Numbers 12: 1 – 16
Why her and not him?
12 Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman. 2 So they said, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it. 3 (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.) 4 Suddenly the LORD said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tabernacle of meeting!” So the three came out. 5 Then the LORD came down in the pillar of cloud and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam. And they both went forward. 6 Then He said, “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. 7 Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My house. 8 I speak with him face to face, even plainly, and not in dark sayings; And he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant Moses?” 9 So the anger of the LORD was aroused against them, and He departed. 10 And when the cloud departed from above the tabernacle, suddenly Miriam became leprous, as white as snow. Then Aaron turned toward Miriam, and there she was, a leper. 11 So Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord! Please do not lay this sin on us, in which we have done foolishly and in which we have sinned. 12 please do not let her be as one dead, whose flesh is half consumed when he comes out of his mother’s womb!” 13 So Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, “Please heal her, O God, I pray!” 14 Then the LORD said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not be shamed seven days? Let her be shut out of the camp seven days, and afterward she may be received again.” 15 So Miriam was shut out of the camp seven days, and the people did not journey till Miriam was brought in again. 16 And afterward the people moved from Hazeroth and camped in the Wilderness of Paran.
We all grew up watching the teacher’s pet get the most attention. In the various places we come into direct contact with we see people compete to warm up to the person in charge at a level that is sickening. Favoritism shown in all categories of life not only impacts our sense of fairness, it creates inequality in responsibility. Worse, it can breed resentment and lead to serious consequences. What should a person do when someone else seems to be the favorite?
To understand the best way to handle this kind of situation, we need to gain some perspective on the culture in which we live. An office, a school, a church, or other facility is filled with social relationships, but these connections are not the reason the place exists. The primary purpose of a business or a non-profit church is to advance the mission of the organization. Although we do want people to get along, we don’t want our workplace relationships to become so overwhelming that they derail the company.
While this may sound obvious, it’s completely unlike the rest of our lives. We pick our friends and partners based on mutual interests and compatibilities. We choose our neighborhoods and our preferred form of entertainment based on our own culture and experience. If you meet a group of friends at a party, you are all there because you like each other. But if you join a group of colleagues at work and sadly at church, you are not necessarily friends. You are not a ‘family even though you are supposed to be.’ In the work place people are a team whose members have been carefully selected to have the right skills and the right attitude to make the organization a success.
It might seem like having close relationships at the office is inescapable. We are social creatures, and we like to make connections. In church life we are described as being part of the body of Christ Jesus. So, part of having friendships in our lives is helping people, doing favors, and listening when others need our support. These are all positive aspects of healthy relationships.
However, friendships formed in the various places can spill over into responsibilities. We may have to start to cover for people who are struggling, or we might expect special treatment in the office in exchange for the personal relationship we have developed. This problem becomes even more challenging when the relationship is between a person in a leadership position and an employee or a person in a group. In the church some people do all they can to win the approval and acceptance of the Pastor? They offer no benefit to the rest of the body of Christ but since the Pastor really likes them they get special preference. This is when favoritism is most pronounced and most frustrating to other people.
If you have the authority to help define procedures for work or in other situations you can help to limit favoritism. Some established groups have standing rules against relationships between supervisors and subordinates. Others try to standardize work items so that it’s clear everyone is contributing appropriately. Other organizations simply rotate employees to different departments or areas on a regular basis, which helps to foster new ideas as well as limit favoritism.
However, if you’re just the unwitting victim of favoritism, these suggestions don’t offer much help. What do you do if a fellow coworker is the one who is getting all the attention and none of the responsibility? How do you deal with the lack of workplace fairness in this all-too-common situation?
First: resist the urge to gossip about the problem. Telling others that you are frustrated will only make the existing relationships tenser and create more challenges. Likewise, don’t approach either the employee or the manager involved in the unfair exchange. These conversations will only make you appear ungrateful and distracted.
Second: restructure your work to be more transparent. If others know what you are working on, they will want to do the same. The apostle Paul teaches us in the book of Romans chapter 8 this, ‘And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Our Holy Master knows everything we do. Our aim then is to please Him in all we do and not worry what others think of us.
Third: change more of your workplace conversations to be about work. If you treat every workplace conversation as one about the tasks that are being done and the challenges ahead, you’ll limit problems with workplace fairness. For example, when the office favorite tries to engage you in a long conversation about their personal life, politely excuse yourself by stating the projects you need pursue back at your desk.
Favoritism at the office can degrade morale and motivation. When other people get special, unfair treatment, overall productivity drops. Is it wrong? – Certainly! However that should not be our problem. Again it really does not matter if you are not the favorite. Rejoice that God loves you and has a plan just for you as He promised that the good work He has begun in you, He will see it to completion.
Today we are going to see that with all the people complaining this bad attitude sadly infiltrated into Moses’ family life. His sister and brother complained that they were bothered that Moses was the favorite. This jealously does not go over very well with our Holy Lord. Now, some bible students may complain that how the Lord Yahweh dealt with this rebellion was unfair. They say, ‘how come only Miriam is hit with the Leprosy and Aaron wasn’t? We will find out the reason shortly.
Possibly Aaron and Miriam had become jealous because of the Spirit coming on the seventy elders as they stood with Moses. Aaron was ‘the Priest’ and Miriam a prophetess (Exodus 15.20). Perhaps they felt, unreasonably, that Moses was supplanting them and rising up others with spiritual insight. Whatever the cause really was the outcome was that they began to mummer against Moses.
If you are in the ministry then what we read here is a continual reality in what we experience. Because they dared not attack Moses openly they attacked his wife. She was a Cushite woman and not a true-born Israelite. This then enabled them to get at Moses himself. ‘Why should he think he was different from them?’ they asked. Did Yahweh only speak with Moses? Did He not also speak with Aaron and Miriam? How dangerous it is when we become proud of what God has given us, or the position in which He has placed us. All these issues were not out of our Holy God Yahweh’s eyesight. He immediately stepped in to make clear Moses’ unique position and in the end the two had to plead with Moses to intercede for them.
It appears from the flow of the scripture that verse 35 of chapter 11 should be the first verse in chapter 12. So we will start off with this verse. ‘From Kibroth-hattaavah the people journeyed to Hazeroth; and they abode at Hazeroth.’
The people moved from ‘the graves of craving’ to Hazeroth, the stage prior to Kadesh. Now they were not far from the land. If only they had left their cravings behind. But they had not. And sadly there were two others who had cravings which they should not have had, cravings for position and glory. Those two were Aaron and Miriam. They had forgotten the commandment, “You shall not covet”.
12 Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman.
Miriam and Aaron, Moses’ sister and brother, had probably become jealous at the power that had been given to the seventy elders. Both probably felt that their influence had been lessened, Aaron because up to this point it had always been him who was next to Moses. He had been ‘the man’. There had been no rivals. And now suddenly there were seventy rivals. And Miriam because she was a prophetess and did not like the idea of seventy men who had prophesied possibly diminishing her position and respect. They were more concerned for their own position than for the expansion of God’s work. Thus, while not liking to attack Moses’ authority directly, they were looking for other grounds of criticism. They felt supplanted. They felt that Moses was not giving them the consideration that they deserved. Jealousy in spiritual spheres is a dreadful thing. And it can only result in a diminishing of the Spirit.
We note that Miriam is mentioned first. She was clearly the most prominent in the attack on Moses. It may also be that she saw Moses’ new wife as a threat to her own position. Perhaps his new wife was more forceful than Zipporah had been. So the mention of Miriam first and the use of the feminine verb was in order to indicate that it was she who was the main culprit. But that is not to excuse Aaron. It would, however, help to explain why it was she who was punished most severely.
Ostensibly the main ground that they found was that he had married a Cushite woman. The argument would be that she was not a pure bred Israelite. In view of the restrictions on him Aaron probably felt that that was not right. The priest had to take a virgin of his own people to wife (Leviticus 21.14). Why should Moses not have to do so as well? Why should he be any different? The woman was probably Sudanese (ancient ‘Ethiopia’). Their complaint was not because she was black but because they presumably felt that he was being inconsistent. After all Moses was a Levite and related to a priestly family. He ought to have remembered his position and to have married within the family!
2 So they said, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it.
But then the criticism advanced. It became a direct attack on Moses himself. Was Moses not getting above himself? Did not Yahweh speak to them as well? Did they not therefore have a right to be consulted on such things as the elders, and Moses’ marriage? Should he not defer a little more to them? He was not giving them the respect due to them as spiritual equals with him. The pride of life was consuming them.
We need to beware of what we say, for God always hears us. And Yahweh was not pleased at what He heard. He had shown His graciousness to them both, and now they were taking it out on Moses because of their own pride What Moses had done had not been on his own initiative. He had simply been obeying Yahweh. So in effect they were grumbling because God had not sufficiently considered their importance.
3 (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.)
Since this book was written by Moses stop and think about how he was dealing with the handling of this situation. Moses comments that he did not defend himself. Nor did he go to Yahweh about it. He was very humble, above all men who were on the face of the earth. This does not mean ‘meek and mild’, it means that he did not defend himself or become concerned when he was attacked, unless it was likely to harm the cause of God. As we know he could get angry when that happened. That was why he had said nothing to Yahweh.
4 Suddenly the LORD said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tabernacle of meeting!” So the three came out.
Then Yahweh called Moses, Aaron and Miriam to come out to the Tent of meeting. It was seemingly ‘out of the blue’. None would know the reason for the call, and Aaron and Miriam probably initially had a feeling of satisfaction that the fact that they were all being called together was proving them right. Did it not demonstrate that God did see them as on a par with Moses? So the three ‘came out’
5 Then the LORD came down in the pillar of cloud and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam. And they both went forward.
Yahweh then came down to the door of the Tent of meeting in a pillar of cloud and called for Aaron and Miriam to approach. Even at this stage they probably still had no inkling of what was about to happen. God will straighten this out for them but they had a vital lesson to learn.
6 Then He said, “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream.
Firstly our Great Ruling God confirmed what a prophet was. He was a man who received visions and dreams. That, said our Holy Yahweh, was how He made Himself known to the general run of prophets. Both of them probably knew something about that, so, yes, they were prophets. He acknowledged that but how different they were from Moses.
7 Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My house. 8 I speak with him face to face, even plainly, and not in dark sayings; And he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant Moses?”
Then He sternly reminded them who and what Moses was. He was not just a prophet like that. Moses was faithful in his appointment over all Yahweh’s house, over the whole people of Israel, from the High Priest downwards. He had made Moses supreme. To Moses He spoke openly mouth to mouth. Moses did not learn things from Yahweh in mysteries and speeches which were difficult to interpret, and hard to understand. Yahweh talked with him as a man talks with his friend (Exodus 33.11). Moses alone had been allowed to behold His form, even if it was a back view when His glory had diminished (Exodus 33.21-23), or in the form of fire in a burning bush (Exodus 3.2-4), or on the Mount. He had seen and known more of Yahweh than any other person, as they well knew. Why then were they not afraid to speak evil against him?
Now I can guess that by this time they would be feeling decidedly uneasy, and not quite so happy as when they had started out with such confidence.
9 So the anger of the LORD was aroused against them, and He departed. 10 And when the cloud departed from above the tabernacle, suddenly Miriam became leprous, as white as snow. Then Aaron turned toward Miriam, and there she was, a leper.
Father God Yahweh’s aversion to their behavior was revealed by His next act, for in His ‘anger’ (aversion to their sin) He departed and the pillar of cloud moved away from over the Tent. And then, when Aaron turned and looked at his sister, he saw that she was severely stricken with a skin disease that made her white as snow. We can only imagine the shock that they both experienced. Yahweh had rendered her ‘unclean’. Far from being a greater prophetess, she would now no longer be welcome at the door of the Tent of meeting, she would no longer be welcome in the camp. She would never again lead the women in singing and worship. Her days as a prophetess were over. She would live as an outcast, outside the camp, totally dependent on others for her survival. She had reaped a grim reward for her envy and covetousness.
Aaron’s mind may possibly have flashed back to another occasion when he himself had been afflicted in the same way, when he was demonstrating God’s signs to the elders on Moses’ behalf (Exodus 4.30). But then it had only been temporary. He had known that Yahweh would put it right. This was different. This skin disease was permanent, and there was nothing that he could do about it. They must have looked at each other speechless with horror. She had been smitten by Yahweh. God had shown her the sinfulness of her heart in the most striking way possible, and had at the same time given a salutary lesson to Aaron.
Now we come to the correct spot to answer the question of ‘why her and not him?’Aaron was seemingly spared, probably partly because he had not been the instigator of the complaints, and partly because as High Priest his being rendered permanently unclean would have been a huge blow to Israel. Another High Priest would have had to be appointed (as later would be necessary, but not yet). And furthermore he did no doubt perform many useful services for Moses. Remembered also would be the fact that he had stood with Moses against Pharaoh. But he must have recognized what a close escape he himself had had. However, to his credit his concern was for Miriam.
11 So Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord! Please do not lay this sin on us, in which we have done foolishly and in which we have sinned.
Broken in heart and spirit and recognizing how foolish they had been Aaron turned to what he knew was her only hope. Gone was his sense of equality with Moses. Gone was his pride. Gone was his concern over his own position. No longer did he feel in his heart that really there was not much difference between them. He recognized now how great a difference there really was. Here was a situation where he himself could do nothing. All he could do was humble himself and plead with a greater than himself. The thought of his sister living out her life like this was more than he could bear.
So he humbled himself before his younger brother - ‘My lord Moses.’ Yahweh’s words had made him aware of Moses’ true status, lord over Israel, and lord over him, lord over Yahweh’s house (verse 7). And he now openly acknowledged the fact. He no doubt remembered the amazing events of Egypt and of how Moses could cause and then remove all the afflictions with which Egypt was afflicted. And he did not doubt that Moses could do something. He begged that Moses would not lay their sin on them, that is, cause them to experience fully what they deserved. He humbly admitted that they had behaved foolishly, and had sinned. Could he not now obtain forgiveness for them and deliver Miriam from the consequences of her sin?
12 please do not let her be as one dead, whose flesh is half consumed when he comes out of his mother’s womb!”
He begged that she might not be as a stillborn baby coming from its mother’s womb wrinkled, partially formed and looking grotesque, a baby that no one bothered to clean it up for if she was permanently skin diseased she too was distorted, and was as good as dead.
13 So Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, “Please heal her, O God, I pray!”
So Moses heard their plea and prayed to Yahweh and begged Him to heal her. Please take note that his prayer was to ‘God’ [The Lord] , not ‘Yahweh’, recognizing that by her behavior Miriam had put herself outside covenant promises. Moses is ever the final intercessor.
How we should rejoice that we have an even greater intercessor, the One Who lives ever to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7.25). But it is not intercession that our sin be overlooked, but rather that we might be saved from it. It is not an intercession that leaves us as we are.
14 Then the LORD said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not be shamed seven days? Let her be shut out of the camp seven days, and afterward she may be received again.”
Yahweh’s reply was stern. It was important that Miriam learn her lesson. She must face up to her shame. A spit in the face was an insult, and depicted someone who had not done their duty (Deuteronomy 25.9), and when coming from someone who was unclean, it rendered unclean (Leviticus 15.8). He was worthy, she was not. Furthermore to be spat on in the face by her father would be even more humiliating and devastating. It would mean that she had done something very dishonorable and was being virtually disowned. But whatever the situation was about that, Miriam was to go through a seven day cleansing outside the camp. It would in fact strictly be necessary because of her skin disease, even though it was presumably cured immediately, for a skin diseased person could not be clean until seven days after they were found to be free from their disease. But she had to recognize that it was because of a sin that deserved the utmost contempt.
15 So Miriam was shut out of the camp seven days, and the people did not journey till Miriam was brought in again.
So Miriam was made an outcast from the camp for seven days, after which she was allowed in again. It could hardly go unnoticed. All would know that she had been stricken by Yahweh, even if the reason for it was only rumored. They would see her here excluded from the camp and rumor would be rife. But at least, because of Moses’ intercession, it was only temporary.
Miriam’s status among the people comes out in the fact that they were ready to wait for her return to the camp before proceeding, and that Moses could expect them to.
16 And afterward the people moved from Hazeroth and camped in the Wilderness of Paran.
The whole incident is a reminder that those who are truly servants of God should be honored as such, and that to seek to harm them is to bring a person under the judgment of Yahweh. While their bodies may not be affected, their inner beings certainly will be. Where it is against one who is being faithful to God, murmuring makes our hearts become diseased, for God honors those who honor Him. It is a reminder to all Christian leaders that they must honor other leaders who are the chosen of God, and not become jealous about their own position. What a contrast there was between Moses, who wanted others to share in his privileges, ‘would that all Yahweh’s people were prophets’, and the attitudes of Miriam and Aaron (‘would that we were equal to Moses’). One sought only Yahweh’s glory; the others sought their own glory.
The incident being over, and the seven days having passed, the people moved from Hazeroth to the wilderness of Paran. All was now ready for the invasion of the land.
