Numbers 12
The Message
Camp Hazeroth
12 1-2 Miriam and Aaron talked against Moses behind his back because of his Cushite wife (he had married a Cushite woman). They said, “Is it only through Moses that God speaks? Doesn’t he also speak through us?”
God overheard their talk.
3-8 Now the man Moses was a quietly humble man, more so than anyone living on Earth. God broke in suddenly on Moses and Aaron and Miriam saying, “Come out, you three, to the Tent of Meeting.” The three went out. God descended in a Pillar of Cloud and stood at the entrance to the Tent. He called Aaron and Miriam to him. When they stepped out, he said,
Listen carefully to what I’m telling you.
If there is a prophet of God among you,
I make myself known to him in visions,
I speak to him in dreams.
But I don’t do it that way with my servant Moses;
he has the run of my entire house;
I speak to him intimately, in person,
in plain talk without riddles:
He ponders the very form of God.
So why did you show no reverence or respect
in speaking against my servant, against Moses?
9 The anger of God blazed out against them. And then he left.
10 When the Cloud moved off from the Tent, oh! Miriam had turned leprous, her skin like snow. Aaron took one look at Miriam—a leper!
11-12 He said to Moses, “Please, my master, please don’t come down so hard on us for this foolish and thoughtless sin. Please don’t make her like a stillborn baby coming out of its mother’s womb with half its body decomposed.”
13 And Moses prayed to God:
Please, God, heal her,
please heal her.
14-16 God answered Moses, “If her father had spat in her face, wouldn’t she be ostracized for seven days? Quarantine her outside the camp for seven days. Then she can be readmitted to the camp.” So Miriam was in quarantine outside the camp for seven days. The people didn’t march on until she was readmitted. Only then did the people march from Hazeroth and set up camp in the Wilderness of Paran.
Numbers 12
Living Bible
12 One day Miriam and Aaron were criticizing Moses because his wife was a Cushite woman,[a] 2 and they said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he spoken through us, too?”
But the Lord heard them. 3-4 Immediately he summoned Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to the Tabernacle: “Come here, you three,” he commanded. So they stood before the Lord. (Now Moses was the humblest man on earth.)
5 Then the Lord descended in the Cloud and stood at the entrance of the Tabernacle. “Aaron and Miriam, step forward,” he commanded; and they did. 6 And the Lord said to them, “Even with a prophet, I would communicate by visions and dreams; 7-8 but that is not how I communicate with my servant Moses. He is completely at home in my house! With him I speak face-to-face! And he shall see the very form of God! Why then were you not afraid to criticize him?”
9 Then the anger of the Lord grew hot against them, and he departed. 10 As the Cloud moved from above the Tabernacle, Miriam suddenly became white with leprosy. When Aaron saw what had happened, 11 he cried out to Moses, “Oh, sir, do not punish us for this sin; we were fools to do such a thing. 12 Don’t let her be as one dead, whose body is half rotted away at birth.”
13 And Moses cried out to the Lord, “Heal her, O God, I beg you!”
14 And the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face she would be defiled seven days. Let her be banished from the camp for seven days, and after that she can come back again.”
15 So Miriam was excluded from the camp for seven days, and the people waited until she was brought back in before they traveled again. 16 Afterwards they left Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.
Footnotes
- Numbers 12:1 Cushite woman, literally, “because of the Cushite woman he had married.” Apparently they were referring to his wife Zipporah, the Midianite daughter of Reuel (Exodus 2:21); for the land of Midian from which she came was sometimes called Cush. But areas of Ethiopia and Babylon were also known as Cush, so it is possible that the reference is to a second wife of Moses. It is indeterminate from the text whether she was criticized for being a Gentile, or (if she was a Cushite from Ethiopia) because of her color.
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.