Miriam, Leader of Israel (3)

Miriam the Community Leader

Part 3 of 4

In a story that exemplifies the Israelite depedence upon Miriam the leader, Numbers 12 recounts a story of Miram and Aaron confronting Moses. Though the text gives Moses’ foreign wife as the reason for Miriam and Aaron’s confrontation, what they actually say in the text to Moses is entirely unrelated: “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” (12:3).  God overhears the confrontation and makes it perfectly clear that God and Moses have a special relationship (12:6-8). Though angry with both Aaron and Miriam, God proceeds to punish only Miriam, afflicting her with leprosy (12:9-10). Deuteronomy 24:9 reminds us of this story in instruction concerning leprosy: “Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on your journey out of Egypt.”

After God punishes Miriam, Aaron immediately goes to her defense. Perhaps recognizing and acquiescing to Moses’ divinely established role as mediator, Aaron pleads to Moses to intervene for Miriam. Moses responds by crying out to God, “O God, please heal her!” (12:13).  According to Baruch Levine, the verb for Moses’ plea (to cry out, tza’aq) “expresses the language of prayer, conveying an appeal to God by one in pain.” This indicates that Moses was not merely playing mediator and passing along Aaron’s request to God. Moses’ request was borne out of pain, possibly from seeing his sister suffering and the newly freed Hebrew people potentially losing a leader. 

God has Miriam quarantined from the camp for seven days (12:14-15a). The Israelite camp, however, “did not set out on the march until Miriam had been brought in again.”  Not only do Aaron and Moses intercede for her healing, the people do not move forward without her. This indicates that the people relied on her as a leader in her own right. God may have it out for Miriam, but Aaron, Moses, and the Israelites are firmly on her side.

There is an extra-biblical tradition around this story that explains more clearly the conflict of Miriam and Aaron with Moses.* Zipporah (Moses’s wife) tells Miriam that since Moses was chosen to receive divine revelation, he has therefore abstained from sexual relations with her. However, neither Miriam nor Aaron, nor any of their “fathers” for that matter, were obligated to abstain because they were chosen for revelation. Miriam and Aaron decide that Moses must be doing this out of pride. 

Like the biblical narrative, this story goes to extraordinary lengths to defend Moses’ position, God’s wrath is kindled against Aaron and Miriam, and Miriam takes the brunt of the punishment. Interestingly, Aaron and Moses’ defense of Miriam is extended. Aaron appeals to Moses by recalling all that Miriam has done as their co-leader. Moses does not need convincing because “Moses had determined, as soon as his sister became diseased, to intercede for her before God.” Moses draws a circle around himself and tells God that he will not move from it until God has healed Miriam. Further, if God will not heal Miriam, Moses says that he will do it himself. God agrees to heal Miriam, she is quarantined for a week, and, as in the biblical narrative, the Israelites wait for her return before moving forward.

In the fourth and final part of this series, we will look at Miriam in Biblical memory and the legendary material.