this interpretation would imply, associated with Aaron personally; it is always the symbol of the Divine will "by the hand of Moses." We must suppose therefore that the movement of the cloud conveyed in some new and unexpected way a sense of the Divine support which Moses enjoyed. He was justified in all he had done: condemnation was brought home to his accusers.
And Miriam, who had offended most, was punished with more than a rebuke. Suddenly she was found to be covered with leprosy. Aaron, looking upon her, saw that morbid pallor which was regarded as the invariable sign of the disease. It was seen as a proof of her sin and of the anger of Jehovah. Himself trembling as one who had barely escaped, Aaron could not but confess his share in the transgression. Addressing Moses with the deepest reverence, he said, "Oh my lord, lay not, I pray thee, sin upon us, for that we have done foolishly, and for that we have sinned." The leprosy is the mark of sin. Let it not be stamped on her indelibly, nor on me. Let not the disease run its course to the horrible end. With no small presumption the two had ventured to challenge their brothers conduct and position. They knew indeed, yet from their intimacy with him did not rightly apprehend, the "divinity that hedged" him. Now for the first time its terror is disclosed to themselves; and they shrink before the man of God, pleading with him as if he were omnipotent.
Moses needs no second appeal to his compassion. He is a truly inspired man, and can forgive. He has seen the great God merciful and gracious, longsuffering, slow to anger, and he has caught something of the Divine magnanimity. This temper was not always shown throughout Israels history by those who had the position of prophets. And we find that men who claim to be religious, even to be interpreters of the Divine will, are not invariably above retaliation. They are seen to hate those who criticise them, who throw doubt upon their arguments. A mans claim to fellowship with God, his professed knowledge of the Divine truth and religion, may be tested by his conduct when he is under challenge. If he cannot plead with God on behalf of those who have assailed him, he has not the Spirit; he is as "sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal."
Even in response to the prayer of Moses, Miriam could not be cured at once. She must go aside bearing her reproach. Shame for her offence, apart from the taint of leprosy, would make it fitting that she should withdraw seven days from camp and sanctuary. A personal indignity, not affecting her character in the least, would have been felt to that extent. Her transgression is to be realised and brooded over for her spiritual good. The law is one that needs to be kept in mind. To escape detection and leave adverse judgment behind is all that some offenders against moral law seem to desire. They dread the shame and nothing besides. Let that be avoided, or, after continuing for a time, let the sense of it pass, and they feel themselves free. But true shame is towards God; and from the mind sincerely penitent that does not quickly pass away. Those only who are ignorant of the nature of sin can soon overcome the consciousness of Gods displeasure. As for men, no doubt they should forgive; but their forgiveness is often too lightly granted, too complacently assumed, and we see the easy self-recovery of one who should be sitting in sackcloth and ashes. God forgives with infinite depth of tenderness and grace of pardon. But His very generosity will affect the truly contrite with poignant sorrow when His name has by their act been brought into dishonour.
The offence of Miriam was only jealousy and presumption. She may scarcely seem so great a sinner that an attack of leprosy should have been her punishment, though it lasted for no more than seven days. We make so much of bodily maladies, so little of diseases of the soul, that we would think it strange if any one for his pride should be struck with paralysis, or for envy should be laid down with fever. Yet beside the spiritual disorder that of the body is of small moment. Why do we think so little of the moral taint, the falsehood, malice, impurity, and so much of the ills our flesh is heir to? The bad heart is the great disease.
Miriams exclusion from the camp becomes a lesson to all the people. They do not journey while she is separated as unclean. There may have been other lepers in the outlying tents; but her sin has been of such a kind that the public conscience is especially directed to it. And the lesson had particular point with reference to those who had the prophetic gift.
Modern society, making much of sanitation and all kinds of improvements and precautions intended to prevent the spread of epidemics and mitigate their effects, has also some thought of moral disease. Persons guilty of certain crimes are confined in prisons or "cut off from the people." But of the greater number of moral maladies no account is taken. And there is no widespread gloom over the nation, no arrest of affairs, when some hideous case of social immorality or business depravity has come to light. It is but a few who pray for those who have the evil heart, and wait sympathetically for their cleansing. Ought not the reorganisation of society to be on a moral rather than an economic basis? We should be nearer the general well-being if it were reckoned a disaster when any employer oppressed those under him, or workmen were found indifferent to their brothers, or a grave crime disclosed a low state of morality in some class or circle. It is the defeat of armies and navies, the overthrow of measures and governments, that occupy our attention as a people, and seem often to obscure every moral and religious thought. Or if injustice is the topic, we find the point of it in this: that one class is rich while another is poor; that money, not character, is lost in shameful contention.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Num_12:1. The Ethiopian woman, &c. Heb.: “The woman, the…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Num_12:1. The Ethiopian woman, &c. Heb.: “The woman, the Cushite.” This could not have been Zipporah, who was a Midianite, not a Cushite. And even if it be supposed that Miriam called her a Cushite from feelings of contempt and bitterness, yet the historian would not have confirmed the epithet by adding, “for he had taken a Cushite woman.” Moreover it is exceedingly improbable that Miriam should have reproached Moses with a marriage made many years previously, and long before he received the call to his great mission. The probability is that Zipporah had died, and Moses had entered into “marriage with a Cushite woman, who either sprang from the Cushites, dwelling in Arabia, or from the foreigners who had come out of Egypt along with the Israelites.” Such a marriage was perfectly allowable, so long as the woman was not a daughter of Canaan. Exo_34:11-16.
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Num_12:2. Hath He not spoken also by us? Aaron, as the high-priest, was the spiritual head of the whole nation, and as a prophetess Miriam was distinguished above all the women of Israel. Having received a measure of the prophetic spirit (Exo_4:15; Exo_15:20), they aspired to a share in the authority of Moses.
Num_12:3. Now the man Moses was very meek, &c. It has been objected that Moses, being a humble and modest man, would not have written this verse. Hence Dr. A. Clarke translates, “Now this man Moses was depressed or afflicted more than any man of that land.” Fuerst renders עָנָו, in this place, “a humble one.” Sept.: πραΰς. Vulg.: mitis. Keil and Del.: “meek.” This seems to us the best rendering. The objections which have been raised against it are not valid. The statement “is not an expression of vain self-display, or a glorification of his own gifts and excellencies, which he prided himself upon possessing above all others. It is simply a statement which was indispensible to a full and correct interpretation of all the circumstances.” When we regard these words “as uttered by Moses, not proprio motu, but under the direction of the Holy Spirit which was upon him (cf. Num_11:17), they exhibit a certain ‘objectivity,’ which is a witness at once to their genuineness and also to their inspiration. There is about these words, as also about the passages in which Moses no less unequivocally records his own faults (cf. Num_20:12 sqq.; Exo_4:24 sqq.; Deu_1:37), the simplicity of one who bare witness of himself, but not to himself (cf. St. Mat_11:28-29). The words are inserted to explain how it was that Moses took no steps to vindicate himself, and why consequently the Lord so promptly intervened.”—Speaker’s Comm.
Num_12:6-8. If there be a prophet among you, &c. Keil and Del.: “If there is a prophet of Jehovah to you (i.e. if you have one), I make myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream (בּוֹ, lit. ‘in him,’ inasmuch as a revelation in a dream fell within the inner sphere of the soul-life). Not so my servant Moses: he is approved in My whole house; mouth to mouth I speak to him, and as an appearance, and that not in enigmas; and he sees the form of Jehovah. Why are ye not afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses?
“Through this utterance on the part of Jehovah, Moses is placed above all the prophets, in relation to God and also to the whole nation. The Divine revelation to the prophets is thereby restricted to the two forms of inward intuition (vision and dream) … The prophets were consequently simply organs, through whom Jehovah made known His counsel and will at certain times, and in relation to special circumstances and features in the development of His kingdom. It was not so with Moses. Jehovah had placed him over all His house, had called him to be the founder and organizer of the kingdom established in Israel through his mediatorial service, and had found him faithful in His service. With this servant (θεραπων, LXX.) of His, He spake mouth to mouth, without a figure or figurative cloak, with the distinctness of a human interchange of thought; so that at any time he could inquire of God and wait for the Divine reply. Hence Moses was not a prophet of Jehovah, like many others, not even merely the first and highest prophet, primus inter pares, but stood above all the prophets, as the founder of the theocracy, and mediator of the Old Covenant … The prophets subsequent to Moses simply continued to build upon the foundation which Moses laid. And if Moses stood in this unparalleled relation to the Lord, Miriam and Aaron sinned grievously against him, when speaking as they did.”
Num_12:7. My servant Moses, &c. Comp. Heb_3:1-6.
Num_12:10. Leprous. See pp. 75–77.
Num_12:12. Let her not be as one dead, &c., “i.e., like a still-born child, which comes into the world half decomposed. His reason for making this comparison was, that leprosy produces decomposition in the living body.”—Keil and Del.
Num_12:14. If her father had but spit, &c. To spit in the face was a mark of extreme contempt. See Deu_25:9; Job_30:10; Isa_1:6; Mar_14:65. When a parent did this to his child, it is said the child was banished from his presence for seven days. How much more, then, should Miriam, who had sinned so grievously and whom God had smitten with leprosy, be exiled from the people and presence of God for seven days!
Num_12:16. The wilderness of Paran “was the great tract south of Palestine, commencing soon after Sinai, as the people advanced northwards,—that perhaps now known as the desert Et-Tih,” or the desert of the Wandering. “Between the wilderness of Paran and that of Zin no strict demarcation exists in the narrative, nor do the natural features of the region, so far as yet ascertained, yield a well-defined boundary.” (See The Speaker’s Comm., and Keil and Del. on Num_10:12; Smith’s Dict. of Bible, Arts. Kadesh, Paran, and Wilderness of the Wandering; and the maps of Egypt and the Peninsula of Sinai, in Stanley’s Sinai and Pal.).
THE SIN OF MIRIAM AND AARON: EVIL SPEAKING, DIVINE HEARING, AND SAINTLY SILENCE
(Num_12:1-3)
Consider:
I. The Sin of Miriam and Aaron.
“And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses,” &c. In considering this sin, let us notice—
1. Its root. The source of this evil speaking was (so we infer from Num_12:2) jealousy on the part of Miriam and Aaron at the authority exercised, and the powers assumed by Moses. They were envious of his position and power, and ambitious for the exercise of equal authority. As Dr. Kitto has pointed out, the position assigned to Aaron “in the common wealth was in some respects superior to that of Moses. The function of Moses was temporary, and would pass away with his life; whereas Aaron’s was permanent in himself and his heirs, and would leave him and them the foremost and most important persons in the state. He might not therefore always regard with patience the degree in which his own high office was superseded by the existing authority of Moses.” The fact that he was the elder brother, probably contributed further to his discontent and jealousy. Miriam also was jealous and ambitious. It seemed to her, that being a prophetess, she ought to have a more eminent position and greater power. Here in their mean jealousy and “vaulting ambition” we have the root of their sin. (a).
2. Its occasion. It is probable that the fact that Aaron and Miriam had not been consulted in the choice of the seventy elders awakened their discontent. But that which they put forth as the occasion of their reproaches was the marriage which Moses had contracted with the Cushite woman. This seems to have annoyed Miriam, and led her to engage Aaron in envious and evil speeches. That Miriam was the instigator of the open rebellion appears from three things:
(1) That she is named before Aaron.
(2) From the use of the feminine verb תְדַבֵּר in Num_12:1; and
(3) from the fact that the punishment fell upon her only, and not upon Aaron. It appears that Aaron was deficient in firmness, and was too easily persuaded by others. Weakly and wickedly he yielded to the desire of the people for a golden idol (Exodus 32); and now at the instigation of his sister he unites in rebellion against the leader whom God had appointed. It is natural that the wife of Moses would be regarded with feelings of respect and honour in the camp. Miriam was jealous of these honours; she wished to occupy the rank of chief lady in the camp; hence she instigated this mean and sinful rebellion.
3. Its expression. They “spake against Moses,” &c. Evil speaking is a grievous offence in the sight of God. But when, as in this case, the evil speeches are directed against His chosen servants, the sin is greatly aggravated. “Jealousy, the green-eyed monster,” discovers flaws in and heaps reproaches upon its object, even though his character and conduct be most faultless and beautiful. The bitter feeling goes forth in unjust and bitter speech. (b)
II. The Divine Cognizance of their Sin.
“And the Lord heard.” No one utterance of all the myriads of voices in His universe ever escapes His ear. There is a Divine Hearer of every human speech. This is clear from—
1. His omnipresence. See Psa_139:7-12. He who is everywhere present sees all things, hears all things.
2. His infinite intelligence. He to whom all things are known cannot be ignorant of the evil speeches of men.
3. His interest in His servants. God is deeply concerned in the honour and welfare of His servants. Their reputation is a sacred thing in His sight. Therefore He notes all the evil which is spoken against them.
Let all evil speakers and slanderers ponder the solemn truth that every whisper is distinctly audible to the Divine ear.
III. The commendable conduct of Moses under the provocation of their sin.
1. He was sorely tried. Under any circumstances it is a severe trial to be reproached without cause, or to be falsely accused; but the trial of Moses was embittered by the source from whence it sprung. Comp. Psa_55:12-15.
2. He bore his sore trial most nobly. Under extreme provocation he maintained a saintly silence. He did not resent the attack made upon him, or attempt in any way to vindicate himself, for he was “meek and lowly in heart.” “Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.” We have here a hint as to—
(1) The nature of meekness. “Meekness,” says Attersoll, “is a gift of the Spirit, which moderateth anger and desire of revenge, forgiving offences and pardoning injuries for peace and quietness sake: so that albeit a man be provoked by injuries received, yet he doth not intend nor enterprize to requite it, but bridleth all hatred and impatience.” (c)
(2) The occasions of its manifestation. When we are injured personally, like Moses, we must be meek. But when the honour of God is impeached, like Moses in the matter of the golden calf (Exo_32:19-29), we must be zealous and determined. He was “as bold as a lion in the cause of God, but as mild as a lamb in his own cause.”
Conclusion:
1. In the conduct of Miriam and Aaron we have a beacon. Let us shun their sin, &c.
2. In the conduct of Moses we have a pattern. Let us imitate his meekness.
ILLUSTRATIONS
(a) Ambition threw Adam out of the garden of God: it quickly crept into the family of Christ, and infected his disciples, and, therefore, being a subtle and secret evil, it is to be looked unto that it steal not suddenly upon us. If any man ask what it is, I answer, It is an immoderate desire after dignity, it is a thirst that never can be quenched; for as the covetous person hath never enough money, so the ambitious hath never enough honour; it is a secret poison, a hidden plague, the mistress of craft, the mother of hypocrisy, the father of envy, the fountain of vices, the moth of piety, a blind guide and leader of the hearts of men; finally, we may say of the love of it as Paul doth of the love of money, “It is the root of all evil” (1Ti_6:10). The farther we think ourselves from it, the nearer commonly it cometh unto us; and, therefore, “let nothing be done through strife and vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves “(Php_2:3—W. Attersoll.
(b) Sweetness is lost if you pour in bitterness to it. And certainly, if otherwise you have many sweet qualities and virtues, if you have an ill tongue to speak against Moses, the bitterness of it will mar them all. The little bee hath but a little sting, and, therefore, the wound is not mortal that she can make; yet little as it is, it procureth usually her death if she be caught. So will your stinging tongue, assure yourself, kill you, although it little hurt him or her whom you have stung. The foul frog lieth all day in the mud and mire, at night putting up the head and croaking with a foul noise; and such foul creatures are they said to be that have croaking tongues against Moses. Put a swine into the sweetest garden you can make, and what will he do? Smell to the pleasant rose or any other delightful flower there? No; but straight he will fall to rooting, and with his foul mouth turn up both moor and mould of every good thing. Such foul swize are they said to be, that have foul tongues, ever passing by that which is good, and rooting up the good names of them, whose virtues, how sweet soever to God and men, yet to them are ever hateful. I will go no further, but pray you to mark him that toppeth a candle, and taketh not good heed, doth he not usually black his fingers and sometimes also burn them, although he make the candle more bright? So do such persons as will be meddling with their neighbours’ lives. Well may their prattling make them burn and shine more bright, whom they meddle withal; but their own fingers carry a mark—nay, their souls receive such a blot as all the water in the sea will not wash off, but only the saving blood of Christ Jesus, upon repentance and amendment. Follow we not, then, Miriam and Aaron speaking against Moses, but pray for His grace to guide our tongues in a holy course, and so, clean tongues being the outward tokens of our clean souls, our life shall be godly and our end happy.—Bishop Babington.
(c) All genuine meekness among men—all, I mean, which is more than mere easiness of disposition—may be defined to be that bearing of a man towards the things of time and of this world, which springs from having the heart broken by religious penitence and the will put humbly into the hand of God. Do we call him “meek” who gives way in silence before noisy pretension, will rather give up his due than wrangle for it, and is so far from pushing himself into foremost places, that he yields before the force or “importunity of earthly-minded” men, nor murmurs at the “usurpation of the unjust”? Is it not because his natural self-importance has been humbled into “poverty of spirit,” that he is prepared thus to accept the lowest place? Or is it “meekness,” as some older expositors defined it, to be “undesirous of revenge” (non cupidus vindicatæ)—“not easily provoked”, slow to take offence, and, though stung deep, betraying no personal bitterness, but hiding oneself beneath the wing of God, who is the promised “avenger of all such”? Surely he forbears and forgives best who knows by the depth of his contrition for personal guilt how deeply he has been forgiven. Or shall we say he is the “meek” man, who, resting in the quiet and peaceable enjoyment of so much as God has been pleased to give, can meet each turn of fortune’s wheel with an equal mind, quarrelling neither with injurious providence, nor with more successful rivals; in prosperity unassuming, undesponding in adversity? Show me a will made pliable to the Heavenly Father under the experience of grace and forgiven sin, and I will show you equanimity above the philosophers—the equanimity of the Christian child! Yes, we must be converted to become meek.—J. O. Dykes, M.A., D.D.
THE MODERN APPLICATION OF AN ANCIENT INCIDENT
(Num_12:1-3)
The incident recorded in these verses warrants the following practical observations:—
I. The possession of the greatest gifts does not exempt men from the liability to meanness and sin.
Miriam, a prophetess and poet, and Aaron an eloquent man (Exo_4:14), in a measure inspired by God (Exo_4:15), and appointed by God the religious head of the nation (Exodus 28), are here guilty of extreme meanness and great sin. The possession of great gifts does not necessarily involve the possession of great grace also. Balaam was a highly gifted man; but he was covetous, unprincipled, &c. A man may hold high office in the Church, and yet sin grievously. Let persons of great abilities and influence remember their great responsibilities. Let those who occupy prominent positions in religion look well to their own spiritual life and health. (a)
II. The most excellent and eminent servants of God are not exempt from the reproaches of men.
Even Moses, so distinguished for piety as he was, was spoken against.
“No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure ’scape; back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes: What king so strong,
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?” Shakespeare.
“Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow
Thou shalt not escape calumny.”—Ibid
“The worthiest people are the most injured by slander,” said Swift, “as we usually find that to be the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at.” It was said of our Holy Lord, “He hath a devil and is mad.” “If they called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of His household?” (b)
III. Our greatest trials sometimes arise from the most unlikely quarters.
It was remarkably so in the present trial of Moses. It arose from—
1. Persons in eminent positions. One would have thought that they would have sympathised with and endeavoured to sustain Moses in the duties and burdens of his office; but, &c.
2. Persons of excellent character. Aaron and Miriam were undoubtedly, in the main, good and worthy persons. Many of the trials of ministers and other religious leaders in our own day come from religious and well-meaning men; from their unreasonable complaints, their ignorant criticism, their conceited censures, &c.
3. Persons in near relationship. The present trial of Moses arose from his own brother and sister. David suffered sorely in this way from Absalom, Ahithophel, et al. Comp. Psa_41:9; Psa_55:12-14. When trials arise in this way they cause great disappointment. We expect such different things from kinsfolk and friends. They also cause sore distress. They wound the tenderest feelings, &c.
IV. The Lord takes cognizance of the reproaches which are cast upon His servants.
When “Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses, … the Lord heard.”
1. He is perfectly acquainted with all things. “The Lord is a God of knowledge.” “His understanding is infinite.” “God knoweth all things.”
2. He is deeply interested in all that concerns His servants. This interest is set forth in most expressive forms in the Scriptures (Deu_32:9-10; Isa_49:15-16 : Zec_2:8). The reputation of His servants is sacred and precious in His sight.
V. The servants of the Lord do well in bearing patiently the reproaches which are cast upon them.
Moses did not attempt to vindicate himself against the reproaches of Miriam and Aaron. The good man in similar circumstances may well follow his example in this. If we are thoroughly devoted to God’s service, we may safely leave it to Him to vindicate us against the reproaches of man. Comp. Job_16:19; Psa_37:5-6. (c)
ILLUSTRATIONS
(a) Years ago Hamburg was nearly half of it burned down, and among the incidents that happened there was this one. A large house had connected with it a yard, in which there was a great black dog, and this black dog in the middle of the night barked and howled most furiously. It was only by his barking that the family were awakened just in time to escape from the flames, and their lives were spared; but the poor dog was chained to his kennel, and though he barked and thus saved the lives of others, he was burned himself. Oh! do not you, who work for God in this church, perish in that fashion. Do not permit your sins to enchain you, so that while you warn others you become lost yourselves. Do see that you have the godliness which has the promise of the life to come.—C. H. Spurgeon.
(b) I think there is no Christian, but sooner or later, first or last, shall have cause to say with David, “False witnesses did rise up, they laid to my charge things that I knew not” (Psa_25:11). They charged me with such things whereof I was both innocent and ignorant. It was the saying of one, that there was nothing so intolerable as accusation, because there was no punishment ordained by law for accusers, as there was for thieves, although they stole friendship from men, which is the goodliest riches men have. Well, Christians, seeing it has been the lot of the dearest saints to be falsely accused, and to have their names and reputes in the world reproached, do you hold your peace, seeing it is no worse with you than it was with them, of whom this world was not worthy.—Brooks. (c) The celebrated Boerhaave, who had many enemies, used to say that he never thought it necessary to repeat their calumnies. “They are sparks,” said he, “which, if you do not blow them, will go out of themselves. The surest method against scandal is to live it down by perseverance in well-doing, and by prayer to God, that He would cure the distempered mind of those who traduce and injure us.” It was a good remark of another that “the malice of ill tongues cast upon a good man is only like a mouthful of smoke blown upon a diamond, which, though it clouds its beauty for the present, yet it is easily rubbed off, and the gem restored, with little trouble to its own lustre.”—Dict. of Illust.
Rowland Hill, when once scurrilously attacked in one of the public journals, was urged by a zealous friend to bring a legal action in defence; to this he replied with calm, unruffled dignity,—“I shall neither answer the libel, nor prosecute the writer, and that for two reasons: first, because, in attempting the former, I should probably be betrayed into unbecoming violence of temper and expression, to my own grief, and the wounding of my friends; and in the next place, I have learned by experience, that no man’s character can be eventually injured but by his own acts.”—Gleanings.
THE INQUEST OF THE LORD INTO THE SIN OF MIRIAM AND AARON
(Num_12:4-9)
We now come to the second scene in this painful chapter of Israelitish history. Consider—
I. The solemn convocation.
“And the Lord spake suddenly unto Moses, and unto Aaron, and unto Miriam, Come out,” &c. (Num_12:4-5). We have here the solemn summons of the Divine Voice to Moses and to the two offenders, the majestic descent of the cloud of the Divine Presence, &c. Two great truths appear to be set forth in all this:
1. The timeliness of the Divine interposition. “The Lord spake suddenly.” His interposition was not delayed. In due season, at the earliest fitting opportunity, He appears for the vindication of His reproached servants.
2. The righteousness of the Divine judgment. This seems to be taught by the summoning of the offenders and of the person wronged before Him, and by the descent of the cloud of His presence. He knows all things, yet, He makes inquiry, &c. There is no haste in the Divine judgments; but patient and thorough examination precedes them. Comp. Gen_3:8-13; Gen_6:12; Gen_11:5; Gen_18:21; Zep_1:12. (a)
The unimpeachable righteousness of the judgments of God should prove—
1. A comfort to the upright when unjustly reproached.
2. A warning to the wicked.
II. The splendid vindication. “And he said, Hear now my words:
If there is a prophet of Jehovah to you,” &c. (Num_12:6-8). Miriam and Aaron had aspired to equality with Moses, and disputed his claim to superior authority, and now Jehovah splendidly vindicates his pre-eminent character, and privileges, and consequent authority. He asserts that Moses was—
1. Pre-eminent in the intimacy of his communion with God. In the revelations which God made to men there were different degrees of clearness. To prophets He spake in visions and dreams; He revealed His will to them in “the inner sphere of the soul-life.” But He spake to Moses “mouth to mouth,” “i.e., without any mediation or reserve, but with the same closeness and freedom with which friends converse together” (Exo_33:11). He spake to Moses “as an appearance, and that not in enigmas,” i.e., His communications were made to him directly and in the plainnest and most intelligible manner. And of Moses He says further, “the similitude of the Lord shall he behold.” By “the similitude” we are not to understand the unveiled essence of the Deity (Joh_1:18; 1Ti_6:16) nor any representation of God in the form of man or in the form of the angel of Jehovah (Eze_1:26-28; Dan_7:9; Dan_7:13; Gen_16:7). “It was the Deity Himself manifesting Himself so as to be cognizable to mortal eye.” Thus Moses was exalted far above all the other prophets. (See explanatory notes on Num_12:6-8.)
2. Pre-eminent in his faithfulness in the charge which he received of the Lord. “My servant Moses is approved in My whole house.” The “house” of Jehovah in this place does not signify the Tabernacle, but the covenant people, who were to be instructed and regulated by Moses. In all his duties to the people of God, Moses is declared faithful; in all he was approved by God. “He said and did everything in the management of that great affair, as became an honest good man, that aimed at nothing else but the honour of God and welfare of Israel.” How completely does the Lord vindicate His servant, and how highly does He honour him! Well does Trapp say, “God had never so much magnified Moses to them, but for their envy. We cannot devise to pleasure God’s servants so much as by despiting them. Quisquis volens detrahit famæ meæ, nolens addit mercedi meæ, saith Augustine; He that willingly detracteth from mine honour, doth, though against his will, add to my reward.”
III. The unanswerable interrogation.
“Wherefore, then, were ye not afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses?” This inquiry implies that their speech against Moses was—
1. Unreasonable. “Wherefore, then,” &c. Their reproaches were groundless. The Divine “Wherefore?” reveals the utter absence of any true cause for them.
2. Profane. “Were ye not afraid to speak against My servant?” In reproaching the servant, they had dishonoured the MASTER. “The rule is, Injuria illata legato redundat in legantem, Wrong done to a messenger reflects on him that sent him.”
3. Daring. “Why were ye not afraid?” If they had considered, they would have discovered strong reasons to dread the result of their conduct. “We have reason,” says Matthew Henry, “to be afraid of saying or doing anything against the servants of God; it is at our peril if we do so, for God will plead their cause, and reckon that what ‘touches them touches the apple of His eye.’ It is a dangerous thing to ‘offend one of Christ’s little ones’ (Mat_18:6). Those are presumptuous, indeed, that ‘are not afraid to speak evil of dignities’ (2Pe_2:10).” Interrogated thus by the Lord, Aaron and Miriam were “speechless,” like the man at the marriage feast who had not on a wedding garment (Mat_22:12). Their conduct was utterly indefensible.
IV. The Divine anger.
“And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and He departed.” There are here two considerations concerning the anger of the Lord:
1. Its righteousness. It was kindled by sin—the sin of Aaron and Miriam. The anger of God is a perfectly holy principle which hates and antagonises sin. (b)
2. Its manifestation. “And He departed.” “The removal of God’s presence from us,” says Matthew Henry, “is the surest and saddest token of God’s displeasure against us. Woe unto us if He depart; and He never departs till we by our sin and folly drive Him from us.” “The final absence of God is hell itself.” (c)
Conclusion:
The time approaches when God will summon all men to give account of themselves and their lives to Him. “Prepare to meet thy God.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
(a) There are many ways of representing perfect justice. The Thebans represented her as having neither hands nor eyes, for the judge should neither receive bribes nor respect persons. We, for similar reasons, picture her with a sword in one hand, scales in the other, and bandaged eyes. Whatever doubt there may be as to the justice of the earthly judge, as to that of the Heavenly there can be none. Now, His ways may sometimes appear to be “unequal.” We see the wicked in prosperity and the righteous in adversity. Like David, we are troubled at it. But when with David we “enter into the tabernacle of God, then understand we their end;” for God “hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained.”—J. G Pilkington.
(b) There is a deep wrath-principle in God, as in all moral natures, that puts Him down upon wrong, and girds Him in avenging majesty for the infliction of suffering upon wrong. Just as we speak of our felt indignations, and tell how we are made to burn against the person, or even the life of the wrong-doer, so God has His heavier indignations, and burns with His more consuming fire. This combustion of right anger is that girding power of justice that puts Him on the work of redress, and that armature of strength upon His feeling, that enables Him to inflict pain without shrinking.—H. Bushnell, D.D.
Say you that God is love? Oh! but look round this world. The aspect of things is stern—very stern. If they be ruled by love, it is a love which does not shrink from human agony. There is a law of infinite mercy here, but there is a law of boundless rigour, too. Sin, and you will suffer—that law is not reversed. The young, and the gentle, and the tender, are inexorably subjected to it. We would shield them if we could; but there is that which says they shall not be shielded.
They shall weep, and fade, and taste of mortal anguish, even as others. Carry that out into the next world, and you have “wrath to come.”—F. W. Robertson, M.A.
(c) Think of God sending a famine upon the soul—of minds pining and dying because Divine messages have been withdrawn! We know what the effect would be if God were to withhold the dew, or to trouble the air with a plague, or to avert the beams of the sun; the garden would be a desert, the fruitful field a sandy plain, the wind a bearer of death, summer a stormy night, and life itself a cruel variation of death, so penetrating, so boundless is the influence of God in nature. Is it conceivable that the withdrawment of God’s influence would be less disastrous upon the spirit of man?—Joseph Parker, D.D.
HONOUR TO MOSES; GREATER HONOUR TO CHRIST
(Num_12:7)
We have an inspired comment in the New Testament on these words (Heb_3:1-6). Paul, reasoning with the Jews, tries to divert their minds from giving to Moses a glory that was in excess; and to show that all the honour they gave to Moses, the early servant, belonged in a far richer degree to Jesus, their rejected Lord. It is said that Moses, in all his offices, as priest, as prophet, as ruler, as teacher, as guide, was faithful in all his house.
What was his house? “Whose house,” says the Apostle, “are we.”
What does faithfulness mean? Whatever be the function assigned to you, that you honestly, impartially, earnestly, and fully discharge. Moses was in the midst of the people of God faithful. He finished the tabernacle; and you remember how specific are the injunctions laid down, and how minutely Moses fulfilled them all. So Jesus, the antitype, dimly foreshadowed by Moses, has been faithful in all the arrangements of His house. He has furnished it with precious sacraments; He has appointed it a teaching and a preaching ministry; He has redeemed it by His precious blood; He has bequeathed to it the ceaseless presence of His Holy Spirit, &c.
The Apostle justly says, that this Moses, who was faithful in all his house is counted worthy of glory; though One is counted worthy of greater glory. The very comparison indicates that Moses was counted worthy of honour. We need not disparage the servant in order to exalt the Master. Moses was a servant in the house; as a servant to be honoured; Jesus, the Builder of the house, as the Builder of the house to have the great and the lasting glory. Comp. Joh_5:23.
We see what is the true definition of the Church. The definition of Scripture of the Church is not the size of an edifice, or the splendour of its architecture; but the regenerated men that meet together in the name of Christ, &c. The orator may collect a crowd, but that is not a Church. The architect may build a cathedral, but that is not a Church. It is living stones, knit together by living love, not dead stones fastened together by dead mortar, that constitute a Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We see also the true oneness of the Church of Christ in all ages. There was, says the Apostle, but one house. “Moses was faithful in all his house; … whose house,” says the Apostle, “are we.” Then the Church that was in the days of Moses is the Church that exists now. There never has been but one Church; there never has been but one religion—I mean true religion; there never has been but one Saviour. The formula has differed, the circumstances have varied, the degree of spirituality or conformity to Christ has differed; but the substance has been everywhere and always essentially the same.
Now the argument of the Apostle (Heb_3:1-6) is most logical; a building infers and suggests a builder; an effect throws you back upon a cause; a creation leads you back or upwards to a Creator; and if Christ be the builder of all, and peculiarly the builder of that edifice of living stones which is called the Church; to build which requires more of God than to build the universe; then, says the Apostle, of how great honour ought He to be the inheritor who is thus God, the Builder and the Maker of all? If it required God to make a world; it requires God to regenerate sinners; nay, if possible more so. Omnipotence has but to mould the obedient dust into all its forms of beauty, of symmetry and order; and no resisting element, from first to last, will intrude to disturb the perfection, or to mar the beauty of the product. But in dealing with sinners here is not simply dead material to be moulded into its varied forms of loveliness and symmetry, but resistant passions, rebellious feelings, reluctant appetites, diverging tendencies; a thousand things to obstruct, to resist and to mar. And hence, if it required God to build the outer world, it requires no less a God to build that inner house, &c. Now then, argues the Apostle, if the servant Moses is counted by every Jew worthy of honour, what language shall express the honour due to Him who built all things? Comp. Hebrews 1. And thus he shows that Christ is superior to Moses; that He is superior to angels; he proves by comparison that he is God; and therefore, that the glory, and the honour, and the thanksgiving, and the praise are exclusively due to Him, who redeemed us by His blood, and has made us what we are.
We infer from the whole—
1. The greater glory of the New Testament economy. The figures are removed because their reality has come.
2. The greater responsibility of all who live under so clear, so simple, so spiritual an economy. Comp. Heb_10:28-29.
3. Paul shows us also the secret of our safety (Heb_3:6).
4. If Christ was faithful in His house, and Moses faithful in his, let us be faithful in ours (Mat_24:45-50).
Are we living stones, laid upon Christ the rock?—Arranged from “Sabbath Morning Readings,” by John Cumming, D.D.
THE PUNISHMENT OF MIRIAM AND AARON
(Num_12:10-16)
Consider:
I. The Divine judgment because of the sin of Miriam and Aaron.
“And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous,” &c. (Num_12:10).
1. The punishment was inflicted by the Lord. “Leprosy,” says Archbishop Trench, “was often the punishment of sins committed against the Divine government. Miriam, Gehazi, Uzziah, are all cases in point; and when Moses says to the people, ‘Take heed of the plague of leprosy’ (Deu_24:8), this is no admonition diligently to observe the laws about leprosy, but a warning lest any disobedience of theirs should provoke God to visit them with this plague. The Jews themselves called it ‘the finger of God,’ and emphatically, ‘the stroke.’ It attacked, they said, first a man’s house; and then, if he refused to turn, his clothing; and lastly, should he persist in sin, himself—a fine parable, let the fact have been as it might, of the manner in which God’s judgments, if a man refuse to listen to them, reach ever nearer to the centre of his life. So, too, they said that a man’s true repentance was the one condition of his leprosy leaving him.” The leprosy of Miriam was certainly “the stroke” of Divine punishment because of her sin.
2. The punishment was appropriate to the sin. “Her foul tongue,” says Bishop Hall, “is justly punished with a foul face, and her folly in pretending to be a rival with Moses is made manifest to all men, for every one sees his face to be glorious, and hers to be leprous. While Moses needs a veil to hide his glory, Miriam needs one to hide her shame.” Not content with her exalted position, she aspired to the highest place of all, and for seven days she was not allowed even the lowest place in the camp, but was completely exiled from it.
3. The punishment fell most severely upon Miriam. Aaron was not struck with leprosy.
(1) She was the instigator of the sin. The Lord visits her greater guilt with a severer punishment.
(2) Aaron’s office of High Priest also probably helped to shield him. Had he been smitten with leprosy he would have been deeply disgraced in the eyes of the people, and his holy office would probably have been brought into disesteem amongst them.
(3) Yet Aaron was not altogether exempted from punishment. As priest he had to examine Miriam and pronounce her leprous. Again he had to examine her and pronounce her clean before she was readmitted to the camp. That he deeply realized his painful position is evident from the narrative (Num_12:10-12). Let us remember that there is judgment with God, He punishes men for their sins. If His chosen and distinguished servants sin against Him, He “will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.” (a)
II. The Divine judgment leading to personal humiliation.
“And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas! my lord, I beseech thee,” &c. (Num_12:11-12). We see here—
1. Humble acknowledgment to Moses. A short time since Aaron had spoken against Moses; but mark the humility with which he now approaches him, and the respect with which he now addresses him—“Alas! my lord, I beseech thee,” &c. When the Lord takes up the cause of His servants He speedily humbles their detractors.
2. Confession of sin. “Lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned.” Though he was not himself smitten with leprosy, yet Aaron deeply feels and penitently acknowledges his sin.
3. Entreaty for the removal of the severe judgment from Miriam. “Let her not be as one dead,” &c. “Leprosy,” says Archbishop Trench, “was nothing short of a living death, a corrupting of all the humours, a poisoning of the very springs, of life; a dissolution little by little of the whole body, so that one limb after another actually decayed and fell away. Aaron exactly describes the appearance which the leper presented to the eyes of the beholders, when, pleading for Miriam, he says, ‘Let her not be as one dead, of whom,’ ” &c. Thus he invokes the aid of Moses in intercession for the removal of the dreadful punishment. How speedily God by His judgments can humble men! Even the greatest and the mightiest are utterly unable to sustain His strokes.
III. The remarkable acknowledgment of the eminence of Moses, the servant of the Lord.
In Aaron’s confession and appeal to Moses we have a splendid tribute to the character and power with God of the latter.
1. In the manner in which he was addressed by Aaron. “And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas! my lord, I beseech thee,” &c.
2. In the appeal which was made to him by Aaron. “Let her not be as one dead,” &c. This appeal implies on the part of Aaron—
(1) Faith in the magnanimity of Moses—that he would not retaliate upon them for their attack upon him; that he was forgiving and generous.
(2) Faith in the influence which Moses had with God. Aaron does not dare to present his prayer directly to God, but he seeks the mediation and intercession of Moses. Thus out of the evil speaking of Aaron and Miriam against Moses, God brings a splendid tribute to the magnanimity, the holiness, and the spiritual power of His servant. Men in prosperity may reproach the servants of the Lord, but in adversity they will eagerly seek their sympathies and services.
IV. The distinguished magnanimity and grace of Moses.
“And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech Thee.” There was no resentment in his heart towards the brother and sister who had injured him; but fullest forgiveness for both, and sincerest pity for his smitten sister. His prayer for Miriam is an anticipation of the precept of our Lord, “Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Mat_5:44). We have another beautiful example of this forgiving and gracious spirit in the “man of God out of Judah,” who prayed that the withered hand of Jeroboam, which had been stretched out against him, might be healed (1Ki_13:1-6). This spirit found its supreme and perfect expression in the Lord Jesus Christ. For those who crucified Him, when He was enduring the anguish of the cross, He prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luk_23:34). Let us imitate Him.
V. The great power of the intercession of good.
In answer to the prayer of Moses Miriam was healed of her leprosy, and, after an exclusion lasting seven days, was restored to her place in the camp and congregation of the Lord. “Pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” (b)
VI. The justice and mercy of God as manifested in His treatment of Miriam.
1. He manifests His justice. To mark His abhorrence of her sin He commands that Miriam shall be shut out of the camp seven days. “To deal lightly with sin is actually to commit sin.” God punishes sin in whomsoever He finds it “There is no respect of persons with God in punishing, for none shall escape His hand. He doth not strike the poor and spare the rich; wink at the noble and honourable, and strike down the unnoble and baser sort; but He respecteth every one as He findeth him, and punisheth sin wheresoever sin reigneth, that all should fear.”
2. He manifests His mercy. He does not deal with Miriam and Aaron as they deserve, but mingles His judgment with mercy. We see His mercy in healing Miriam, and in sentencing her to only seven days banishment from the camp. He does not execute the fierceness of His anger. In wrath He remembers mercy. “He delighteth in mercy.” (c)
VII. The sin of one person checking the progress of an entire nation.
“The people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in.” For seven days the advance of the entire people was arrested by reason of the sin of Miriam. In consequence of the sin of Achan the Israelites were smitten at the battle of Ai, and ignominiously defeated. How often have we seen since those days the current of the progress of a nation, or of nations, arrested and turned back by some unprincipled and ambitious monarch, or by some unrighteous and powerful statesman! “None of us liveth to himself.” The sin of one person of high position and great influence may result in deepest injury to thousands.
Conclusion:
The history supplies materials for a strong argument against sinning. By the heinousness of sin, by the Divine judgment upon sin, and by the injury which sin inflicts upon others, we are urged to “abstain from every form of evil.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
(a) Let us all learn this fact—that the consequences of sin are inevitable; in fact, that punishment is the extreme consequence of sin going on unchecked. There is in human nature an element of the gambler. There is a willingness to take the chances of things—a willingness to run a risk, however uncertain. There is no such element here. The punishment of sin is certain. All Scripture tells us so. “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” “Be sure your sin will find you out.” “Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished.” “The way of transgressors is hard.” All the world’s proverbs tell us so. “A reckless youth: rueful age.” “As he has made his bed, so he must lie in it.” “He who will not be ruled by the rudder, must be ruled by the rock.” Even Satan himself tells us so. In the old legend of Dr. Faustus, when he bids the devil lay aside his propensity for lying, and tell the truth, the devil answers, “The world does me injustice to tax me with lies. Let me ask their own conscience if I have ever deceived a single man into believing that a bad deed was a good one.” Even wicked men admit it.… God is no respecter of persons.
Fire burns and water drowns, whether the sufferer be a worthless villain or whether it be a fair and gentle child. And so the moral law works, whether the sinner be a David or a Judas, whether he be a publican or a priest. In the physical world there is no forgiveness of sins. Sin and punishment, as Plato said, walk this world with their hands tied together, and the rivet by which they are linked is as a link of adamant. A writer has said that a man who cannot swim might as well walk into a river and hope that it is not a river, and will not drown, as a man, seeing judgment and not mercy, denounced upon willing sin, hope that it will turn out to be mercy, and not judgment, and so defy God’s law. Will he escape? No. He who chooses sin must meet with retribution; must experience in his own individual person the lex talionis of offended nature—eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, burning for burning wound for wound, stripe for stripe.—F. W. Farrar, D D.
(b) I wish we did believe in prayer: I am afraid most of us do not. People will say, “What a wonderful thing it is that God hears George Müller’s prayers!” But is it not a sad thing that we should think it wonderful for God to hear prayer? We are come to a pretty pass certainly when we think it wonderful that God is true! Much better faith was that of a little boy in one of the schools at Edinburgh, who had attended the prayer-meetings, and at last said to his teacher who conducted the prayer-meeting, “Teacher, I wish my sister could be got to read the Bible; she never reads it.” “Why, Johnny, should your sister read the Bible?” “Because if she once could read it, I am sure it would do her good, and she would be converted and be saved.” “Do you think so, Johnny?” “Yes, I do, sir, and I wish the next time there’s a prayer-meeting you would ask the people to pray for my sister, that she may begin to read the Bible.” “Well, well, it shall be done, John.” So the teacher gave out that a little boy was very anxious that prayers should be offered that his sister might begin to read the Bible. John was observed to get up and go out. The teacher thought it very unkind of the boy to disturb the people in a crowded room and go out like that, and so the next day when the lad came, he said, “John, I thought that was very rude of you to get up in the prayer-meeting and go out. You ought not to have done it.” “Oh! sir,” said the boy, “I did not mean to be rude, but I thought I should just like to go home and see my sister read her Bible for the first time.” That is how we ought to believe, and wait with expectation to see the answer to prayer. The girl was reading the Bible when the boy went home. God had been pleased to hear the prayer; and if we could but trust God after that fashion we should often see similar things accomplished—C. H. Spurgeon.
Frail art thou, O man, as a bubble on the breaker,
Weak, and governed by externals, like a poor bird caught in the storm;
Yet thy momentary breath can still the raging waters,
Thy hand can touch a lever that may move the world.
O Merciful! we strike eternal covenant with Thee,
For man may take for his ally the King who ruleth kings;
How strong, yet how most weak, in utter poverty how rich,
What possible omnipotence to good is dormant in a man;
Prayer is a creature’s strength, his very breath and being;
Prayer is the golden key which can open the wicket of mercy;
Prayer is the magical sound that saith to Fate, So be it;
Prayer is the slender nerve that moveth the muscles of Omnipotence.—M. F. Tupper.
(c) Mercy is God’s Benjamin, and He delighteth most of all in it. It is the son of His right hand, though, alas! in bringing it forth, it might well have been called the son of sorrow, too, for mercy came into this world through the sorrows of the only-begotten Son of God. He delights in mercy, just as some men delight in trade, some in the arts, some in professions; and each man, according to his delight, becomes proficient in pursuing a work for the very love thereof. So God is proficient in mercy. He addicts Himself to it. He is most God-like, most happy, if such a thing may be said of Him, when He is stretching out His right hand with his golden sceptre in it, and saying to the guilty, “Come to Me, touch this sceptre, and you shall live.”—C. H. Spurgeon.
MIRIAM SMITTEN WITH LEPROSY: TRANSFIGURATION THROUGH TRANSGRESSION
(Num_12:10)
I. This transfiguration was brought to pass on account of the jealousy of Miriam of Moses, and the jealousy of God for Moses.
“Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses?” (Num_12:2). “Were ye not afraid to speak against My servant Moses?” (Num_12:8).
Thoughts that contain the venom of jealousy, when expressed, form the character and pass judgment upon it. (Comp. Mat_12:37.) Miriam’s jealousy of her brother came out in her speech, and her speech brought miraculous judgment upon her. God was jealous of the honour of His servant, and His jealousy manifested itself in words of reproof. So a righteous and sinful jealousy led to this transforming judgment. God’s words justified Him; Miriam’s condemned her.
II. The transformation was in keeping with the expressed jealousy of God and of Miriam.
The narrative leads us to think that Miriam’s feelings broke forth like sudden fire. While she was “musing, the fire burned,” and she spake bitter and angry words. And we are told that the Lord likewise spake suddenly (Num_12:4) in words of authority and reproof. And the punishment came suddenly. “The cloud departed, and behold Miriam became leprous.” So, we are told, shall “the coming of the Son of Man be” (Mat_24:27). The indignation of the Lord was great, the bitter feeling of Miriam was intense, and the disease which was the consequence of both was of the most malignant kind.
LESSONS
I. That inequalities of position in the Church of God have their origin in the will of God. Vessels belonging to the same owner vary in the amount of cargo they carry because they vary in their capacity. One is 1,000 tons burthen, another 500, and so on. But why do they differ in tonnage? This must be referred to the will of the owner who built each one. The forest trees are all free to grow, but the willow cannot attain to the dimensions of the oak, or the ash to the strength of the cedar of Lebanon It has not been given to them to do so. So there are intellectual inequalities among God’s servants (Comp. Mat_25:15). Why not give to each one the same number of talents? Why does not the shipbuilder build each vessel of the same size? or the Creator make each tree exactly like its fellow? Because they are destined for different service, and this destiny must be referred to the will of their owners. Neither Miriam nor Aaron could grow into a Moses.
II. That God is, from a blessed necessity, a respecter of persons in relation to character.
Some of God’s children command more affection and respect than others, because they deserve more. We find ourselves under the necessity of esteeming some more highly than others, and God is, so to speak, under the same blessed necessity. He did esteem Moses more highly than He esteemed Aaron or Miriam, and the reason is found, not in his mental superiority, but because he “was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth” (Num_12:3).
III. That the abstract devil of jealousy within the Church of God hinders its progress more than a legion of personal devils without. “The people journeyed not,” &c., (Num_12:15). When leaders of an army become jealous of each other’s reputation, they let loose an enemy which will soon take the wheels off the artillery, and ham string the horses; and the same devil in the Church of God has often made the chariot wheels go heavily.
IV. The practice and precept of the New Testament were anticipated by some Old Testament saints. The river at its well-head may be narrow, but the water is the same in quality as it is when it flows into the ocean. The channel was not so broad, but the spirit was the same. “Heal her now, O God, I beseech Thee” (Num_12:13), anticipates Act_7:60; Luk_23:34; Mat_5:44.—From “Outlines of Sermons on the Miracles and Parables of the Old Testament.”
THE PRAYER OF MOSES FOR MIRIAM
(Num_12:13-15)
A man’s foes too often are those of his own house. The sister and brother of Moses spake against him; his marriage displeased them; their resentment led them beyond the mere expression of discontent; they question his authority, envy his power, are jealous of his position. They have much influence—the one a prophetess, the other a high priest. But for Divine interposition the whole of Israel might have been led to revolt against Moses’ authority. “The Lord heard it.” They are summoned to His presence. He applauds Moses; Miriam becomes a leper; Aaron also was punished. For the lips that sinned with Miriam must pronounce her leprous. And now Moses turns to God, and prays for Miriam’s recovery.
I. The prayer.
How conclusively does it attest the excellency of the character of Moses! How worthy of power is one so large-hearted and forgiving! How much of resemblance is there between the behaviour of Moses and the law of Christ! “Pray for them which despitefully use you.”
1. The prayer was explicit. Nothing vague. He prays not for wrong doers in the mass, but for one in particular, and that one who had wronged him. Many will pray general prayers heartily enough. Lips willing to say, “Have mercy on us miserable sinners,” refuse to say, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.”
2. The prayer was earnest. “I beseech Thee.” Did he see the Shekinah receding (Num_12:10), and would have God return at once? God’s withdrawals excite prayer.
3. The prayer was generous. “Heal her now.” Not make her penitent, or cause her to beg forgiveness, and then heal her, or remove the disease after a certain time, but, “Heal her now.” This is how true brothers always pray. Sympathy produces generosity and earnestness.
4. The prayer was well-timed. He waited not till the memory of her sin and his wrong were fainter; at once his cry goes up, as Miriam’s departing foot-fall is heard. “Love one another.” We are not to “give place unto wrath,” He gives PLACE who gives TIME.
II. The answer. Num_12:14.
1. It was most gracious. He condescended to return and speak to Moses. Intimates she shall be healed at the expiration of seven days.
2. It was most wise. Seven days she must suffer for her own good, for Aaron’s good, for all Israel’s good, to show that an exalted position in His service does not exempt from the punishment of sin.
3. It was most speedy. He answered at once. Why so speedy? Because He desired the innocent should not be afflicted with the guilty. Read Num_12:14, how God sets forth the case to Moses, so that he, seeing the wisdom of the punishment, and God’s grace in curtailing it, may be at rest.
Think, brethren, of the Miriams without the camp, think of the time when, timbrel in hand, they joined with you; now kneel with Moses to pray, “Heal them now, O God.”—R. A. Griffin.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Jealousy of Miriam and Aaron
The Jealousy of Miriam and Aaron
In this scene Miriam is the chief actor: the punishment falls on her alone. Aaron seems to have been led away by her (cp. Exo_32:22-25). The controversy arose in connexion with Moses' marriage with an Ethiopian, but the sequel, to which no reference is made to this matter, shows that the real reason of the strife is the jealousy of Miriam and Aaron over the superior position of their younger brother (Num_12:2, Num_12:6-9).
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1. The Ethiopian woman] Heb. 'the Cushite woman.' This can hardly be Zipporah, who was a Midianite (Exo_2:16, Exo_2:21). Moses, it appears, had married again. Marriage with the Canaanites was forbidden (Exo_34:16), but not with the Egyptians (see Deu_23:7-8).
2. Miriam is called a prophetess in Exo_15:20 : see note there and cp. Exo_4:14-17.
3. Moses made no retort to the criticism, thus exhibiting true greatness.
6-8. The superior favour shown here to Moses consists (1) in the direct manner in which God reveals His will to him, and (2) in his position of general authority.
12. Leprosy was a living death, and contact with a leper involved the same defilement as with a dead body; see Lev_13:45.
14. The prayer is heard, but Miriam is obliged to submit to the customary seclusion and purification, in order that the people may know of her sin and punishment, and take warning.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v1 i.e. graves of lust. Num 33:17
Kibroth-hattaavah
i.e. graves of lust. Num 33:17
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 3. The Rebellion of Miriam and Aaron
3. The Rebellion of Miriam and Aaron
CHAPTER 12
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1. Miriam and Aaron speak against Moses (Num 12:1-3)
2. The interference of the Lord (Num 12:4-9)
3. Miriam leprous (Num 12:10)
4. Aaron’s confession and intercession (Num 12:11-12)
5. Moses’ prayer and Miriam’s restoration (Num 12:13-16)
Open rebellion against Moses by his own brother and sister is the next step in the story of failure. Envy was at the bottom of it. The words Miriam and Aaron spoke reveal that they aimed at Moses’ position. Miriam was a prophetess (Exo 15:20). Aaron had the dignity of the priesthood. Pride, the crime of the devil (1Ti 3:6), lead them to speak against their own brother. Miriam was the leader in this rebellion, for her name stands first and the judgment falls upon her. She may have been moved to jealousy by the elders having received the Spirit and exercising the gift of prophecy among the people. And Aaron reveals the weakness of the flesh. It is the second time he failed in this manner. He could not resist the clamoring of the people when they demanded the golden calf and here he cannot resist his sister, who became the willing instrument of Satan, like the first woman (1Ti 2:14). Moses had a Cushite woman for wife. This typifies the great truth of the union of Christ and the church, that Gentiles were to be joint-heirs and joint-members of the same body. But it seems that the Cushite wife of Moses was only a subterfuge and an attempt to reflect upon the moral character of the man of God, whose position they envied.
(If this thought is followed out in its dispensational meaning, it becomes very interesting. The natural relations objected to this union, as the Jews were moved with jealousy when the gospel was preached to the Gentiles and the Gentiles believed. The book of Acts bears abundant testimony to this fact.)
“And the Lord heard it.” Magnificent words these! and the Lord also said, “Wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” It is a serious thing to speak against any servant of God. The Lord will always guard those who serve Him and vindicate their character. Moses did not take the case in his own hands. He did not answer back. His gracious character stands out in majestic greatness. How hard it is for a man who holds a high and honored position to bear any attack in silence and not to open his mouth! Moses kept silent, for he was very meek above all the men which were upon the face of the earth. In this he is a blessed type of Him who was meek and lowly; who reviled not when He was reviled, who opened not His mouth.
But did Moses really write the third verse? And if he did, does this not prove that he spoke well of himself? Some claim that this is an addition to the text. “The self-praise on the part of Moses which many have discovered in this description of his character, and on account of which some even of the earlier expositors regarded this verse as a later gloss, whilst more recent critics have used it as an argument against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, is not an expression of vain self display, or a glorification of his own gifts and excellences which he prided himself upon possessing above all others. It is simply a statement which was indispensable to a full and correct interpretation of all the circumstances and which was made quite objectively with reference to the character which Moses had not given to himself, but had acquired through the grace of God.” (Keil and Delitzsch, The Pentateuch.) This fully meets the difficulty.
And Jehovah speaks well of His servant Moses. He is declared faithful. With him He speaks and the similitude of Jehovah he is to behold. Compare with Heb 3:5-6. A greater than Moses is here! Christ is faithful as Son over God’s house. Aaron confesses his sin and Miriam’s sin. She is leprous and excluded from the congregation of Israel, where she tried to be the leader, but graciously restored at the appointed time as the result of the prayer of Moses. And may we not read here Israel’s story, leprous now, but some day healed and restored?
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 10 The Sin of Miriam and Aaron
The Sin of Miriam and Aaron
v. 1. And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses, they also became infected with the virus of discontent, because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman, a Cushite, his first wife, Zipporah, apparently having died in the wilderness. Marriage with an Egyptian woman was not forbidden, but Miriam, and under her leadership Aaron also, took this opportunity of registering their jealousy of their brother’s position among the people of the Lord, since the prestige of Moses had been established more firmly than ever by reason of the recent happenings.
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v. 2. And they said, Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? Hath He not spoken also by us? Miriam, as the prophetess, Exo 15:20, thought herself and her brother Aaron, as the high priest and the bearer of the mysterious light and truth, Exo 28:30, entitled to a share in the teaching of the people; they wanted to have equal rights with their younger brother. And the Lord heard it; He took note of the complaint, for it was His intention to adjust matters with all possible speed.
v. 3. (Now the man Moses -was very meek, willing to subordinate himself to others, fully satisfied with a position of less importance, above all the men "which "were upon the face of the earth. ) He was ever ready to endure in silence and to commit his justification to the Lord. This note is not a specimen of self-glorification, but a simple statement of fact, and thereby a defense of himself, for he swallowed the insult in silence. Not so, however, the Lord, whose honor and authority was at stake.
v. 4. And the Lord spake suddenly unto Moses and unto Aaron and unto Miriam, Come out, ye three, unto the Tabernacle of the Congregation. He wanted to set an example at once. And they three came out.
v. 5. And the Lord came down in the pillar of the cloud, which here again sank down from its position above the Tabernacle, and stood in the door of the Tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forth, the cloud separating them from Moses. Moses was thus on the inside, at the very door of the Holy Place, while Miriam and Aaron stood out in the court, probably on the east side of the altar of burnt offering.
v. 6. And He said, Hear now My words: If there be a prophet among you, any ordinary person endued with prophetic gifts in some form, as was the case with Miriam, I, the Lord, will make Myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. Those were the forms of communication which the Lord used with ordinary prophets.
v. 7. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all Mine house, having approved himself in his entire service, in all the worship connected with the Tabernacle as the Sanctuary of Jehovah in the midst of His people. To him God had entrusted His house, His people, to him He had given the leadership of the children of Israel.
v. 8. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, and not merely in obscure visions, even apparently, so that Moses could see God in some clear manifestation, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude, the form, of the Lord shall he behold; wherefore, then, were ye not afraid to speak against My servant Moses? Reverential awe of God, whose minister and representative Moses was, should have kept Miriam and Aaron from uttering a single word against his authority.
v. 9. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them; and He departed. Having called them to account, having rebuked them for their presumption, the Lord removed His presence from them, preparatory to inflicting some form of punishment upon them. The entire worship was thus interrupted, the entire machinery of the cultus came to a standstill. God Himself is the Judge between His servants and those that dare to oppose their own notions to the precepts of the Lord. It is a dangerous thing to challenge the authority of such as have the Word of the Lord on their side.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 6, 9, 11, 13 Has Yahweh spoken only with Moses? Has he not…
Has Yahweh spoken only with Moses? Has he not spoken also with us?
Miriam and Aaron use these questions to complain that Moses had so much authority and they did not. This can be expressed as a statement. AT: "Yahweh has not spoken only with Moses. He has also spoken with us." (See: Rhetorical Question)
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Now Yahweh heard
The word "Now" hear draws attention to the important point that follows.
Now the man Moses
"Now" is used to mark a break in the main story line. The narrator tells background information about Moses' character. (See: Background Information)
translationWords
Miriam
Aaron
Moses
Cush
Yahweh
humble
earth
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 14 12:1-16 Rebellion was not restricted to the “foreign rabble”…
12:1-16 Rebellion was not restricted to the “foreign rabble” or to the Israelites who were bored with manna (11:4). Moses’ own brother and sister, Aaron the high priest (Exod 29:30) and Miriam the prophet (Exod 15:20), rebelled against him. Israel was near the nadir of its rebellion against God (Num 13:25–14:12).
12:1-2 Miriam and Aaron might have perceived Moses’ marriage as a threat to their status and ambitions. Miriam is named first, which suggests that she instigated this family feud and could explain why God punished her and not Aaron (12:9-10).
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12:1 Most interpreters understand the Cushite woman to be Moses’ wife Zipporah from Midian (Exod 2:16-22), understanding Cush as referring here to Cushan, a region and people near Midian (Hab 3:7). Other interpreters, taking Cushite in its usual sense as referring to Kusi (in northern Arabia), Ethiopia, or Sudan, think that she was a different wife. In either case, it is possible that Miriam and Aaron disapproved of his having married a non-Israelite or that they were jealous of her influence over Moses.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.