Alan Lewis
Elon, North Carolina
October 2024
Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. 2 “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?” they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” And the Lord heard this.
3 (Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.) 4 At once the Lord said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, “Come out to the tent of meeting, all three of you.” So the three of them went out.
5 Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood at the entrance to the tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When the two of them stepped forward, 6 he said, “Listen to my words:
“When there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams. 7 But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house.
8 With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”
9 The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he left them. 10 When the cloud lifted from above the tent, Miriam’s skin was leprous—it became as white as snow.
Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had a defiling skin disease, 11 and he said to Moses, “Please, my lord, I ask you not to hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed. 12 Do not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother’s womb with its flesh half eaten away.”
13 So Moses cried out to the Lord, “Please, God, heal her!” 14 The Lord replied to Moses, “If her father had spit in her face, would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Confine her outside the camp for seven days; after that she can be brought back.”
15 So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on till she was brought back. 16 After that, the people left Hazeroth and encamped in the Desert of Paran.
There are a lot of great men in the Bible. None of them were perfect. There are many great women of the Bible. They were ordinary people, like people today.
Noah was not perfect. He walked with God, but he also got naked and drunk. David was not perfect. He was a man after God’s own heart, but he also committed adultery and murder.
Moses was not perfect. He had a unique relationship with God. God says He talked to Moses face to face, but Moses was not perfect. He had an anger problem and God would not let him into the Promised Land.
The women were not perfect either. Today, we are going to look at a great woman of the Bible. She was Moses’ sister. Her name was Miriam. She was not perfect either. We see that in Numbers 12.
Miriam sinned and God got angry. Does God gent angry? Does He get angry with believers?
Joyce Meyer wrote a book entitled God is not Mad at You. Well, He was angry with Miriam and Aaron in this chapter. Moses had to pray for them.
God gave Miriam a debilitating skin disease. That must have been embarrassing. She would not have wanted anyone to see her, and she had to isolated herself from everyone for a whole week.
Two people get into an argument. That sounds like a husband and wife on any given day. Strong words are spoken. Voices are raised. One is right and one is wrong and God hears the whole conversation.
Suddenly, God shows up in a cloud and starts talking. God rebuked Miriam publicly. That must have been embarrassing. It must have been humiliating. That is what happened here.
God showed up and defended Moses publicly. He said, “He is faithful in all My house.” Moses did not even have to defend himself. God did it for him.
What did Miriam do wrong? Why was she judged by God? Well, let’s look at the life of Miriam. We see her strengths and weaknesses.
Today, we are going to look at three pictures of Miriam in the Bible. One is found in Exodus 2. One is found in Exodus 15. One is found in Numbers 12
Miriam the Protector
In Exodus 2, she is the older sister. Miriam loved her baby brother. She protected him. She followed him down the river, making sure he was safe. When Pharaoh’s daughter found him, she was not afraid to go up and talk to this Egyptian princess.
Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.
7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”
8 “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.” (Exodus 2:5-10 NIV)
This woman’s dad was crazy and cold-hearted. He was psychotic, drowning helpless babies but his daughter saw this foreign baby in the water crying. She did not act like this baby was beneath her. She felt sorry for him. She had compassion for him, picked him up and held him.
What Miriam did was amazing. She knew how to think on her feet. She knew what to say in a time of crisis. She didn’t tell this Egyptian woman what to do. She used tact. She just asked her a question. Do you want me to find someone to nurse her for you? It worked.
Miriam delivered the deliverer. She didn’t just save her little brother, she saved the whole nation, because Moses was the one God used to deliver them from slavery. She changed the destiny of the whole nation, and she was just a child.
Miriam the Worship Leader
The second picture we have of Miriam. The crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus 14 is one of the greatest miracles of the Bible. It was an awesome display of God’s power.
The Hebrews finally escape their slavery. They were on top of the world and then they heard a noise, turned around and saw the strongest military on the planet were coming after them and they realized that they were trapped.
They had a sea in front of them, and an army behind them. They had nowhere to run. They thought they all were going to die and then God stepped in and split open the Red Sea.
There was a wall of water on both sides, and they crossed on dry land and they did not just escape. Their enemies were all drowned. There were all these dead bodies floating in the water.
What did they do when they crossed the Red Sea? They worshipped. They first thing they did was to sing for joy. Here we see Miriam as a singer. We see her as a worship leader. The first worship leader in the Bible is a woman. She was not just leading worship for women but for everybody.
Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women followed her, with timbrels and dancing. 21 Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea.” (Numbers 15:20-21 NIV).
She was not only a worship leader, She was a prophet. She is called “Miriam the prophet” (Exodus 15:20 NIV). Most prophets in the Bible were men but there were some women as well and Miriam was one of them. She was the first female prophet mentioned in the Bible.
Miriam the Critic
The third picture of Miriam in the Bible is not of a loving sister who saves lives, or a Spirit-filled prophet who leads worship but an old, angry and bitter critic. We will not see Miriam the Leader but Miriam the Leper.
Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. 2 “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?” they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?”
In this scene, Miriam is not helping Moses or saving his life but stabbing him in the back. Jesus said, “A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household” (Matthew 10:36 NIV).
Here Miriam is scene, not as Moses’ supporter or encourager but his harshest critic. Let’s look at the setting of this story. Moses was 80 at the time of the Exodus.
People say that Trump is too old to be President, but they do not know their biblical history. Trump is about the same age that Moses was when he led the Jews out of Egypt.
Miriam would have been around 90 at the time. Moses was 80 at the time of the Exodus and Miriam was older than Moses.
Why is she doing this? Everyone in the nation was complaining and criticizing. People today love to complain. We complain about everything.
We are never satisfied. The Jews turned complaining into an art. They were really good at it and so are we. We complain about everything.
In Numbers 11, a few people began to complain and that spread to others and that spread to the leadership. It even spread to the family of Moses. They were complaining.
Is complaining even a sin? Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord, and when he heard them, his anger was aroused. Then fire from the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp (Numbers 11:1 NIV)
The people complained about their hardships. What did she say about Moses? He married the wrong woman, and he thinks that God only talks through him. She criticized Moses’ wife, and she criticized Moses himself.
Criticism of Moses’ Wife
Moses picked a wife out and Miriam did not like who he picked but there is something else going on here. Why didn’t Moses and Aaron like her? She was Ethiopian.
We are told that two times in one verse. It is what we would call today racism. They did not like the fact that he married a Cushite. Cush was in Africa. It is modern day Sudan.
Racism did not start in our day and in our country. It took place in biblical times. It took place among the Jews. It took place among God’s people. We are not perfect. Saved people can sin. Saved people can be racist.
Church leaders can be racist. Worship leaders can be racists. Prophets can be racists. Pastors and Bible teachers can be racist.
In this passage, we see what God think about racism. Miriam and Aaron had a problem with Moses’ marriage, but God did not have a problem with it. He did not have a problem with interracial marriages. Many do not know the history of interracial marriage in the US.
In the 1950s, 16 states prohibited interracial marriage (Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia).
In 1967, the Supreme Court said it is unconstitutional (Loving v. Virginia). It is not only unconstitutional; it is unbiblical. Moses had an interracial marriage, and he was one of the giants of the Bible. He was one of the greatest men in the Bible.
We know four things for sure from Numbers 12. Moses had an interracial marriage. His own family was upset about it. God took Moses’ side and judged Miriam rather harshly. She was shut out of the camp.
In fact, Miriam’s punishment seemed to fit the crime. She got leprosy. She criticized Moses for having a black wife, so God turned her as white as snow (Numbers 12:10).
That was poetic justice. She criticized another woman for the color of her skin, so she gets a skin disease. It is almost as if God said, “You want to be white. I will make you really white, so white that you are sick.” This passage raises a few questions.
Deeper Questions1) Why didn’t Aaron get leprosy? Both criticized Moses, so why is only Miriam punished? Why did God direct His anger against Miriam? Why did only the women get punished? That doesn’t seem fair. Miriam was the ringleader. She took the lead in this criticism and Aaron just went along with it. There are two hints of this in the text Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife. Miriam is mentioned FIRST. It says, “Miriam and Aaron,” not “Aaron and Miriam” and the word “talk” in Hebrew is feminine, not masculine. It lets you know that she was the main one talking. Aaron took responsibility. He said we spoke foolishly, and we sinned. Will you forgive us? Did Miriam repent? We don’t know but she did have seven days to think about their sin. 2) Does the Bible contradict itself? Some say the Bible contradicts itself. Did Moses marry a Midianite or a Cushite woman? Is this a contradiction? Moses’ wife was Zipporah. Zipporah was Midianite. There is no contradiction. Most scholars believe this is a different woman than Zipporah. Most believe it is a second marriage. The only question is when did Moses marry this Cushite woman? Did he marry her before he married Zipporah or after he married her? One view is that that Moses married this Cushite woman BEFORE he married Zipporah. That is what Jewish tradition says.[1] Josephus says he not only married an Ethiopian. He married the daughter of the king of Ethiopia. This woman could have been a wife he had in Egypt before he fled the country after committing murder. Another view is that Moses married this Cushite woman AFTER he married Zipporah and that this was a second marriage after she died. This is the one that makes the most sense. It doesn’t make any sense to all of the sudden complain about a marriage Moses had fifty or sixty years earlier. Moses was over 80. People did not live as long then. Moses lived three to four thousand years ago. It is much more likely that Zipporah died and that he remarried. Miriam didn’t criticize him for remarrying, just for remarrying a Cushite woman. |
Criticism of Moses
Miriam’s main criticism was not Moses’ wife but of Moses himself. She said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?” they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?”
The Example of Moses
Moses is the perfect example of leadership. There is a lot we can learn from Moses.
1) He was a humble leader
He was the meekest man on the face of the earth. Who wrote that? Moses. How could he be humble and say that? He was not bragging. He was simply stating the truth under inspiration.
We can learn something important from Moses. Most of politicians today on the right and on the left are known for their pride, not their humility.
Moses was a politician. He was the leader of over two million people and he was the humblest man on the planet.
2) He prayed for his enemies
Rather than being glad that Miriam got leprosy and saying, “It serves her right for her bad attitude,” he prayed for her. He said, “Heal her.” When people criticize us, do we pray for them? That is what Jesus told us to do.
3) He was not crushed by criticism
If you are a leader, you can expect criticism. You can expect unjust criticism, even from unexpected sources like family members. Moses let God defend him when he was falsely accused.
The Spirit of Miriam
It is easy to criticize Miriam but are we just like her? Let’s look at the spirit of Miriam in this chapter. What was it like?
1) It is a critical spirit
Miriam had a critical spirit. She was critical of her own siblings. Are we just like her. Many of us are always criticizing, and always critical. We criticize those who do things differently than you do.
2) It is a gossiping spirit
Miriam and Aaron were gossiping about their brother. Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife.
They did not talk to Moses. They did not ask him about his marriage. Instead, they just talked about him behind his back. How often do we do that? Others do things to us and we do not talk to them about it. We go to others and talk about it.
We need to beware of that. Miriam and Aaron spoke about Moses in secret, but the text says, “And the Lord heard this.” God hears what we say about others in secret.
3) It is a jealous spirit
Miriam and Aaron were jealous of their little brother. It is the older sibling syndrome. Their little brother is more important than they are. This involved a power struggle on Miriam’s part.
Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?” they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?”
God was using Moses more than he was using Miriam and Aaron and they were jealous. Are you jealous of other people? Are you jealous of other Christians or other leaders?
4) It is a hypocritical spirit
Miriam criticized Moses and accused him of pride, but she was the one who was proud. Moses was the humblest man on the planet
Often those who criticize others are guilty of the same thing. That is why we need to be careful before we judge others.
Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (Matthew 7:1-2 NIV)
5) It is a racist spirit
Mariam said that Moses was disqualified from leadership because of his marriage but that was just racism in disguise. Miriam criticizes Moses for marrying outside his race. She was cursed among other reasons for being racist. God made an example of it. It shows how serious God takes it.
[1] Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 2.3.10.
