Miriam and Aaron criticize Moses for marrying a Cushite woman, accusing him of monopolizing God's revelation. They are jealous of Moses' leadership role. Moses remains patient and meek in response. God hears their criticism and punishes Miriam with leprosy to demonstrate Moses' unique authority and status as prophet. Commentators note the siblings' pride and envy contrasted with Moses' humility, and discuss the marriage and its significance.

1. NUMBERS 12 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Miriam and Aaron Oppose Moses
1 Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses
because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a
Cushite.
BARNES, "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
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.
CLARKE, "Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses - It appears that
1

2. jealousy of the power and influence of Moses was the real cause of their
complaint though his having married an Ethiopian woman-‫הכשית‬ ‫האשה‬
haishshah haccushith - That Woman, the Cushite, probably meaning Zipporah,
who was an Arab born in the land of Midian - was the ostensible cause.
GILL, "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.
HENRY 1-3, "Here is, I. The unbecoming passion of Aaron and Miriam:
2

3. 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 (Son_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
3

4. 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.
JAMISON, "Num_12:1-9. Miriam’s and Aaron’s sedition.
an Ethiopian woman — Hebrew, “a Cushite woman” - Arabia was usually
called in Scripture the land of Cush, its inhabitants being descendants of
that son of Ham (see on Exo_2:15) and being accounted generally a vile and
contemptible race (see on Amo_9:7). The occasion of this seditious
outbreak on the part of Miriam and Aaron against Moses was the great
change made in the government by the adoption of the seventy rulers
[Num_11:16]. Their irritating disparagement of his wife (who, in all
probability, was Zipporah [Exo_2:21], and not a second wife he had recently
married) arose from jealousy of the relatives, through whose influence the
innovation had been first made (Exo_18:13-26), while they were overlooked
or neglected. Miriam is mentioned before Aaron as being the chief
instigator and leader of the sedition.
K&D 1-3, "All the rebellions of the people hitherto had arisen from
dissatisfaction with the privations of the desert march, and had been
directed against Jehovah rather than against Moses. And if, in the case of
the last one, at Kibroth-hattaavah, even Moses was about to lose heart
under the heavy burden of his office; the faithful covenant God had given
the whole nation a practical proof, in the manner in which He provided him
support in the seventy elders, that He had not only laid the burden of the
whole nation upon His servant Moses, but had also communicated to him
the power of His Spirit, which was requisite to enable him to carry this
burden. Thus not only was his heart filled with new courage when about to
despair, but his official position in relation to all the Israelites was greatly
exalted. This elevation of Moses excited envy on the part of his brother and
sister, whom God had also richly endowed and placed so high, that Miriam
was distinguished as a prophetess above all the women of Israel, whilst
Aaron had been raised by his investiture with the high-priesthood into the
spiritual head of the whole nation. But the pride of the natural heart was
not satisfied with this. They would dispute with their brother Moses the pre-
4

5. eminence of his special calling and his exclusive position, which they might
possibly regard themselves as entitled to contest with him not only as his
brother and sister, but also as the nearest supporters of his vocation.
Miriam was the instigator of the open rebellion, as we may see both from
the fact that her name stands before that of Aaron, and also from the use of
the feminine ‫ר‬ ֵ‫בּ‬ ַ‫ד‬ ְ‫תּ‬ in Num_12:1. Aaron followed her, being no more able to
resist the suggestions of his sister, than he had formerly been to resist the
desire of the people for a golden idol (Ex 32). Miriam found an occasion for
the manifestation of her discontent in the Cushite wife whom Moses had
taken. This wife cannot have been Zipporah the Midianite: for even though
Miriam might possibly have called her a Cushite, whether because the
Cushite tribes dwelt in Arabia, or in a contemptuous sense as a Moor or
Hamite, the author would certainly not have confirmed this at all events
inaccurate, if not contemptuous epithet, by adding, “for he had taken a
Cushite wife;” to say nothing of the improbability of Miriam having made
the marriage which her brother had contracted when he was a fugitive in a
foreign land, long before he was called by God, the occasion of reproach so
many years afterwards. It would be quite different if, a short time before,
probably after the death of Zipporah, he had contracted a second 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. This marriage would not have been wrong in itself, as God had
merely forbidden the Israelites to marry the daughters of Canaan (Exo_
34:16), even if Moses had not contracted it “with the deliberate intention of
setting forth through this marriage with a Hamite woman the fellowship
between Israel and the heathen, so far as it could exist under the law; and
thus practically exemplifying in his own person that equality between the
foreigners and Israel which the law demanded in various ways”
(Baumgarten), or of “prefiguring by this example the future union of Israel
with the most remote of the heathen,” as O. v. Gerlach and many of the
fathers suppose. In the taunt of the brother and sister, however, we meet
with that carnal exaggeration of the Israelitish nationality which forms so
all-pervading a characteristic of this nation, and is the more reprehensible
the more it rests upon the ground of nature rather than upon the spiritual
calling of Israel (Kurtz).
Num_12:2-3
Miriam and Aaron said, “Hath Jehovah then spoken only by Moses, and
not also by us?” Are not we - the high priest Aaron, who brings the rights of
the congregation before Jehovah in the Urim and Thummim (Exo_28:30),
and the prophetess Miriam (Exo_15:20) - also organs and mediators of
divine revelation? “They are proud of the prophetic gift, which ought rather
to have fostered modesty in them. But such is the depravity of human
nature, that they not only abuse the gifts of God towards the brother whom
they despise, but by an ungodly and sacrilegious glorification extol the gifts
themselves in such a manner as to hide the Author of the gifts” (Calvin). -
“And Jehovah heard.” This is stated for the purpose of preparing the way
for the judicial interposition of God. When God hears what is wrong, He
must proceed to stop it by punishment. Moses might also have heard what
5

6. they said, but “the man Moses was very meek (πραΰ́ς, lxx, mitis, Vulg.; not
'plagued,' geplagt, as Luther renders it), more than all men upon the
earth.” No one approached Moses in meekness, because no one was raised
so high by God as he was. The higher the position which a man occupies
among his fellow-men, the harder is it for the natural man to bear attacks
upon himself with meekness, especially if they are directed against his
official rank and honour. This remark as to the character of Moses serves to
bring out to view the position of the person attacked, and points out the
reason why Moses not only abstained from all self-defence, but did not even
cry to God for vengeance on account of the injury that had been done to him.
Because he was the meekest of all men, he could calmly leave this attack
upon himself to the all-wise and righteous Judge, who had both called and
qualified him for his office. “For this is the idea of the eulogium of his
meekness. It is as if Moses had said that he had swallowed the injury in
silence, inasmuch as he had imposed a law of patience upon himself
because of his meekness” (Calvin).
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, and which he never
falsified from the very time of his calling until the day of his death, either at
the rebellion of the people at Kibroth-hattaavah (ch. 11), or at the water of
strife (at Kadesh (ch. 20). His despondency under the heavy burden of his
office in the former case (ch. 11) speaks rather for than against the
meekness of his character; and the sin at Kadesh (ch. 20) consisted simply
in the fact, that he suffered himself to be brought to doubt either the
omnipotence of God, or the possibility of divine help, in account of the
unbelief of the people.
(Note: There is not a word in Num_20:10 or Psa_106:32 to the effect,
that “his dissatisfaction broke out into evident passion” (Kurtz). And it is
quite a mistake to observe, that in the case before us there was nothing
at all to provoke Moses to appeal to his meekness, since it was not his
meekness that Miriam had disputed, but only his prophetic call. If such
grounds as these are interpolated into the words of Moses, and it is to be
held that an attack upon the prophetic calling does not involve such an
attack upon the person as might have excited anger, it is certainly
impossible to maintain the Mosaic authorship of this statement as to the
character of Moses; for the vanity of wishing to procure the recognition
of his meekness by praising it, cannot certainly be imputed to Moses the
man of God.)
No doubt it was only such a man as Moses who could speak of himself in
such a way, - a man who had so entirely sacrificed his own personality to the
office assigned him by the Lord, that he was ready at any moment to stake
6

7. his life for the cause and glory of the Lord (cf. Num_11:15, and Exo_32:32),
and of whom Calmet observes with as much truth as force, “As he praises
himself here without pride, so he will blame himself elsewhere with
humility,”-a man or God whose character is not to be measured by the
standard of ordinary men (cf. Hengstenberg, Dissertations, vol. ii. pp.
141ff.).
CALVIN, "1.And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses. This relation is
especially worthy of observation for many reasons. If Aaron and Miriam had always
quietly and cordially supported the honor of their brother, and had not been carried
away by perverse and ungodly jealousy, their harmony, however holy it was, would
have been perverted by the injustice of many, and alleged against them as a
deceitful and insidious conspiracy. It came to pass, then, in the wonderful
providence of God, that his own brother and sister set on foot a contention with
respect to the supremacy, and endeavored to degrade Moses from the position in
which God had placed him: for thus all suspicion of family favor was removed, and
it was clearly shown that Moses, being opposed by his own belongings, was
sustained by the power of God alone. At the same time it may be perceived how
natural is ambition to the minds of almost all men, and also how blind and furious is
the lust of dominion. Aaron and Miriam contend with their own brother for the
supremacy; and yet they had received the most abundant proofs, that lie, whom they
desire to overthrow, had been elevated by the hand of God, and was thus
maintained in his position. For Moses had arrogated nothing to himself; and,
therefore, it was not allowable that man should attempt to undermine the dignity of
that high office, which God had conferred upon him. Besides, God had ennobled
their own house and name in the person of Moses, and out of favor to him they had
also been endued with peculiar gifts of their own. For by what right had Miriam
obtained the gift of prophecy, except for the fuller ratification of her brother’s
power? But the arrogance and ingratitude of Aaron was still more disgraceful. He
had been by his brother associated with himself: Moses had allowed the high-
priesthood to be transferred to him and his descendants, and rims had placed his
own in subjection to them. What, then, was there for Aaron to begrudge his
brother; when so exalted a dignity was vested in his own sons, whilst all the race of
Moses was degraded? Still he was so blinded as to deem the honor of his brother a
reproach to himself; at any rate, he could not endure to be second to him in dignity,
although he was his superior in right of the priesthood. By this example, then, we
are taught how anxiously we should beware of so baneful a plague (as ambition).
The wicked brother (38) in the tragic Poet says: —
“For, if injustice must at all be done,
‘Tis best to do it for dominion;”
that, under this pretext, he might through treachery and murder proceed against his
own blood with impunity. Now, although we all hold this sentiment in detestation,
still it plainly shows that, when the lust for rule takes possession of men’s hearts, not
7

8. only do they abandon the love of justice, but that humanity becomes altogether
extinct in them, since brothers thus contend with each other, and rage, as it were,
against their own bowels. Indeed it is astonishing that, when this vice has been so
often and so severely condemned in the opinion of all ages, the human race has not
been ever freed from it; nay, that the Church of God has always been infested by
this disease, than which none is worse: for ambition has been, and still is, the mother
of all errors, of all disturbances and sects. Since Aaron and his sister were infected
by it, how easily may it overspread the multitude! But I now proceed to examine the
words.
Miriam is here put before Aaron, not by way of honorable distinction, but because
she stirred up the strife, and persuaded her brother to take her side; for the
ambition of the female sex is wonderful; and often have women, more high-spirited
than men, been the instigators not merely of squabbles, but of mighty wars, so that
great cities and countries have been shaken by their violent conduct. Still. however,
this does not diminish the guilt of Aaron, who, at the instance of his foolish sister,
engaged in an unjust and wicked contest with his brother, and even declared himself
an enemy to God’s grace. Further, because they were unable to allege any grounds,
upon which Moses in himself was not far their superior, they seek to bring disgrace
upon him on account of his wife; as if in half of himself he was inferior to them,
because he had married a woman who was not of their own race, but a foreigner.
They, therefore, cast ignominious aspersions upon him in the person of his wife, as if
it were not at all becoming that he should be accounted the prince and head of the
people, since his wife, and the companion of his bed, was a Gentile woman. I do not
by any means agree with those who think that she was any other than Zipporah,
(39) since we hear nothing of the death of Zipporah, nay, she had been brought back
by Jethro, her father, only a little while before the delivery of the Law; whilst it is
too absurd to charge the holy Prophet with the reproach of polygamy. Besides, as an
octogenarian, he would have been but little suited for a second marriage. Again,
how would such a marriage have been practicable in the desert? It is, therefore,
sufficiently clear that they refer to Zipporah, who is called an Ethiopian woman,
because the Scripture comprehends the Midianites under this name: although I
have no doubt but that they maliciously selected this name, for the purpose of
awakening greater odium against Moses. I designedly forbear from adducing the
frivolous glosses in which some indulge. (40) Moses, however, acknowledges that it
(41) was not accorded to him to have a wife of the holy race of Abraham.
Εἴπερ γὰρ ἀδικεῖν χρὴ, τυραννίδος πέρι
Κάλλιστον ἀδικεῖν· τἄλλα δ ᾿ εὐσεβεῖν. — 538.9
Cicero refers to them, De Off. 3:21.
Nam, si violandum est jus, regnandi gratia,
Violandum est: aliis rebus pietatem colas.
8

9. COFFMAN, "This remarkable chapter gives the account of Miriam's and Aaron's
challenge of the unique position of Moses as God's principal spokesman during the
period of the wilderness journeys.
The first paragraph (Numbers 12:1-3) is of the greatest interest to critics who boldly
affirm that it appears to have been written ABOUT Moses, rather than BY Moses.
Of course, it does have that appearance, and, as a matter of fact, it is possible that
this little paragraph came into the Pentateuch by the hand of Joshua, Ezra, or some
other inspired writer. Sir Isaac Newton, and many other believing scholars for
generations have found no problem whatever with the thesis that such occasional
passages as the account of Moses' death, and a few others such as this one, indeed
could have been written by some inspired author other than Moses and added to the
Pentateuch. There is no challenge whatever to the Mosaic authorship of the whole in
any such possibility.
Nevertheless, we find the view that Moses did not write these verses totally
unacceptable. Note the lines in Numbers 12:3, where it is declared that, "Moses was
very meek, above all men that were upon the face of the earth." Only God could
have known such a thing as this, proving absolutely that God Himself is the origin of
such a statement. And, since God is most certainly the Revelator here, He might as
easily have spoken the words through Moses as through any other person.
Furthermore, the third verse was a very necessary explanation of why God spoke
"suddenly" to Moses (Numbers 12:4). That is why the revelation was made, and it is
not a mere vain-glorious statement by Moses. To us, it seems abundantly clear that
Moses, writing in the third person, as so characteristic of the Sacred Scriptures, and
as the great of all times and nations have done, used the third person for the sake of
greater objectivity. Julius Caesar, Frederick the Great, Xenophon, Thucydides, and
Flavius Josephus all wrote in the third person,
See the conclusion of the chapter for discussion of its typical nature.
"And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom
he had married; for he had married a Cushite woman. And they said, Hath Jehovah
indeed spoken only with Moses? hath he not also spoken with us? And Jehovah
heard it. Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men that were upon the
face of the earth."
"Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses ..." Miriam was the principal offender
here, since her name is mentioned first, and also because she alone was severely
punished.
"Because of the Cushite woman whom he had married ..." Some allege that Moses
divorced Zipporah who was named in Exodus as his wife, and who is there called a
Midianite. Others suppose that Zipporah had, in the meanwhile, died; the identity
of this "second wife" includes the thesis that, "She was a Sudanese or
9

10. Ethiopian";[2] "She was the queen of Ethiopia";[3] "She was an Asiatic, rather
than an African Cushite."[4] Midianite and Cushite are related terms,[5] but the
Cushites included the descendants of Ham and Canaan, and from this some have
found no second wife at all, but merely a derogatory word for Zipporah as "a
Cushite." It is by no means certain that "Cushite means black," although the KJV
renders it "Ethiopian woman." One meaning of the word is "fair of appearance."[6]
"The rabbinical interpretation of Cushite is beautiful."[7] Miriam's jealousy of
Moses could have been due to the beauty of Zipporah, a much more likely cause of
jealousy than nationality.
Most of the comments one encounters deal with this problem, and yet it seems to
have no importance at all. This marriage was not the real reason at all for Miriam
and Aaron's opposition; it was Moses' AUTHORITY which they sought to share.
The marriage is here mentioned merely as a pretext which God did not even deign
to discuss. The Bible records no marriage of Moses except that with Zipporah.
There is no mention either of her death or of her being divorced. And therefore, we
conclude that Zipporah and the "Cushite woman" were one and the same person.
There is the most extensive support of this view by scholars: John Joseph Owens,[8]
Isaac Asimov,[9] T. Carson,[10] J. A. Thompson,[11] etc. Even the scholars who
suppose that a second wife is mentioned here usually take it for granted that
Zipporah was deceased. However, "In view of the silence of the Scripture, it is
unwise to jump to conclusions."[12]
Moses' marriage with a non-Jew stands in the sacred text in such a manner as to
focus attention upon it, and the design of God Himself is visible in this. Moses, the
Great Type of Christ in the O.T. outraged the leading Jews of his day, including his
family, by his marriage to a Gentile. This stands as a prophecy of the ultimate action
of Christ himself in uniting in a spiritual marriage with the Gentiles in his bride the
Church. The hatred of Miriam and Aaron aroused by Moses' marriage to a Gentile
is a type of the hatred and unwillingness of the Jews of Christ's day to allow that
Gentiles were also included in the love and salvation of God. This profound truth,
prophesied no more effectively anywhere else in the O.T., identifies the passage as
God's Word." No accidental or fraudulent "interpolation" could possibly have done
a thing like this. (See the end of the chapter.)
"Hath God indeed spoken only through Moses ..." (Numbers 12:2). Miriam was
indeed a prophetess, and Aaron was God's anointed high priest, but the position of
Moses was an exalted one, unique indeed in the history of Israel. God would act
promptly to safeguard his faithful servant's position.
"The man Moses was very meek ..." (Numbers 12:3). This was included to explain
why God acted so quickly (Numbers 12:4). It appears that Moses, because of his
meek disposition, simply did not recognize the grave threat to his authority and was
in the posture of being likely to pass over the incident without drastic action, but
that was not to be.
10

11. COKE, "Numbers 12:1. And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses— Miriam is
mentioned before Aaron, probably because she was the beginner of this sedition,
and drew Aaron into it. It is uncertain what occasioned them to quarrel with him
about his wife Zipporah: they might possibly be jealous of his being ruled too much
by her and her relations; for it was by her father's advice that he constituted the
judges and officers, mentioned in Exodus 18:21-22 and, perhaps, they imagined that
she and Hobab had a hand in choosing the seventy elders, mentioned in the
foregoing chapter: the history being immediately connected with that, would lead
one at least to think that they have some relation to each other. Thus the real motive
of the quarrel was jealousy: the pretended one, that his wife was a foreigner, not
belonging to the commonwealth of Israel. An Ethiopian, we render it after the LXX
the Hebrew is ‫כשׁית‬ cushit, a Cushite, or Arabian woman; for she was of the land of
Midian, a part of Arabia Petraea. See Exodus 2:16; Exodus 2:25.
ELLICOTT, "(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 (Numbers 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.
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. Habakkuk 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 (Exodus 34:16).
TRAPP, "Numbers 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.
11

12. 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. [Numbers
11:24] According to her name, Miriam would be exalted: ambition rides without
reins.
Because of the Ethiopian woman.] Zipporah the Midianitess, {see Habakkuk 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, [Proverbs 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, [Hosea 7:16] but to be reproached by
professors, is very grievous. Zedekiah feared more to be mocked by the Jews, than
by the Chaldees. [Jeremiah 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.
POOLE, "Miriam and Aaron murmur against Moses, Numbers 12:1-3. God
commandeth him, Aaron, and Miriam to come to the tabernacle, which they did,
Numbers 12:4,5. God rebuketh Aaron and Miriam, Numbers 12:6-9. Miriam
becometh leprous, Numbers 12:10. Aaron humbling himself before Moses, Numbers
12:11,12; he intercedeth for him, Numbers 12:13. Miriam remains without the camp
seven days, Numbers 12:14,15.
God permitted
Miriam and
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,
12

13. as some late learned men have evidently proved from 2 Kings 19:9 2 Chronicles
21:16 Ezekiel 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, Exodus 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.
EBC, "THE JEALOUSY OF MIRIAM AND AARON
Numbers 12:1-16
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. Jeremiah’s
inquiry, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin?" made the dark colour of that race a
13

14. 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 Exodus 34:11 and
Deuteronomy 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
14

15. 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?
Miriam’s is an instance, the first instance we may say, of the woman’s 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 woman’s quick insight may serve her better than the man’s slowly acquired
knowledge. And most will allow this, but only to a certain point. The woman’s
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
15

16. make her gift and Aaron’s 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 brother’s 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 Jehovah’s 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
16

17. 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 brother’s, 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
17

18. 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 God’s 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 Israel’s 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
18

19. 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 Jehovah’s 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 brother’s 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 Israel’s 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 man’s claim to fellowship
with God, his professed knowledge of the Divine truth and religion, may be tested
19

20. 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 God’s 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.
Miriam’s 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-
20

21. 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.
PARKER, "The question which Miriam and Aaron put to one another is quite a
proper one. They said,—"Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not
spoken also by us?" The inquiry, standing within its own four corners, is one which
might be legitimately and reverently propounded. But what question stands thus?
Perhaps hardly any that can be put by human curiosity. The interrogation must be
determined by the atmosphere surrounding it. The question would take its whole
quality at the particular time from the tone of voice in which it was put. Everything
depends upon tone. Herein is the weakness of all writing and of all representation of
thought by visible symbols. We cannot put into letters our own spirit and purpose;
the tone determines the quality, and the tone can never be reported. We are,
therefore, driven, if we would form sound judgments upon events, to look at issues
and results; and having looked at these, we are by so much qualified to return to the
question and judge it as to its real intent. Many persons inquire, with a simplicity
too simple to be genuine, whether there was any harm in the question which was
put. In the written inquiry, certainly not; but in the spoken interrogation the tone
was full of virulence and evil suggestion and unholy design. It will not do to write
the question with pen and ink and to submit it to a stranger for judgment. The
stranger knows nothing about it, and when it is submitted to him for judgment it is
submitted with so finely-simulated an innocence that the man is already prepared to
accord a generous judgment to the terms. God is judge. We read that "the Lord
heard it." To hear it was everything. It was not reported to the Lord. We cannot
report anything to him in the sense of extending his information. The terribleness of
his being judge and the graciousness of his being Judges , is to be found in the fact
that he heard it—balanced the tones, adjusted the emphasis, marked the vocal
colouring, and interpreted the words by the speaker"s tone and temper and
attitude. The final judgment is with him who "heard" the cause during its process
and during its consummation.
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, hollow soundings, 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
frivolity and littleness, and write upon vacant faces tokens of reverence and proofs
that the inner vision is at the moment entranced by some unnameable and
immeasurable revelation. To other men God speaks "apparently"—that Isaiah , in
21

22. broad and visible figure. He is quite near; it is as if friend were accosting friend, and
if mouth were speaking to mouth, 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. This is written in the book that was published last week,
and will be written in the book that is to be issued to-morrow. This is not a ghost
story; this is not some little cloud brought from Oriental skies, never seen
otherwhere, and never beheld since it was first looked upon thousands of years ago;
this is solemn history, contemporaneous history—history of which we ourselves
form vital constituents. Take a book of science—what do you find in that rational
and philosophical bible? You find certain names put uppermost. The writer says it
is given to but few men to be a Darwin or a Helmholtz—they seem to sweep the
whole horizon of knowledge. The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone has said that it
seemed to him as if Aristotle comprehended the entire register of the human mind.
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 are all the Lord"s children, but he hath spoken unto us in different
ways and tones and measures; and to found upon this difference some charge or
reproach, or to hurl against the chiefs of the world some envious questioning, is to
go far to throw suspicion upon the assumption that the Lord has spoken to us at all.
We must learn that all these differences are as certainly parts of the divine order as
are the settings and movements of the stars. "One star differeth from another star in
glory," yet no asteroid has ever been known to blame the planets because of their
infinite largeness and their infinite lustre. Men must accept divine appointment.
Every man must stand in the call wherewith he is called, and encourage a religious
pride and sacred satisfaction with the position which he has been called to occupy.
Light is thrown upon these ancient stories by reading them in the atmosphere of
modern events. We have this twelfth chapter of Numbers , as to its broadest
significance, enacted amongst us every day we live. There are great men in all lines
and vocations, and there are men who might be great in modesty, if they would
accept their position, and might turn their very modesty into genius, if they would
acknowledge that their allotment is a determination of the hand of God.
"And... Miriam became leprous, white as snow." That is the fate of the sneerer in all
times and in all lands. The sneerer is not a healthy man; though he be sleek in flesh
and quite bright with a foxy brightness of eye, there is no real health in the man: for
health is a question of the soul; it is the soul that lives. The sneerer is always shut
out For a moment his sneer provokes a little titter, but the sneer has marked the
Prayer of Manasseh , and he will not be invited again. Society cannot do with so
much bitterness. There is a spirit in Prayer of Manasseh , and the inspiration of the
Almighty giveth him understanding; and the result is that the bitter cynic, who
22

23. always tries to tear the clothes of the great Prayer of Manasseh , knowing he cannot
tear his character, is shut out of the camp, for no man wants him. What is wanted?
Gentleness, tenderness, sympathy, appreciation, encouragement,—these will always
be welcome; these shall have the chief seat at the table; these shall return to the feast
whenever they show any inclination to come; the father and the mother and the
children down to the least, and the servants of the household—yea, all, bid them
loving welcome. But the critic is not wanted—the sneerer is in the way; he closes the
lips of eloquence, he turns away from him the purest cheek of child life; he is a
blight like an east wind; and he never is permitted to repeat his visits in any family
that respects its order, or cares for its most religious and heavenly progress. A heavy
penalty was leprosy for sneering. It is impossible for any penalty to be too great for
sneering. Sneering is of the devil; sneering is a trick of the Evil One. No man can
sneer and pray; no man can sneer and bless: the benediction will not sit on lips that
have been ploughed up by the iron of sneering. Blessed be God for such judgments.
God thus keeps society tolerably pure. There are men standing outside to-day whom
nobody wants to see, whom no child would run to meet, for whom no flower of the
spring is plucked,—simply because they are always challenging the supremacy of
Moses, and thus obtruding their own insignificance, and bringing into derision
faculties that might otherwise have attracted to themselves some trifling measure of
respect.
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 Isaiah ,—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 nowhere claims to be inspired. 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 graveside, and
speaks about the old soldier just laid to rest, the little child just exhaled like a
dewdrop by the morning sun. The Bible works thus—not argumentatively, not
seeking an opportunity of speaking in some controversy that rages around the
question of its inspiration. 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. The glory of the great Book is that it will bear to be translated
23

24. into every language, and that all the changes of grammar are but changes of a
mould, which do not affect the elasticity of water: the water of life flows into every
mould and fills up all the channels, varying the courses and figure of the channels as
you may. The Book is not an iron book, whose obstinacy cannot be accommodated
to human requirements or progress: this is the water of life—a figure that indicates
all qualities that lay hold of progress, development, change. The Bible is a thousand
books—yea, a thousand thousand books, to a number no man can number, making
every heart a confidential friend, whispering to every eager and attentive life some
tender message meant for its own ear alone. 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. If any man
has a larger truth to speak, let him speak it; if any man ran touch the wounded
human heart with a finer delicacy, a more healing sympathy, let him perform his
miracle. To be spoken against is no sign of demerit. We are too fearful about this
matter. Put your finger upon any name in human history that indicates energy of a
supreme kind, influence of the most beneficent quality, that has not been spoken
against. The mischief Isaiah , as ever, that timid people imagine the charge to bring
with it its own proof. The Church is wrecked by timidity. The fearful man is doing
more injury to-day than can be done by any number of assailants. The man who
treats his Christianity as a private possession, and who is afraid lest any man should
challenge him to combat, is a man who is a dead weight upon the Church, and if we
could get rid of that man it would be the happiest event in our Church history.
How did Moses prove his superiority? By prayer. In effect, he said,—Lord, let her
alone; be gentle to her, poor fool; she is moved by unworthy impulses—a little
feminine jealousy because of a marriage she cannot understand; pity her; wipe off
the white blotch, and allow her to come out again; perhaps she will never do it any
more:—"Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee." There he proves that his inspiration
was of a quality most noble. We are strongest when we are weakest; we are
sublimest when we whisper our prayer under the load that would have oppressed
and destroyed us. Judge your inspiration by your devoutness. Never be content with
any inspiration that can merely ask questions, create suspicions, perform the
unworthy performance of sheering; but know that you are a great soul and a valiant
and most royal man and crowned prince, when you take the large, bright view,
which you are bound to do by noble charity.
All this would be of social consequence, and by no means to be undervalued in the
education of the world; but it acquires its most appalling solemnity in view of the
fact that questioning and sneering of this kind about prophets, preachers, books,
churches, means to go forward and to challenge the supremacy of Christ Sneering
cannot stop short at Moses. We cannot draw a line, saying,—Having overthrown the
servant, we shall be content. There is an impulse in these things, hurrying and
driving men on to issues which perhaps at first they never contemplated Beware of
beginnings and resist them. To curtail our best reading is to begin a process that will
24

25. end in mental darkness. To give up the Church once a day means, being interpreted,
that the time will come when the heart will relinquish the Church altogether. A sad
and terrible thing it is when men suppose that they can do with less Bible, less
Church, less public testimony. They plead weariness, distance, difficulties of a
family kind; they are fertile in excuses when the heart is reluctant to go. Let us face
broad meanings, final issues. The meaning is that men who challenge Moses will
endeavour to dispossess Christ, saying,—"We will not have this man to reign over
us." Was not Socrates as pure a man? Have we not found some morality in old
Indian books quite as pure as the morality of the New Testament? Did not Marcus
Aurelius approach very nearly to the sublimity of Christian ethics? Have there not
been many men in all history who have been entitled to sit with Christ in the temple
of purity and wisdom? These are not the questions. Christianity does not bring into
disrepute any beautiful sentence found anywhere in heaven or in earth. Christ never
said,—This is a beautiful thing spoken by a fervid fancy, but you must take no heed
of it. He said,—"I am the light of the world," wherever there is a sparkle of
brilliance, it is a jet of my own glory; wherever there is a wise word, it is God"s
word; wherever a beautiful song is sung, it is a snatch of heaven"s music. Whoever
speaks a holy, pure, comforting word must be permitted to go on with his ministry.
If you call down fire from heaven against such an one, ye know not what manner of
spirit ye are of.
WHEDON, " 1. Miriam — The only sister of Moses named in history, (Numbers
26:59,) was older by several years. Exodus 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. Habakkuk
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.
Exodus 34:16. Yet Ezra (Ezra 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
25

26. 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.
Verses 1-8
THE SEDITION OF MIRIAM, Numbers 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. Mark 3:21; John 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.
PULPIT, "Numbers 12:1
And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses. While the people were encamped at
Hazeroth (see Numbers 12:16), 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,
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 Genesis
10:1-32. 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
26

27. 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 Exodus 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
(Exodus 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.
BI 1-2, "Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses.
Miriam and Aaron’s 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 Christ’s. 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 world’s scorn. “I am weary of hearing always
of Aristides as the Just,” was the expression of one who plotted for that
patriot’s banishment; and if a man’s 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
brother’s 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
27

28. 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
man’s 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 man’s
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).
28

29. 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.)
Miriam’s sin
;—
I. Miriam’s 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. Miriam’s 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?
29

30. III. Miriam’s 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; God’s
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.)
30

31. 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 God’s 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
31

32. 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
32

33. 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 Esau’s 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.)
2 “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?”
they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?”
And the Lord heard this.
BARNES, "Num_12:2
Hath the Lord ... - i. e. Is it merely, after all, by Moses that the Lord hath
spoken?
CLARKE, "Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? - It is certain that
both Aaron and Miriam had received a portion of the prophetic spirit, (see
33

34. Exo_4:15, and Exo_15:20), and therefore they thought they might have a
share in the government; for though there was no kind of gain attached to
this government, and no honor but such as came from God, yet the love of
power is natural to the human mind; and in many instances men will
sacrifice even honor, pleasure, and profit to the lust of power.
GILL, "And they said, hath the Lord, indeed spoken only by Moses?.... They
own he had spoken by him; this was so notorious that it could not be denied:
hath he not spoken also by us? are we not prophets as well as he? the Lord
spake to Aaron while he was in Egypt, and had made him a good spokesman
in his name, and bore this testimony of him, that he could speak well, and
Miriam is expressly called a prophetess, Exo_4:14 Exo_15:20; and this
being the case, they stomached it that they should have no concern in the
choice and appointment of the seventy elders:
and the Lord heard it; for perhaps this was said secretly between
themselves; but God, that sees, and hears, and knows all things, took notice
of what was spoken by them, and resented it; for it was ultimately against
himself, who had ordered Moses to do what he did.
HENRY 4-8, "Moses did not resent the injury done him, nor complain of it
to God, nor make any appeal to him; but God resented it. He hears all we say
in our passion, and is a swift witness of our hasty speeches, which is a
reason why we should resolutely bridle our tongues, that we speak not ill of
others, and why we should patiently stop our ears, and not take notice of it,
if others speak ill of us. I heard not, for thou wilt hear, Psa_38:13-15. The
more silent we are in our own cause the more is God engaged to plead it.
The accused innocent needs to say little if he knows the judge himself will be
his advocate.
I. The cause is called, and the parties are summoned forthwith to attend at
the door of the tabernacle, Num_12:4, Num_12:5. Moses had often shown
himself jealous for God's honour, and now God showed himself jealous for
his reputation; for those that honour God he will honour, nor will he ever
be behind-hand with any that appear for him. Judges of old sat in the gate of
the city to try causes, and so on this occasion the shechinah in the cloud of
glory stood at the door of the tabernacle, and Aaron and Miriam, as
delinquents, were called to the bar.
II. Aaron and Miriam were made to know that great as they were they
must not pretend to be equal to Moses, nor set up as rivals with him, v. 6-8.
Were they prophets of the Lord? Of Moses it might be truly said, He more. 1.
It was true that God put a great deal of honour upon the prophets. However
men mocked them and misused them, they were the favourites and
intimates of heaven. God made himself known to them, either by dreams
when they were asleep or by visions when they were awake, and by them
made himself known to others. And those are happy, those are great, truly
great, truly happy, to whom God makes himself known, Now he does it not
34

35. by dreams and visions, as of old, but by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation,
who makes known those things to babes which prophets and kings desired
to see and might not. Hence in the last days, the days of the Messiah, the
sons and daughters are said to prophesy (Joe_2:28), because they shall be
better acquainted with the mysteries of the kingdom of grace than even the
prophets themselves were; see Heb_1:1, Heb_1:2. 2. Yet the honour put
upon Moses was far greater (Num_12:7): My servant Moses is not so, he
excels them all. To recompense Moses for his meekly and patiently bearing
the affronts which Miriam and Aaron gave him, God not only cleared him,
but praised him; and took that occasion to give him an encomium which
remains upon record to his immortal honour; and thus shall those that are
reviled and persecuted for righteousness' sake have a great reward in
heaven, Christ will confess them before his Father and the holy angels. (1.)
Moses was a man of great integrity and tried fidelity. He is faithful in all my
house. This is put first in his character, because grace excels gifts, love
excels knowledge, and sincerity in the service of God puts a greater honour
upon a man and recommends him to the divine favour more than learning,
abstruse speculations, and an ability to speak with tongues. This is that part
of Moses's character which the apostle quotes when he would show that
Christ was greater than Moses, making it out that he was so in this chief
instance of his greatness; for Moses was faithful only as a servant, but
Christ as a son, Heb_3:2, Heb_3:5, Heb_3:6. God entrusted Moses to
deliver his mind in all things to Israel; Israel entrusted him to treat for
them with God; and he was faithful to both. He said and did every thing in
the management of that great affair as became an honest good man, that
aimed at nothing else but the honour of God and the welfare of Israel. (2.)
Moses was therefore honoured with clearer discoveries of God's mind, and
a more intimate communion with God, than any other prophet whatsoever.
He shall, [1.] Hear more from God than any other prophet, more clearly and
distinctly: With him will I speak mouth to mouth, or face to face (Exo_
30:11), as a man speaks to his friend, whom he discourses with freely and
familiarly, and without any confusion or consternation, such as sometimes
other prophets were under; as Ezekiel, and John himself, when God spoke
to them. By other prophets God sent to his people reproofs, and predictions
of good or evil, which were properly enough delivered in dark speeches,
figures, types, and parables; but by Moses he gave laws to his people, and
the institution of holy ordinances, which could by no means be delivered by
dark speeches, but must be expressed in the plainest and most intelligible
manner. [2.] He shall see more of God than any other prophet: The
similitude of the Lord shall behold, as he hath seen it in Horeb, when God
proclaimed his name before him. Yet he saw only the similitude of the Lord,
angels and glorified saints always behold the face of our Father. Moses had
the spirit of prophecy in a way peculiar to himself, and which set him far
above all other prophets; yet he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is
greater than he, much more does our Lord Jesus infinitely excel him, Heb_
3:1, etc.
Now let Miriam and Aaron consider who it was that they insulted: Were
you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? Against my servant,
against Moses? so it runs in the original. “How dare you abuse any servant
35

36. of mine, especially such a servant as Moses, who is a friend, a confidant, and
steward of the house?” How durst they speak to the grief and reproach of
one whom God had so much to say in commendation of? Might they not
expect that God would resent it, and take it as an affront to himself? Note,
We have reason to be afraid of saying or doing any thing against the
servants of God; it is at our peril if we do, 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 Christ's little ones, Mat_18:6. Those are
presumptuous indeed that are not afraid to speak evil of dignities, 2Pe_
2:10.
JAMISON, "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, Exo_4:16) 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).
CALVIN, "2.And they said, Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? They
pride themselves on their gift of prophecy, which ought rather to have schooled
them to humility. But such is the natural depravity of men, not only to abuse the
gifts of God unto contempt of their brethren, but so to magnify them by their
ungodly and sacrilegious boasting, as to obscure the glory of their Author. Miriam
and Aaron had received the spirit of prophecy, in order that the grace of God might
shine forth in them; but from thence they raise up clouds to throw darkness upon
the light, which was far brighter in Moses. They boast themselves to be prophets;
why, then, do they not consider that there was no ground for glorying in this,
inasmuch as that, which had been gratuitously bestowed upon them by God, was
not their own? Again, why do they not correctly estimate their own insignificance in
comparison with the excellency of Moses, so as, by willingly yielding to him, to show
that they set at its proper value what God had respectively conferred upon them?
Lest, then, the knowledge of those graces which God has intrusted to us, should puff
us up with pride and presumption, let us remember that the more each of us has
received, the greater obligations are we under to God and our brethren; and let us
also reflect how much is wanting, in us, and how much, too, God has conferred on
others, so as to prefer to ourselves those whom God has designed to honor.
COKE, "Numbers 12:2. And they said, Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by
Moses? &c.— As both Aaron and Miriam had been favoured by communications
from God, and the gifts of his Spirit; (Exodus 4:14-15; Exodus 15:20.) and as they
are joined with Moses, as conductors of the people while they were in the
wilderness, they might think they had a right to be consulted in constituting the
elders, who were to be Moses's assistants in the government. They expressed their
indignation, therefore, that he took no notice of them when he chose those elders, as
if he alone was acquainted with the mind of God: in which, properly speaking, they
murmured not against Moses, but against God himself, by whose immediate
36

37. direction Moses had acted in that affair.
ELLICOTT, " (2) Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses?—There is probably
a reference in these words to the facts related in Exodus 4:10-16, where Moses
speaks of his own slowness of speech (Numbers 12:10), and where it is said of
Aaron, “And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people” (Numbers 12:16). Miriam
also is spoken of in Exodus 15:20 as “the prophetess.” “Such is the depravity of
human nature,” writes Calvin, “that they not only abuse the gifts of God towards
the brother whom they despise, but by an ungodly and sacrilegious glorification
extol the gifts themselves in such a manner as to hide the Author of the gifts.”
TRAPP, "Numbers 12:2 And they said, Hath the LORD indeed spoken only by
Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the LORD heard [it].
Ver. 2. Hath the Lord spoken only by Moses.] Every man would be something at
home; and many care not to raise themselves upon other men’s ruins. Self-love
teacheth such to turn the glass, to see themselves bigger, others lesser than they are.
That man hath true light that can be content to be a candle before the sun of others.
And the Lord heard it.] Without any delation of Moses. But while Moses is dumb,
God speaks; while he is deaf, God hears and stirs. The more silent the patient is, the
more shrill his wrong will be.
POOLE, " Are not we prophets as well as he? so Aaron was made, Exodus 4:15,16,
and so Miriam is called, Exodus 15:20. See also Micah 6:4. And Moses hath debased
and mixed the holy seed, which we have not done. Why then should he take all
power to himself, and make rulers as he pleaseth, without consulting us in the case?
The Lord heard it, i. e. observed their words and carriage to Moses.
WHEDON, " 2. Only by Moses — Jealousy of Moses, as the exclusive organ of
divine revelation, is the inspiration of this unpleasant affair. Human forbearance is
put to a severe test when those who were once our equals or inferiors are promoted
to dignities and honours far above us. This truthfulness to fallen human nature is no
small confirmation of the reality of this account.
And the Lord heard — The fact here mentioned prepares the way for the divine
judgment which follows.
PULPIT, "Numbers 12:2
And they said, Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also
by us? This is evidently not the "speaking against Moses" mentioned in the previous
verse, for that is distinctly said to have been on the score of Moses' marriage. This is
37

38. their justification of themselves for daring to dispute his judgment and arraign his
proceedings; a thing which clearly required justification. Moses himself, or more
likely others for him, had remonstrated with them on the language they were using.
They retorted that Moses had no monopoly of Divine communications; Aaron also
received the revelation of God by Urim and Thummim, and Miriam was a
prophetess. They were acknowledged in a general sense as sharing with him the
leadership of Israel (see Micah 6:4); upon this they meant to found a claim to
coordinate authority. They would have had perhaps all matters settled in a family
council in which they should have had an equal voice. It was hard for them both to
forget that Moses was only their younger brother: for Miriam that she had saved his
life as an infant; for Aaron that he had been as prominent as Moses in the original
commission from God to the people. And the Lord heard it. In one sense he hears
everything; in another sense there are many things which he does not choose to
hear, because he does not wish to take judicial notice of them. Thus he had not
"heard" the passionate complaints of Moses himself a short time before, because his
will was then to pardon, not to punish (cf. Isaiah 42:19; Malachi 3:16).
3 (Now Moses was a very humble man, more
humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)
BARNES, "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.
CLARKE, "Now the man Moses was very meek - How could Moses, who
certainly was as humble and modest as he was meek, write this encomium upon himself?
I think the word is not rightly understood; ‫ענו‬ anav, which we translate meek, comes
from ‫ענה‬ anah, to act upon, to humble, depress, afflict, and is translated so in many
places in the Old Testament; and in this sense it should be understood here: “Now this
man Moses was depressed or afflicted more than any man ‫האדמה‬ haadamah, of that
land.” And why was he so? Because of the great burden he had to bear in the care and
government of this people, and because of their ingratitude and rebellion both against
God and himself: of this depression and affliction, see the fullest proof in the preceding
38

39. chapter, Numbers 11 (note). The very power they envied was oppressive to its possessor,
and was more than either of their shoulders could sustain.
GILL, "Now the man Moses was very meek,.... So that they might say anything
against him, and he not be affronted, nor resent any injury; and this therefore is
introduced as a reason why the Lord undertook the cause, and vindicated him, resenting
the obloquies of Miriam and Aaron against him; because he knew he was so exceeding
meek, that he himself would pass it by without taking notice of it, though he might hear
it: hence the Targum of Jonathan"and he cared not for their words;''they gave him no
concern or uneasiness, so meek, mild, and gentle was he: and this is to be considered;
not as a self-commendation of Moses, but as a testimony of his character by God
himself, by whom he was inspired in writing it; though it is possible this might be added
by another hand, Joshua or Ezra, under the same direction and inspiration of the Spirit
of God; who chose that such a character of Moses should stand here, in opposition to the
calumnies cast upon him, and as giving a reason why not he himself, but the Lord,
appeared in his vindication, he being so meek and lowly, as is said of his antitype, and by
himself, Mat_11:29,
above all the men which were upon the face of the earth; being seldom angry,
and when he was, it was generally, if not always, when the honour of God was concerned,
and not on account of his own person and character; though it must not be said of him
that he was perfect in this respect, or free from passion, or from blame at any time on
account of it, but, when compared with others, he was the meekest man that ever lived;
whereby he became the fittest person to have to do with such a peevish, perverse, and
rebellious people as the Israelites were, whom no other man could well have bore with.
JAMISON, "the man Moses was very meek — (Exo_14:13; Exo_32:12, Exo_
32:13; Num_14:13; Num_21:7; Deu_9:18). This observation might have been made to
account for Moses taking no notice of their angry reproaches and for God’s interposing
so speedily for the vindication of His servant’s cause. The circumstance of Moses
recording an eulogium on a distinguishing excellence of his own character is not without
a parallel among the sacred writers, when forced to it by the insolence and contempt of
opponents (2Co_11:5; 2Co_12:11, 2Co_12:12). But it is not improbable that, as this verse
appears to be a parenthesis, it may have been inserted as a gloss by Ezra or some later
prophet. Others, instead of “very meek,” suggest “very afflicted,” as the proper
rendering.
CALVIN, "3.Now the man Moses was very meek. This parenthesis is inserted, in
order that we might perceive that God was not moved by any complaint of Moses, to
be so greatly wroth with Aaron and Miriam. It is said that “the Lord heard,” that is
to say, to undertake the cause in His character of Judge: and it is now added, that
He spontaneously summoned the criminals to His tribunal, though no accuser
requested that justice should be done him. For this is the, tendency of the eulogium
of his meekness, as if Moses had said that he submitted in silence to the wrong,
because, in his meekness, he imposed patience on himself. Moreover, he, does not
praise his own Virtue for the sake of boasting, but in order to exhort us by his
39

40. example, and, if it should be our lot to be treated with indignity, quietly and calmly
to wait for the judgment of God. For whence does it come that, when any one has
injured us, our indignation carries away our feelings in all directions, and our pain
boils up without measure, except because we do not think that our ills are regarded
by God until we have made loud and boisterous complaints? This passage, then,
teaches us that although the good and gentle refrain from reproaches and
accusations, God nevertheless keeps watch for them, and, whilst they are silent, the
wickedness of the ungodly cries out to, and is heard by, God. Again, the silence of
long-suffering itself is more effectual before God than any cries, however loud. But
if God does not immediately proceed to execute vengeance, we must bear in mind
what is written elsewhere, that the blood of Abel cried out after his death, that the
murder which Cain had committed might not be unpunished. (Genesis 4:10.)
COKE, "Numbers 12:3. Now the man Moses was very meek, &c.— It has been
supposed by many, that this passage was not written by Moses, but inserted by some
other hand in after-times. The reason, however, urged for this supposition, namely,
its containing a high encomium of himself, is by no means sufficient; for the
encomium, as it here stands, evidently appears extorted from Moses as a necessary
vindication of himself from calumny; in which situation, self-praise is not
unbecoming even the most modest, nor at all unusual to the simplicity of ancient
writers: nay, indeed, St. Paul, and even our Saviour himself, are put upon
magnifying themselves, by the malignity of their enemies. John 10:36. 2 Corinthians
10:18; 2 Corinthians 10:18. This meekness of Moses is mentioned as an aggravation
of Aaron and Miriam's fault, and as that which provoked the divine displeasure;
and, certainly, it is a proof of the impartiality of Moses to recite, with such an honest
simplicity, those defects of his own relations, which he might so easily have
concealed. The Scripture affords many instances of the meekness of Moses: in
particular, see Exodus 14:13; Exodus 32:10, &c. Exodus 32:31-32. Numbers 11:2;
Numbers 12:13; Numbers 14:13; Numbers 14:45; Numbers 21:7 and Deuteronomy
18:22; Deuteronomy 18:22.
REFLECTIONS.—Of all in the camp, Miriam and Aaron were surely the last from
whom Moses had need to apprehend complaint; they were near relations, and
distinguished professors. Let no man think it strange that his nearest relatives are
set against him; nor reckon his case hard, or be discouraged, if some eminent for
religion reflect most unkindly and unjustly on his conduct. Moses was thus treated
before him.
The complaint against him was, that, in the choice of the seventy elders, he had been
influenced by his wife Zipporah; and Miriam, jealous of her authority, seems to
have instigated Aaron to this ungrateful behaviour towards his brother, insinuating
that they had equal authority from God, and therefore ought to have been
consulted. Note; (1.) Contentions for superiority among Christians are too common,
and very sinful. (2.) Nothing breeds bitterer disputes than jealousy about power. (3.)
Through evil suggestions, like Miriam's; the dearest friends are often separated. (4.)
40

41. When persons quarrel, they cannot be at rest unless they draw others into the
dispute.
Moses maintained the same composure for which he is so famed; and in silence
referred his cause to God, though from them this must have been peculiarly
afflictive. The unkindness of professed friends is ever harder to be borne than the
insults of professed enemies. He must be well disciplined in the school of Christ, who
can, under such provocations, in patience and meekness possess his soul.
WHEDON, " 3. Moses was very meek — This statement is not a gratuitous piece of
self-praise, but is necessary in order to bring out the reason why Moses not only
refused to vindicate himself, but also to invoke the vengeance of Jehovah on account
of the injury which had been done to him. “For this is the idea of the eulogium of his
meekness, that he had swallowed the injury in silence, since he had imposed a law of
patience upon himself because of his meekness.” — Calvin. This verse furnishes no
argument against the Mosaic authorship of this book, as, when properly viewed, it
contains no offensive egotism or vain-glorying. “As he praises himself without pride,
so he will blame himself elsewhere with humility.” Numbers 20:12, note. We must
call to mind the great candour of Moses in recording his own faults — his killing the
Egyptian, (Exodus 2:12,) his backwardness to obey God’s call, his neglect to
circumcise his child, (Exodus 4:10-26,) and the sin which excluded him from
Canaan. We must bear in mind that Moses was repelling the foul and envious
slander that he was fond of power and ambitious to usurp it. Since the inner life is
inscrutable, and its external manifestations may be counterfeited, all the graces
inwrought by the Sanctifier are to be declared by the lips while they are confirmed
by the life. That the meekness of Moses was only of grace and not of nature is
plainly seen from the sudden vengeance wreaked on the Egyptian oppressor.
Exodus 2:12. “Should we admit that in a very few instances a word or even a verse
or paragraph may have been inserted by some duly authorized person for the sake
of explanation or of greater completeness of record, we would not invalidate the
Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.” — Dr. W.H. Green.
TRAPP, "Numbers 12:3 (Now the man Moses [was] very meek, above all the men
which [were] upon the face of the earth.)
Ver. 3. Now the man Moses was very meek.] So free from passions, if Josephus may
be believed, that he knew no such thing in his own soul; he only knew the names of
such things, and saw them in others, rather than in himselfi Of Beza it is said, Quod
sine felle vixerit, that he was without gall or guile, and he lived to a great age as
Moses did, and as Mr Dod did. Their meekness preserved them.
Above all the men.] And yet Moses could be angry enough when there was cause.
[Exodus 11:8; Exodus 16:20 Leviticus 10:16 Numbers 16:15, &c.} Yea, how
blessedly blown up was he with a zeal for God, {Exodus 32:19] and what a stomach
41

42. shows he in that case! Nazianzen saith of Athanasius, that he was magnes et adamas,
a loadstone in his sweet gentle drawing nature, and yet an adamant in his resolute
stout carriage against those that were evil. Some (a) are of opinion that this verse
was added by Joshua or Esdras, as also those three verses. [Numbers 21:14-15;
Numbers 21:27]
POOLE, " This is added as the reason why Moses took no notice of their reproach,
but was one that heard it not, and why God did so speedily and severely plead
Moses’s cause, because he did not avenge himself.
Quest. 1. Did it become Moses thus to commend himself?
Answ. 1. The holy penmen of Scripture are not to be measured or censured by other
profane writers, because they are guided by special instinct in every thing they
write; and as they ofttimes publish their own and their near relations’ greatest
faults, where it may be useful to the honour of God, and the edification of the
church in after-ages; so it is not strange if for the same reasons sometimes they
commend themselves, especially when they are forced to it by the insolence and
contempt of their adversaries, which was Moses’s case here, in which case St. Paul
also commends himself, 2 Corinthians 11:5, &c. 2 Corinthians 12:11,12; which they
might the better do, because all their writings and carriage made it evident to all
men that they did not this out of vain-glory, and that they were exalted above the
affectation of men’s praises, and the dread of men’s reproaches.
2. This might be added, as some other clauses were, by some succeeding prophet,
which was no disparagement to the authority of the Holy Scriptures, seeing it is all
written by one hand, though divers pens be used by it.
Quest. 2: How was Moses so meek, when we oft times read of his anger, as Exodus
11:8 16:20 32:19 Leviticus 10:16 Numbers 16:15 20:10,11, compared with Psalms
106:32,33?
Answ. 1. The meekest men upon earth are provoked sometimes, yea, oftener than
Moses was.
2. True meekness doth not exclude all anger, but only such as is unjust, or
immoderate, or implacable. Moses was and ought to be angry where God was
offended and dishonoured, as he was in almost all the places alleged.
PETT, "Verse 3
‘Now the man Moses was very humble, above all the men that were on the face of
the earth.’
42

43. Moses himself was not like that, says the writer. He probably 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. The idea was that he was self-effacing and
concerned only for God’s glory.
This comment was probably put in by the one who was writing down his words. It is
not likely that it is to be seen as the words of Moses himself. But that it is an
important part of the chiastic pattern demonstrates that it was not a later
interpolation. It was written down at the same time as Moses’ words were being
finally recorded.
EXCURSUS. The Meekness of Moses.
The question is often put as to whether Moses could have spoken of himself as
humble/meek above all men on the face of the earth. Is it not, people ask, a
contradiction in terms? Clearly we cannot say with certainty who wrote these
words. But the first question we must ask is whether Moses could have spoken of
himself in these terms. After all, the use of the third person by a writer speaking of
himself is not unusual. It is a literary technique.
The first point we must make is that the comment is not necessarily just a huge
compliment. Consider if we translate 'meek' as 'diffident', and thus as not being
willing to defend himself because of a certain withdrawal in his personality. We
have seen at his calling in Exodus how he tried to avoid God's call because he felt
unable to cope with it, and wanted to hide behind his poor speech (Exodus 3:11;
Exodus 4:1; Exodus 4:10; Exodus 4:13). We find it difficult to recognise the fact but
Moses was in fact sometimes portrayed as being to some extent of a shy and retiring
nature. He was bold in some things (like, as a trained martial arts expert, probably
armed, in his dealings with a few shepherds) but he was not always so when it came
to the big picture.
The fact that he did what he did was because God had spurred him on and given
him little choice. But Exodus demonstrates that in fact it was Aaron who made the
first overt moves in the deliverance from Egypt. It was only once Moses had gained
confidence that he took over. Possibly what Moses is saying here is that God acted
on his behalf because he himself was so naturally diffident the most diffident man
on earth, and was thus deriding himself. For the meaning of the word translated
'meek' compare Job 24:4 'the meek of the earth hide themselves together'; Psalms
147:6 'Yahweh lifts up the meek'. It is not a boasting word but in a sense a
disparaging word. It describes someone ''humble' because they are lowly and
wanting and seek to cringe from public notice. They see themselves as not of
sufficient courage to defend themselves. So it may well be that Moses saw himself as
the least forthcoming person in the whole world (not to be taken too literally - shy
43

44. people can often feel like this) and therefore was speaking disparagingly of himself.
This comment may thus well have arisen from his own personal shyness, especially
at dealing with aspects of his married life. It may simply be describing an excess of
meekness that was actually not a good thing, an indication that he was not
forthright in his own defence because of this lack in his make up. Not many men
would see themselves as boasting if they described themselves as meek.
Or alternately if we insist on assuming that meekness is intended to indicate a good
feature it may be that God actually told Moses that He Himself was about to defend
him because he was so meek and would not defend Himself, that He was defending
him because he was the meekest man on earth. And God had reason to know. He
had had to struggle with Moses' meekness. Thus Moses may simply have been
writing down God's own description of himself and not have felt proud of the fact at
all.
In fact what might be considered more unlikely is that anyone else would call Moses
meek, lowly and humble in position, where 'humble' means of a lowly position and
stature. Many things, yes, but not 'meek' (we read into 'meek' a good Christian
trait, signifying not aggressive, but that was probably not the original meaning of
the Hebrew word). Even though it is true that Moses was humble in the best sense,
would anyone have described him as ‘meek’?
We must remember in this context that here in the West we hesitate to speak the
truth about ourselves, because it is not 'the done thing'. A friend of mine who played
tennis for England was asked by a colleague whether she played tennis and she
replied 'a little'. When he played her and was soundly beaten the humiliation was
such that he never spoke to her again. Her meekness had led her into trouble. But it
would not have been English to say 'I play for England'. So she learned to
deliberately lose when playing men instead. Was that good? Would not honesty have
been better? But she was shy too, and meek, and it misled people. However, in the
East things are very different. I remember the shock I had when I first came across
this Eastern trait. They spoke what they believed to be a true estimate about
themselves, with no false humility, and spoke correctly. And I was astounded. I
thought them conceited until I realised that they all did it and that their description
of themselves was true. They were in fact just making an honest assessment of
themselves. It was simply an aspect of their culture. So we must not necessarily
judge the words by over-humble Western standards.
Others (usually Westerners with the Westerners code) have suggested that while
Moses was responsible for the content of the Pentateuch the actual engraving and
finalising might have been done by a master scribe, even possibly Joshua when he
was alone or with Moses in the Tent of Meeting (Exodus 33:7-11), and then later
possibly as acting secretary in Moses' own tent. Thus this may be a comment added
by Joshua or any other scribe, and be equally the word of God. But it could be
argued that it is doubtful whether it would be used by these people of Moses. The
word is not really complimentary. Each must decide the matter for themselves, but
44

45. it does not affect the genuineness of the saying, nor does it discount the overall
authorship of Moses. Indeed we should note how well it fits into the chiastic pattern.
End of Excursus.
PULPIT, "Numbers 12:3
Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of
the earth. For the Hebrew ‫ָו‬‫נ‬ָ‫ﬠ‬ the Septuagint has πραὺς here; the Vulgate, mitis. The
Targum Palestine has "bowed down in his mind," i.e; overwhelmed ("plagued,"
Luther). The ordinary version is undoubtedly' right; the object of the parenthesis
was either to explain that there was no real ground for the hostility of Miriam and
Aaron, or to show that the direct interference of the Lord himself was necessary for
the protection of his servant. The verse bears a difficulty on its very face, because it
speaks of Moses in terms which could hardly have been used by Moses of himself.
Nor is this difficulty in the least degree diminished by the explanations which are
offered by those who are determined to maintain at any cost the Mosaic authorship
of every word in the Pentateuch. It is no doubt true to some extent that when a great
and good man is writing of himself (and especially when he writes under the
influence of the Holy Spirit), he can speak of himself with the same calm and simple
truthfulness with which he would speak of any other. It is sufficient, however, to
refer to the example of St. Paul to show that neither any height of spiritual privilege
and authority, nor any intensity of Divine inspiration, obliterates the natural virtue
of modesty, or allows a really humble man to praise himself without pain and
shrinking. It is also to be observed that while St. Paul forces himself to speak of his
privileges, distinctions, and sufferings, all of which were outward to himself, Moses
would here be claiming for himself the possession of an inward virtue in greater
measure than any other living soul. Surely it is not too much to say that if he did
possess it in such measure, he could not possibly have been conscious that he did;
only One was thus conscious of his own ineffable superiority, and this very
consciousness is one of the strongest arguments for believing that he was infinitely
more than a mere man, howsoever good and exalted. There is but one theory that
will make it morally possible for Moses to have written this verse, viz; that in
writing he was a mere instrument, and not morally responsible for what he did
write. Such a theory will find few upholders. But, further, it is necessary to prove
not only that Moses might have made this statement, but also that he might have
made it in this form. Granted that it was necessary to the narrative to point out that
he was very meek; it was not necessary to assert that he was absolutely the meekest
man living. And if it was unnecessary, it was also unnatural. No good man would go
out of his way to compare himself to his own advantage with all men upon the face
of the earth. The whole form of the sentence, indeed, as well as its position, proclaim
it so clearly to be an addition by some later hand, that the question may be left to
the common sense and knowledge of human nature of every reader; for the broad
outlines of human character, morality, and virtue are the same in every age, and are
not displaced by any accident of position, or even of inspiration. A slight
45

46. examination of passages from other sacred writers, which are sometimes adduced as
analogous, will serve to show how profound is the difference between what holy men
could say of themselves and what they could not (cf. Daniel 1:19, Daniel 1:20; Daniel
5:11, Daniel 5:12; Daniel 9:23; Daniel 10:11). On the question of the inspiration of
this verse, supposing it to be an interpolation, and as to the probable author of it, see
the Preface. As to the fact of Moses' meekness, we have no reason to doubt it, but we
may legitimately look upon the form in which it is stated as one of those
conventional hyperboles which are not uncommon even in the sacred writings (cf.
Genesis 7:19; John 21:25). And we cannot avoid perceiving that Moses' meekness
was far from being perfect, and was marred by sinful impatience and passion on
more than one recorded occasion.
BI, "The man Moses was very meek.
The grace of meekness
How beautiful a grace is meekness! It may be somewhat difficult to define;
but whenever we see we cannot fail to know and to feel its gentle and
winning power. It is a grace that implies so very much in the heart. It is the
beautiful result of many other graces; whilst its place in the beatitudes
shows that it is the root on which others grow. Meekness is quite consistent
with power and authority; for Moses had great power and authority in
Israel, and yet, altogether unspoilt by it, he was the meekest of men. But we
may look to another example, far greater than Moses, who said, “All power
is given to Me in heaven arid on earth”; and yet added, “I am meek and
lowly in heart.” It is in such lofty places that meekness is the most beautiful,
because it then can, and does, stoop very low. But though this grace is
evidently consistent with any power and authority, however exalted, it is
altogether inconsistent with the love of power and with the love of
authority. Meekness can only grow upon the ruins of selfishness in all its
forms, whether it be selfishness towards God—that is, unbelief—or whether
it be selfishness towards man, either in its form of pride, love of our own
way, love of ease, love of money. But we may trace another feature in
meekness from the example of Moses, and learn that this grace is not the
attribute of a weak character, but the ornament of a firm and
comprehensive spirit. Indeed, we seldom find real meekness in vacillating
characters; for such yield when they ought not to yield, and then, rebuked
by conscience for yielding, they become angry. Meekness will more often be
found in the resolute character when it is sanctified by the Spirit of God,
and obstinacy is purged out. Moses was a beautiful example of
extraordinary strength of character. His one will was stronger than the
united wills of all Israel. And yet amongst them all there was not one to be
found so meek as he; and the reason was, because his will rested on the will
of God. It was an unselfish will, and therefore it was that its uncommon
power did not exclude meekness. We all need this grace in every
relationship of life. As parents, for meekness should be the border and
fringe of every act of authority; as mistresses, for in the carlessness and
want of conscientiousness of servants your spirit may be tried nearly every
46

47. day; as Christians, for St. Peter exhorts us (1Pe_3:15) to “be ready always to
give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in
you with meekness and fear”; as teachers, for St. Paul says (2Ti_2:24-25). In
these days of collision between system and system, and of sad confusion of
views of Divine truth, we specially seem to need the spirit of meekness. For
it is not rude attacks upon error, but truth spoken in meekness and love that
avails and has most power. Meekness should be the handmaid of zeal. All of
us must feel, if we have only made the experiment, how difficult of
attainment is this grace; and yet there is great encouragement to seek it. It
appears in the cluster of graces described as the “fruit of the Spirit.” It is the
last but one, perhaps to show us the height at which it grows. There is a
beautiful promise of guidance to the meek “The meek will He guide in
judgment: and the meek will He teach His way” (Psa_25:9); and in Psa_
149:4 is a larger promise still—“He will beautify the meek with salvation.”
And then we cannot forget the beatitude uttered by the lips of Him whose
meekness never failed—“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the
earth!” (G. Wagner.)
Moses the meek
Who records this? The popular answer is, Moses. He is the reputed author
of the Pentateuch. Moses tells us, therefore, that Moses was the meekest of
men. But if so, what becomes of his humility? Some meet the difficulty by
reminding us that the verse is a parenthesis. It is enclosed in brackets.
Perhaps it was added afterwards by another hand. This, of course, is
possible. At the same time it is a desperate mode of dealing with the case.
Supposing that Moses did indite it, what then? It is not necessarily a display
of vanity. There are two kinds of egotism—the false and the true. If a man
refers to himself simply as a historian, and merely because the
circumstances of the case call for it, that is quite a lawful, righteous
egotism. If, on the contrary, he does it out of conceit, he thereby manifests
“vain glory,” and merits our scorn. A consciousness of integrity will
sometimes impel its possessor to assert it, especially when it is
misunderstood and persecuted. The uprightness of Job led him to exclaim,
“When I am tried I shall come forth as gold.” “The man Moses was very
meek.” But was he always such? Are we to regard his meekness as
constitutional? There appear to be solid reasons for thinking that Israel’s
distinguished lawgiver was originally impulsive and even passionate! At
first, he was anything but slow to anger. And, as we read the narrative of his
life, we mark the old disposition ever and anon asserting itself. Just as you
sometimes see, in the midst of green pastures and yellow corn, patches of
rock, fern, and heather, reminding you of the pristine state of the ground,
so now and then the hasty spirit of Moses got the better of him. These were
lingering and occasional outbreaks on the part of what the apostle would
call “the old man.” They were exceptional. So faithfully had he watched
against his besetting sin, so prayerfully had he exercised vigorous self-
control, that the naturally irritable man became “very meek above all the
men who were on the face of the earth.” As a certain author admirably
writes: “A traveller, giving an account of an ancient volcano, tells of a
47

48. verdurous cup-like hollow on the mountain summit, and, where the fierce
heat once had burned, a clear, still pool of water, looking up like an eye to
heaven above. It is an apt parable of Moses. Naturally and originally
volcanic, capable of profound passion and daring, he is new-made by grace
till he stands out in calm grandeur of character with all the gentleness of
Christ adorning him. The case of Moses is representative. It does not stand
alone in grand isolation. That our weakest point may become our strongest
is one of the most obvious and inspiring teachings of the Bible. Peter
Thomas, a physiognomist, closely scanning the face of Socrates,
pronounced him to be a bad man. He even went so far as to specify his vices
and faults. “Proud, crabbed, lustful,” were the charges brought against him.
The Athenians laughed this to scorn. Everybody knew its falsity. The
distinguished sage was the exact opposite of the description. To their
amazement, however, Socrates hushed them, and declared that no calumny
had been uttered. “What he has said,” be remarked, “accurately describes
my nature, but by philosophy I have controlled anti conquered it.” Let us be
of good cheer. Philosophy is good, but we have something better—“the grace
of God which bringeth salvation.” Let us but make it our own, and we shall
joyfully experience its victories. (T. R. Stevenson.)
Meekness
What is meekness? It is not the repudiation of self-defence. Everything that
is made has a right to exist, or God would not have matte it; and, if any other
creature trespasses on this its birth-charter, it is justified in defending
itself. Neither is meekness a mental incapacity to discern insults and
injuries. A man who cannot do that is not meek but stupid. Nor is meekness
a natural mildness which is incapable of being provoked. There are people
of such a temper—or, rather, non-temper. It is no credit to them. We may
call such people soft; but it would be a misnomer to call them meek. In fact,
unless they can be stirred up, they are incapable of meekness; for the more
natural fierceness a man has the more capable he is of meekness, and he
upon whom anybody that comes along may make his scratch is anything but
a meek person. Neither are they meek who are restrained from exhibiting
resentment by fear or self-interest. They are cowards. All these are negative
qualities. And it is impossible that meekness should belong to this tribe; for
it must be immensely positive and tremendously energetic since it is to
subjugate the earth and inherit it. The first element in meekness is
docility—a willingness to learn, a readiness to go through the drudgery and
labour connected with learning, a disposition to suppress the impatience
which prevents us from learning. The second element is self-restraint, both
toward God and toward man. The tendency of trouble is to irritate, to
render the soul peevish, angry, morose, rebellious. But the meek soul has
learned in the school of Christ. It accepts the truth that “all things work
together for good to them that love God”; and, therefore, disciplines itself to
patience under trial. Meekness educates man up to a Godlike standard. It
stores up strength in the soul—a strength that shall prove available in the
emergencies of life. The meek men are the men of might. They have broad
shoulders and strong backs, or they could not carry this load of other men’s
48

49. ignorance, infirmity, and sin; and it is meekness that squares their
shoulders, toughens their tendons, and develops their muscles. The meek
men are, if the exigency arises, the most terrible of the earth. There are
bounds to the exercise of meekness. Paul indicates this when he says: “What
will ye? Shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love?” When the meek man
does take the rod, he lays it on until the work is thoroughly done. (H. M.
Scudder, D. D.)
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.
CLARKE, "And the Lord spake suddenly - The sudden interference of God in
this business shows at once the importance of the case and his displeasure.
GILL, "And the Lord spake suddenly unto Moses, and unto Aaron, and unto
Miriam,.... As one greatly provoked, and highly displeased, and which was shown at
once; and in order to prevent the complaint getting among the people, and spreading,
which might have been of bad consequence, as they were pretty much disposed to
murmur and mutiny; as also to show that it was not through any solicitation of Moses
that the Lord took this matter in hand, time not being allowed to him to make any
application to him; for, as soon as ever Miriam and Aaron had uttered their speech
against him, the Lord spake to them:
come out ye three unto the tabernacle of the congregation; everyone out of his
tent, as Aben Ezra; though it is not improbable that they were all together in the tent of
Moses, whither Aaron and Miriam were come to contend with him; the words seem to be
spoken quick, and in haste, as being angry:
and they three came out: of the place where they were, to the tabernacle of the
congregation, that so the people might not hear what was said unto them, and what was
the occasion of it.
HENRY 4-8, "Moses did not resent the injury done him, nor complain of it to God,
nor make any appeal to him; but God resented it. He hears all we say in our passion, and
49

50. is a swift witness of our hasty speeches, which is a reason why we should resolutely
bridle our tongues, that we speak not ill of others, and why we should patiently stop our
ears, and not take notice of it, if others speak ill of us. I heard not, for thou wilt hear,
Psa_38:13-15. The more silent we are in our own cause the more is God engaged to plead
it. The accused innocent needs to say little if he knows the judge himself will be his
advocate.
I. The cause is called, and the parties are summoned forthwith to attend at the door of
the tabernacle, Num_12:4, Num_12:5. Moses had often shown himself jealous for God's
honour, and now God showed himself jealous for his reputation; for those that honour
God he will honour, nor will he ever be behind-hand with any that appear for him.
Judges of old sat in the gate of the city to try causes, and so on this occasion the
shechinah in the cloud of glory stood at the door of the tabernacle, and Aaron and
Miriam, as delinquents, were called to the bar.
II. Aaron and Miriam were made to know that great as they were they must not
pretend to be equal to Moses, nor set up as rivals with him, v. 6-8. Were they prophets of
the Lord? Of Moses it might be truly said, He more. 1. It was true that God put a great
deal of honour upon the prophets. However men mocked them and misused them, they
were the favourites and intimates of heaven. God made himself known to them, either by
dreams when they were asleep or by visions when they were awake, and by them made
himself known to others. And those are happy, those are great, truly great, truly happy,
to whom God makes himself known, Now he does it not by dreams and visions, as of
old, but by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, who makes known those things to babes
which prophets and kings desired to see and might not. Hence in the last days, the days
of the Messiah, the sons and daughters are said to prophesy (Joe_2:28), because they
shall be better acquainted with the mysteries of the kingdom of grace than even the
prophets themselves were; see Heb_1:1, Heb_1:2. 2. Yet the honour put upon Moses was
far greater (Num_12:7): My servant Moses is not so, he excels them all. To recompense
Moses for his meekly and patiently bearing the affronts which Miriam and Aaron gave
him, God not only cleared him, but praised him; and took that occasion to give him an
encomium which remains upon record to his immortal honour; and thus shall those that
are reviled and persecuted for righteousness' sake have a great reward in heaven, Christ
will confess them before his Father and the holy angels. (1.) Moses was a man of great
integrity and tried fidelity. He is faithful in all my house. This is put first in his
character, because grace excels gifts, love excels knowledge, and sincerity in the service
of God puts a greater honour upon a man and recommends him to the divine favour
more than learning, abstruse speculations, and an ability to speak with tongues. This is
that part of Moses's character which the apostle quotes when he would show that Christ
was greater than Moses, making it out that he was so in this chief instance of his
greatness; for Moses was faithful only as a servant, but Christ as a son, Heb_3:2, Heb_
3:5, Heb_3:6. God entrusted Moses to deliver his mind in all things to Israel; Israel
entrusted him to treat for them with God; and he was faithful to both. He said and did
every thing in the management of that great affair as became an honest good man, that
aimed at nothing else but the honour of God and the welfare of Israel. (2.) Moses was
therefore honoured with clearer discoveries of God's mind, and a more intimate
communion with God, than any other prophet whatsoever. He shall, [1.] Hear more from
God than any other prophet, more clearly and distinctly: With him will I speak mouth to
mouth, or face to face (Exo_30:11), as a man speaks to his friend, whom he discourses
with freely and familiarly, and without any confusion or consternation, such as
sometimes other prophets were under; as Ezekiel, and John himself, when God spoke to
50

51. them. By other prophets God sent to his people reproofs, and predictions of good or evil,
which were properly enough delivered in dark speeches, figures, types, and parables; but
by Moses he gave laws to his people, and the institution of holy ordinances, which could
by no means be delivered by dark speeches, but must be expressed in the plainest and
most intelligible manner. [2.] He shall see more of God than any other prophet: The
similitude of the Lord shall behold, as he hath seen it in Horeb, when God proclaimed
his name before him. Yet he saw only the similitude of the Lord, angels and glorified
saints always behold the face of our Father. Moses had the spirit of prophecy in a way
peculiar to himself, and which set him far above all other prophets; yet he that is least in
the kingdom of heaven is greater than he, much more does our Lord Jesus infinitely
excel him, Heb_3:1, etc.
Now let Miriam and Aaron consider who it was that they insulted: Were you not
afraid to speak against my servant Moses? Against my servant, against Moses? so it
runs in the original. “How dare you abuse any servant of mine, especially such a servant
as Moses, who is a friend, a confidant, and steward of the house?” How durst they speak
to the grief and reproach of one whom God had so much to say in commendation of?
Might they not expect that God would resent it, and take it as an affront to himself?
Note, We have reason to be afraid of saying or doing any thing against the servants of
God; it is at our peril if we do, 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 Christ's little
ones, Mat_18:6. Those are presumptuous indeed that are not afraid to speak evil of
dignities, 2Pe_2:10.
JAMISON, "the Lord spake suddenly unto Moses, and unto Aaron, and
unto Miriam — The divine interposition was made thus openly and immediately, in
order to suppress the sedition and prevent its spreading among the people.
K&D 4-10, "Jehovah summoned the opponents of His servant to come at once before
His judgment-seat. He commanded Moses, Aaron, and Miriam suddenly to come out of
the camp (see at Num_11:30) to the tabernacle. Then He Himself came down in a pillar
of cloud to the door of the tabernacle, i.e., to the entrance to the court, not to the
dwelling itself, and called Aaron and Miriam out, i.e., commanded them to come out of
the court,
(Note: The discrepancy discovered by Knobel, in the fact that, according to the so-
called Elohist, no one but Moses, Aaron, and the sons of Aaron were allowed to enter
the sanctuary, whereas, according to the Jehovist, others did so, - e.g., Miriam here,
and Joshua in Exo_33:11, - rests entirely upon a groundless fancy, arising from a
misinterpretation, as there is not a word about entering the sanctuary, i.e., the dwelling
itself, either in the verse before us or in Exo_33:11.)
and said to them (Num_12:6.): “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 ( ‫,בּ‬ 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?” ‫ם‬ ֶ‫ֲכ‬‫א‬‫י‬ ִ‫ב‬ְ‫נ‬
= ‫ם‬ ֶ‫כ‬ ָ‫ל‬ ‫יא‬ ִ‫ָב‬‫נ‬, the suffix used with the noun instead of the separate pronoun in the dative,
51

52. as in Gen_39:21; Lev_15:3, etc. The noun Jehovah is in all probability to be taken as a
genitive, in connection with the word ‫ם‬ ֶ‫ֲכ‬‫א‬‫י‬ ִ‫ב‬ְ‫נ‬ (“a prophet to you”), as it is in the lxx and
Vulg., and not to be construed with the words which follow (“I Jehovah will make
Myself known”). The position of Jehovah at the head of the clause without a preceding
‫י‬ ִ‫כ‬ֹ‫נ‬ ָ‫א‬ (I) would be much more remarkable than the separation of the dependent noun
from the governing noun by the suffix, which occurs in other cases also (e.g., Lev_6:3;
Lev_26:42, etc.); moreover, it would be by no means suited to the sense, as no such
emphasis is laid upon the fact that it was Jehovah who made Himself known, as to
require or even justify such a construction. The “whole house of Jehovah” (Num_12:7) is
not “primarily His dwelling, the holy tent” (Baumgarten), - for, in that case, the word
“whole” would be quite superfluous, - but the whole house of Israel, or the covenant
nation regarded as a kingdom, to the administration and government of which Moses
had been called: as a matter of fact, therefore, the whole economy of the Old Testament,
having its central point in the holy tent, which Jehovah had caused to be built as the
dwelling-place of His name. It did not terminate, however, in the service of the
sanctuary, as we may see from the fact that god did not make the priests who were
entrusted with the duties of the sanctuary the organs of His saving revelation, but raised
up and called prophets after Moses for that purpose. Compare the expression in Heb_
3:6, “Whose house we are.” ‫ן‬ ַ‫ֱמ‬‫א‬ֶ‫נ‬ with ְ‫בּ‬ does not mean to be, or become, entrusted with
anything (Baumgarten, Knobel), but simply to be lasting, firm, constant, in a local or
temporal sense (Deu_28:59; 1Sa_2:35; 2Sa_7:16, etc.); in a historical sense, to prove or
attest one's self (Gen_42:20); and in an ethical sense, to be found proof, trustworthy,
true (Psa_78:8; 1Sa_3:20; 1Sa_22:14 : see Delitzsch on Heb_3:2). In the participle,
therefore, it signifies proved, faithful, πιστός (lxx). “Mouth to mouth” answers to the
“face to face” in Exo_33:11 (cf. Deu_34:10), i.e., without any mediation or reserve, but
with the same closeness and freedom with which friends converse together (Exo_33:11).
This is still further strengthened and elucidated by the words in apposition, “in the form of
seeing (appearance), and not in riddles,” i.e., visibly, and not in a dark, hidden,
enigmatical way. ‫ה‬ ֶ‫א‬ ְ‫ר‬ ַ‫מ‬ is an accusative defining the mode, and signifies here not vision,
as in Num_12:6, but adspectus, view, sight; for it forms an antithesis to ‫ה‬ ָ‫א‬ ְ‫ר‬ ַ‫מּ‬ ַ‫בּ‬ in
Num_12:6. “The form (Eng. similitude) of Jehovah” was not the essential nature of God,
His unveiled glory, - for this no mortal man can see (vid., Exo_33:18.), - but a form
which manifested the invisible God to the eye of man in a clearly discernible mode, and
which was essentially different, not only from the visionary sight of God in the form of a
man (Eze_1:26; Dan_7:9 and Dan_7:13), but also from the appearances of God in the
outward world of the senses, in the person and form of the angel of Jehovah, and stood
in the same relation to these two forms of revelation, so far as directness and clearness
were concerned, as the sight of a person in a dream to that of the actual figure of the
person himself. God talked with Moses without figure, in the clear distinctness of a
spiritual communication, whereas to the prophets He only revealed Himself through the
medium of ecstasy or dream.
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). It follows
from this, that it had always a visionary character, though it might vary in intensity; and
therefore that it had always more or less obscurity about it, because the clearness of self-
consciousness and the distinct perception of an external world, both receded before the
inward intuition, in a dream as well as in a vision. The prophets were consequently
52

53. 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
(θεράπων, 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. Upon this unparalleled relation of Moses to God and the theocracy, so clearly
expressed in the verses before us, the Rabbins have justly founded their view as to the
higher grade of inspiration in the Thorah. This view is fully confirmed through the
history of the Old Testament kingdom of God, and the relation in which the writings of
the prophets stand to those of Moses. 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_12:9. After this address, “the wrath of Jehovah burned
against them, and He went.” As a judge, withdrawing from the judgment-seat when he
has pronounced his sentence, so Jehovah went, by the cloud in which He had come
down withdrawing from the tabernacle, and ascending up on high. And at the same
moment, Miriam, the instigator of the rebellion against her brother Moses, was covered
with leprosy, and became white as snow.
CALVIN, "4.Come out ye three unto the tabernacle. God calls Aaron and Miriam to
the tabernacle, that the very sanctity of the place may cast down their haughtiness;
for forgetfulness of God had overspread their minds, when they began to be so
insolent before men. They are, therefore, brought back to the presence of God, from
which all their senses had turned away, in order that they at length might learn to
revere Moses, whose cause is upheld by God. God commands them to “hear His
words,” because they would never have dared to murmur against Moses if they had
reflected on the account they would have to give. God, therefore, claims their
attention, that they may learn to recollect themselves, and to awaken from the
senselessness of their presumption. Moreover, they are separated from Moses, that
they may confess their inferiority, and be ashamed of their temerity in daring to
compare themselves with him.
COFFMAN, ""And Jehovah spake suddenly unto Moses, and unto Aaron, and unto
Miriam, Come out ye three unto the tent of meeting. And they three came out. And
Jehovah came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the door of the Tent, and
called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forth. And he said, Now hear my
words: if there be a prophet among you, I Jehovah will make myself known unto
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 will I speak mouth to mouth, even manifestly, and
not in dark speeches; and the form of Jehovah shall he behold: wherefore then were
53

54. ye not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?"
"And Jehovah spake suddenly ..." (Numbers 12:4). The sudden intervention of God
Himself in this high-level rebellion against Moses is explained fully by the fact of
Moses' meek and permissive attitude in Numbers 12:3. "That (Numbers 12:3)
explains how it was that Moses took no steps to defend himself."[13]
"If there be a prophet ..." (Numbers 12:6). The words following this have the
significance of saying that, "God's communication with Moses was in the intimacy
of personal contact, but that he spoke to all others by means of riddles and dark
sayings, dreams, visions, etc."[14] This reminds us of the opening words of Hebrews
that, "By divers portions and in divers manners" God spake of old to the fathers by
the prophets. Moses excelled all others of that whole era as the receiver and
communicator of the word of God.
"My servant Moses ... (Numbers 12:7,8). This lies back of Isaiah's prophecy
concerning God's Servant (the Christ). Also, note the statement that Moses was
faithful in all God's house (Numbers 12:7), a theme mentioned in Hebrews 3:5,6.
This very word used of persons in so exalted a position, as "in Ugaritic texts in
which an intimate of Deity is called a Servant as a term of endearment,"[15] is
another of very numerous evidences of the antiquity of the conceptions that are
inherent in this passage.
ELLICOTT, "(4) Come out ye three . . . —There is nothing in these words which
implies that Miriam entered into the Tabernacle itself. Moses, Aaron, and Miriam
were summoned to go out of the camp (comp. Numbers 11:30), and to come to the
entrance of the Tabernacle, or rather of the court, inasmuch as the command to
come as far as the entrance into the Sanctuary appears to have been given
afterwards (Numbers 12:5). It must be remembered that there was but one court at
this time.
TRAPP, "Numbers 12:4 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.
Ver. 4. And the Lord spake suddenly.] God takes his part ever that fights not for
himself. Christ that said, "I seek not mine own glory," adds, "But there is one that
seeks it, and judgeth." Here he appears as "a swift witness," {Malachi 3:5, &c.} a
sharp revenger of his servant’s injuries. The rule is, Iniuria illata legato redundat in
legantem, Wrong done to a messenger reflects on him that sent him.
POOLE, " Suddenly; partly to show his great respect unto Moses, and unto the
grace of meekness; and partly to stifle the beginnings of the sedition, that this
example might not spread amongst the people, who had too much of that leaven
among them.
54

55. Come out, to wit, out of your private dwellings, and from amongst the people, both
that you may not infect them by such scandalous words, and partly that you may
know my pleasure and your own doom.
PETT, "Verse 4
‘And Yahweh spoke suddenly to Moses, and to Aaron, and to Miriam, “Come out
you three to the tent of meeting.” And they 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’
WHEDON, " 4. Spake suddenly — Indicating the fierceness of Jehovah’s
displeasure.
Come out — Of the camp.
Unto the tabernacle — Not into the tabernacle, into which only the priests were
permitted to enter. Hence Knobel’s fancied discrepancy between the so-called
Elohist writer in Numbers 18:7, and the Jehovist here and in Exodus 33:11,
vanishes.
PULPIT, "Numbers 12:4
The Lord spake suddenly. How he spoke we cannot tell, but the word "suddenly"
points to something unexpected and unusual. The voice seems to have come to the
three in their tents before there was any thought in their minds of such an
intervention. Come out ye three, i.e; out of the camp—probably the camp of Moses
and Aaron, on the east of the tabernacle court (see Numbers 3:38).
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,
55

56. GILL, "The Lord came down in the pillar of the cloud,.... Which was over the
most holy place of the tabernacle, and which was a symbol of the presence of the Lord;
and who is said to come down, because that was above the tabernacle; whereas he came,
as is next expressed:
and stood in the door of the tabernacle; where he set up his tribunal, and called
them to his bar, courts of judicature being usually held in the gate; not suffering them to
go into the tabernacle as they were wont to do, being delinquents:
and called Aaron and Miriam; to come nearer to him, and hear what he had to say
to them; Moses keeping at a greater distance, it not being so proper that he should be
within hearing of those commendations which were about to be given of him:
and they both came forth; Aaron and Miriam, and stood before the Lord.
JAMISON, "the Lord came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood the
door of the tabernacle — without gaining admission, as was the usual privilege of
Aaron, though it was denied to all other men and women. This public exclusion was
designed to be a token of the divine displeasure.
TRAPP, "Numbers 12:5 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.
Ver. 5. Out of the cloud.] As from the throne of his glory.
PETT, "Verse 5
‘And 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 forth.’
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. But they had a vital lesson to learn.
WHEDON, " 5. The Lord came down — This anthropomorphic expression is to be
understood as an accommodation of the mystery of divine revelation to human
comprehension. Though God is everywhere, there is a sense in which he draws near
to man when he wishes to communicate with him.
They both came forth — Leaving the company of Moses, the two placed themselves
near the door of the tabernacle, in the doorway of which the cloud stood, to hear
what the Lord had to say to them.
56

57. PULPIT, "Numbers 12:5
The Lord came down in the pillar of the cloud. The cloud which had been soaring
above the tabernacle descended upon it (see Numbers 11:25 and Numbers 12:10).
And stood in the door of the tabernacle. It would seem most natural to understand
by these words the entrance to the holy place itself, and this would manifestly
accord best with the movements of the cloud, as here described; for the cloud seems
to have sunk down upon the sacred tent in token that the Lord was in some special
sense present within it. On the other hand, the phrase must certainly be understood
to mean the entrance of the court, or sacred enclosure, in Le Numbers 8:3, 31, 33,
and probably in other places. As it is hardly possible that the phrase can have had
both meanings, the latter must be preferred. And they both came forth. Not out of
the sanctuary, into which Miriam could not have entered, but out of the enclosure.
The wrath which lay upon them both, and the punishment which was about to be
inflicted upon one, were sufficient reasons for calling them out of the holy ground.
BI 5-10, "The Lord came down.
God’s vindication of Moses
There are several circumstances of the Lord’s proceedings laid down in the text.
1. As, first, His speed. By and by the Lord called them; so showing us how fitting a
thing, yea, how pleasing to Him, convenient expedition is in justice, and how
displeasing, needless, and sinister delays. It showeth also what a tender feeling God
hath of the wrongs of His children, not only of some, but by name of magistrates’ and
governors’ wrongs, when they are spoken against without cause. Surely He so feeleth
it, that even by and by He will undertake the righting of them, and cannot hold from
punishing such offenders as so lightly regard His holy ordinance. We think that
unless we keep ado in our own causes it is not well (and I condemn not all care this
way), but certainly none have been sooner and better righted than such as patiently
have endured a time and committed things to the justice of God.
2. He calleth the two offenders by themselves, leaving Moses to hear and see for his
comfort the Lord’s care for him. And this also is a great point of justice, to call
persons that have done amiss, not carrying matters in secret and condemning
without hearing.
3. He speaketh to them and biddeth them hear His words as He had heard theirs.
Which likewise showeth that true justice chargeth men, and doth not hoard up in
heart what cutteth off love and liking; giving good words outwardly, and yet inwardly
thinking most evil things. Oh, let us hear your words if you have conceived any
offence, and then will either confession or true purgation give satisfaction? The
contrary course may have policy in it, but who shall justify it for piety, charity, or any
virtue?
4. In His words He setteth down the difference of prophets, showing that all have
not alike measure vouchsafed of Him, and therefore may not argue, I am a prophet
57

58. as well as he; ergo, as good as he. Such kind of reasonings have in all times
disquieted the Church and peace of the godly. The differences which God layeth
down you see in the text. To some by vision; to some by dream; to some in darker
words, to some in plainer; but to Moses mouth to mouth; that is in a more excellent
measure of grace, and familiar favour than ever to any. Therefore, although the Lord
had also spoken by them; yet forasmuch as it was not in that degree as to Moses, they
should not have compared themselves with him, but yielded him a reverence above
themselves. Yea, how were ye not afraid, saith the Lord, to speak against My servant
Moses, even against Moses? So showing that imparity of grace and gifts from the
Lord should work ever an imparity of honour and regard by all that will walk rightly,
though in some other respect there may be a parity. (Bp. Babington.)
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.
CLARKE, "If there be a prophet - We see here the different ways in which God
usually made himself known to the prophets, viz., by visions - emblematic appearances,
and by dreams, in which the future was announced by dark speeches, ‫בחידת‬ bechidoth,
by enigmas or figurative representations, Num_12:8. But to Moses God had
communicated himself in a different way - he spoke to him face to face, apparently,
showing him his glory: not in dark or enigmatical speeches; this could not be admitted in
the case in which Moses was engaged, for he was to receive laws by Divine inspiration,
the precepts and expressions of which must all be ad captum vulgi, within the reach of
the meanest capacity. As Moses, therefore, was chosen of God to be the lawgiver, so was
he chosen to see these laws duly enforced for the benefit of the people among whom he
presided.
GILL, "And he said, hear now my words,.... The Targum of Jonathan reads, "I
beseech you"; and Jarchi says, this particle always so signifies; but it is not so agreeable
to the language of the divine Being:
if there be a prophet among you; not as making a doubt of it, but rather allowing
that there was, and that there were others besides Moses, as even they themselves,
Aaron and Miriam, and the seventy elders, and perhaps others; or at least there had
58

59. been, and would be again, as there were in later times:
I the Lord will make myself known to him; that is, declare my mind and will
concerning things present, or things to come:
in a vision; when awake, either by day or by night, representing objects to the bodily
sight; as the almond tree rod, and the boiling pot, to Jeremiah, Jer_1:11; the visions of
the chariots, Eze_23:24, and dry bones, Eze_37:1, to Ezekiel, and such as were shown to
Amos, Amo_7:1, or to the mind by night, as if really discerned by the senses; as the
visions of the man riding on a red horse, Zec_1:8, and of the four horns, Zec_1:18, and
four carpenters, Zec_1:20, with several others shown to Zechariah:
and will speak unto him in a dream; as he had done to Jacob, Gen_31:11, and as he
did afterwards to Daniel, Dan_7:1, and many others.
JAMISON 6-7, "Hear now my words — A difference of degree is here distinctly
expressed in the gifts and authority even of divinely commissioned prophets. Moses,
having been set over all God’s house, (that is, His church and people), was consequently
invested with supremacy over Miriam and Aaron also and privileged beyond all others
by direct and clear manifestations of the presence and will of God.
CALVIN, "6.If there be a prophet among you. He makes mention of two methods by
which the will of God was wont to be revealed to the prophets, viz., visions and
dreams. He does not, however, here use the word ‫חזון‬ chazon, (42) which signifies a
prophecy as well as a vision, but ‫,מראה‬ marah, expressive of some visible
appearance, which confirms and ratifies the truth of His word (oraculi) to the eyes
and all the senses. Thus has God often appeared to His servants, so that His majesty
might be inscribed upon His addresses to them. Before the giving of the Law such
visions were frequently vouchsafed to the Patriarchs; whilst sometimes they were
instructed by dreams. Thus Joel, when he promises that under the kingdom of
Christ there shall be a complete fullness of all revelations, also enumerates these two
forms of them,
“Your sons (he says) and your daughters shall prophesy: your old men shall dream
dreams, your young men shall see visions.”
(Joel 2:28.)
But we know that the prophets described the kingdom of Christ under the likeness
of their own times: when, therefore, God sets forth these two ordinary modes of
revelation, he withdraws Moses from the condition of others, as if to exalt him by a
special privilege. Now, since Aaron and Miriam were not superior to others, they
were thus reminded that they were far behind Moses in rank. With this view he is
said to be “faithful in all God’s house;” in quoting which passage in order to prove
his inferiority to Christ, the Apostle says he was a servant, and a member of the
Church, whereas Christ was its Lord and builder, or creator. (Hebrews 3:2.) But the
difference between them is more clearly specified immediately afterwards, viz., that
59

60. God speaks to him “mouth to mouth,” by which expression, as I have said
elsewhere, (43) more intimate and familiar communication is denoted. Still God does
not thus deprive the prophets of anything which is requisite for the discharge of
their office; but merely establishes Moses as the chief of them all. It is true, indeed,
that the Patriarchs are so ranked, as Abraham was called a prophet by the mouth of
God, (Genesis 20:7;) and the Prophet thus names him together with Isaac and Jacob
in Psalms 105:15; but still God at the same time includes the whole dispensation,
which He afterwards chose to employ under the Law; and so prefers Moses to all
who were hereafter to arise.
Further, the word vision is used in a different sense from that which it had just
above; for God, distinguishing Moses from others, says that He speaks with him in
vision, (44) which it would be absurd to explain as meaning an ordinary or common
vision. It therefore here signifies actual sight, (45) which He contrasts with “dark
speeches (aenigmata) and similitude,” which word is equivalent to a representation
(figura,) if the negative be referred to both. For there are some who take similitude
for a lively and express image; as if God should assert that He reveals His face to
Moses; and therefore read the clause adversatively, as I have given it in the margin.
But the former reading is the most natural.
I have elsewhere treated of dreams and visions. It will then be sufficient to give the
sum in one word, namely, that they were seals for the confirmation of prophecies; so
that the Prophets, as if sent from heaven, might with full confidence declare
themselves to be God’s lawful interpreters. For visions had their own peculiar
marks, to distinguish them from phantoms and false imaginations; and dreams also
were accompanied by their signs, in order to remove all doubt of their authenticity.
The prophets, therefore, were fully conscious of their vocation, so that nothing was
wanting to the assurance of faith. Meanwhile, the false prophets dressed themselves
up in these masks to deceive. Thus Jeremiah, in refutation of their ungodly
pretences, says,
“The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let
him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?”
(Jeremiah 23:28.)
COKE, "Numbers 12:6. If there be a prophet among you— It is very plain, that the
design of the Lord in this speech is to shew the evident superiority of Moses, as a
prophet, over Aaron and Miriam. They boasted, Numbers 12:2 that the Lord had
spoken by them as well as by Moses. The Lord, therefore, now condescends to settle
the dispute, and to shew the difference between them. In which view, I cannot help
thinking our translation dark and unintelligible; and therefore I would propose the
following version, which is certainly as agreeable to the Hebrew as that of ours,
which is pretty generally followed, though I have the countenance of the Arabic and
Syriac for what is now offered. If either of you have at any time been a prophet, [or
have prophesied,] I the Lord have made myself known unto you by a vision: in a
60

61. dream have I spoken unto you, Numbers 12:7. Not so with my servant Moses: he is
faithful (a trusty and constant servant) over all my house, Numbers 12:8. With him
will I speak mouth to mouth, openly, and not by dark speeches or parables; and in
figures, or similitudes, shall he behold the Lord. The Arabic renders the last verse
thus: I speak to him without a medium, and grant him to see visions, not in a dark
enigmatical way, but by figures of God exhibited to him. See Exodus 33:11.
Houbigant, however, thinks, that the clause, and he sees the appearance of the Lord,
is right, and that it refers to Moses seeing Christ in that human form wherein he
afterwards manifested himself upon earth. ("Deo Mosi se talem monstrante, qualis
erat in terris videndus, et cum hominibus habitaturus.") Moses enjoyed the highest
degree of prophesy: he was employed as a minister over all God's house; over all
Israel, who were the family or chosen people of the Lord: and in this trust he was
faithful; executing all the divine commands, and doing nothing of himself, as he was
now falsely accused. In this, the apostle assures us, he was the type of Christ, who is
constituted head of the Christian church, but with a far more extensive power.
Calmet observes, very ingeniously, that the word, which we render faithful, ‫נאמן‬
neeman, is used as an appellative, and signifies a person in high trust, as an
ambassador, minister, or secretary. Thus Samuel is said to be a namen, established
to be a prophet of the Lord. 1 Samuel 3:20. Job speaks of namenim, in the plural
number, as persons of dignity; ch. Job 12:20 see Proverbs 13:17; Proverbs 25:13. In
the same way the word fidus is used in Latin for a trusty servant. Jesus Christ is
called the faithful and true witness, Revelation 3:14; Revelation 19:11. Moses is here
considered as a faithful domestic in the Lord's house, and as such indulged in the
freest intercourse with his divine Lord and Master: the others, Aaron and Miriam,
as only visited occasionally by him, and that in a distant and reserved manner.
REFLECTIONS.—Though the innocent may be silent, God will be the avenger of
their quarrel. We have here,
1. The immediate interposition of God: he summons the parties to appear at his bar
to decide the controversy, and will make them know the difference between his
chosen servant Moses and all other prophets. He made himself known to them in
visions, and a great favour that was; but Moses was more highly favoured. 1. God
testifies of his fidelity: eminent it was, and distinguished; and this he most approves.
It is not so much great gifts, or great abilities, but faithfulness and simplicity of
heart, which God esteems. 2. The manifestations made to him were peculiar. His
eyes beheld more of God's glory than any before him, and the revelations given him
were more distinct and clear, God speaking to him familiarly, not in dark speeches,
but as a man speaketh to his friend. Note; If prophetical visions have ceased, and we
see no more the similitude of the Lord, yet, blessed be God, we enjoy now distincter
views of gospel-mysteries than even the holy prophets; and, in the face of Jesus
Christ incarnate, have been favoured with brighter displays of the divine glory,
grace, and truth, than even Moses on the mount.
2. God's anger was kindled, and he shews it by some visible sign, or by his sudden
departure, without waiting for their excuse. Note; (1.) The reputations of God's
61

62. ministers are his jealous concern; when God shall arise to plead their cause,
confusion shall cover their adversaries. (2.) When God is provoked he will depart;
and no judgment heavier than to be forsaken of him.
ELLICOTT, "(6) If there be a prophet . . . —Better, If there be to (or, among) ycu a
prophet of Jehovah, I will make myself known unto him in a vision, and speak unto
him. The LXX. and Vulgate connect the word “Jehovah” with the former, not with
the latter part of the clause. The mode of communication between God and Moses
differed in the respects which are enumerated in Numbers 12:8 from the mode of
communication by visions or dreams, in which God communicated His will to
others.
TRAPP, "Numbers 12:6 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.
Ver. 6. In a vision.] To those awake.
In a dream.] To those asleep: but dreams and visions do soon vanish and fly away.
[Job 20:8]
POOLE, "If you be prophets, as you pretend, yet know there is a difference among
prophets, nor do I put equal authority and honour upon all of them. By a vision God
represents things to the mind of a prophet when he is awake, as Genesis 15:1 46:2
Daniel 8:18 10:8. By a dream God manifests his mind to them when asleep, as
Genesis 20:3 28:12.
PETT, "Verse 6
‘And he said, “Hear now 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.’
Firstly He confirmed what a prophet was. He was a man who received visions and
dreams. That, said 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.
WHEDON, " 6. If there be a prophet — The literal rendering of this verse is, If
there be a prophet of Jehovah to you, (that is, if ye have one,) I reveal myself to him
in a vision, I speak to him in a dream.
Vision… dream — Trances and dreams are here represented as modes of divine
communication, but they do not bestow the highest dignity upon the man who is the
62

63. organ of the revelation.
PULPIT, "If there boa prophet among you I the Lord will make myself known.
More probably "the Lord" belongs to the first clause: "If there be to you a prophet
of the Lord, I will make myself known." So the Septuagint, ἐὰν γένηται προφήτης
ὑμῶν κυρίῳ… . γνωσθήσομαι. In a vision. ἐν ὀράματι. An internal vision, in which
the eyes (even if open) saw nothing, but the effects of vision' were produced upon
the sensorium by other and supernatural means (see, e.g; Amos 7:7, Amos 7:8; Acts
10:11). Speak unto him in a dream. Rather, speak "in him"— ‫בּוֹ‬ . The voice that
spake to the prophet was an internal voice, causing no vibration of the outer air, but
affecting only the inner and hidden seat of consciousness. It is not necessary to
restrict the prophetic dream to the time of sleep; a waking state, resembling what we
call day-dream, in which the external senses arc quiescent, and the imagination is
freed from its usual restraints, was perhaps the more usual mental condition at the
time. Indeed the Divine communications made to Joseph (Matthew 1:20; Matthew
2:13) and to the Magi (ibid. Numbers 2:12) are almost the only ones we read of as
made during actual sleep, unless we include the ease of Pilate's wife (ibid. Numbers
27:19); and none of these were prophets in the ordinary sense. Compare, however,
Acts 2:17 b.
7 But this is not true of my servant Moses;
he is faithful in all my house.
CLARKE, "Moses - is faithful - ‫נאמן‬ neeman, a prefect or superintendent. So
Samuel is termed, 1Sa_2:35; 1Sa_3:20; David is so called, 1Sa_18:27, Neeman, and son-
in-law of the king. Job_12:20, speaks of the Neemanim as a name of dignity. It seems
also to have been a title of respect given to ambassadors, Pro_13:17; Pro_25:13. Calmet
well observes that the word fidelity is often used for an employ, office, or dignity, and
refers to 1Ch_9:22, 1Ch_9:26, 1Ch_9:31; 2Ch_31:12, 2Ch_31:15; 2Ch_34:12, etc. Moses
was a faithful, well-tried servant in the house of God, and therefore he uses him as a
familiar, and puts confidence in him.
GILL, "My servant Moses is not so,.... Or such a prophet; he is not so used; it was
not in such a manner the Lord spake to him; not in visions and dreams, as he had to
63

64. Abraham and Jacob, and did to others in later times:
who is faithful in all mine house; in the house of Israel, or among that people which
were the Lord's family, where Moses was a servant and steward, and did all things
according to the will of the Lord, the master of the family; he faithfully delivered to them
all the laws, statutes, and ordinances, which he appointed to be observed by them:
unless this is to be understood of the tabernacle, which was the house of God, in which
he dwelt, and which was made, and all things in it, exactly according to the pattern given
by the Lord to Moses: see Heb_3:2.
ELLICOTT, "(7) My servant Moses . . . —Better, Not so (in regard to) my servant
Moses; he is faithful. Reference is made to these words in Hebrews 3:5 : “And Moses
verily was faithful in all his house,” i.e., in the whole of the Mosaic economy or
dispensation, or the house of Israel, which is spoken of as God’s house. A contrast is
drawn in Numbers 12:6 between the vocation of Moses as a servant in the house of
God and that of Christ as a Son over His own house.
TRAPP, "Numbers 12:7 My servant Moses [is] not so, who [is] faithful in all mine
house.
Ver. 7. My servant Moses is not so.] 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 famae meae, nolens addit mercedi meae,
saith Augustine; He that willingly detracteth from mine honour, doth, though
against his will, add to my reward.
POOLE, "i.e. Whom I have set over all my house, i.e. my church and people, and
therefore over you, and who hath discharged his office faithfully, and not partially
and selfseekingly, as you falsely accuse him.
PETT, "Verse 7-8
“My servant Moses is not so. He is faithful in all my house. With him will I speak
mouth to mouth, even openly (manifestly), and not in dark speeches, and the form of
Yahweh shall he behold. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant,
against Moses?”
Then He sternly reminded them 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. To Moses alone spoke ‘the Voice’
(Numbers 7:89). Moses did not learn things from Yahweh in mysteries and speeches
which were difficult to interpret, and hard to understand. Yahweh talked with him
64

65. 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?
By this time they would be feeling decidedly uneasy, and not quite so happy as when
they had started out with such confidence. WHEDON, " 7. Faithful — Tried,
trustworthy, and true. The root of the Hebrew word is amen. See Revelation 3:14.
All mine house — The whole family of Israel, to the government of which Moses had
been called. Baumgarten says that the house is “primarily his dwelling, the holy
tent.” But in this sense the word “all” would be out of place. Moreover, after the
consecration of Aaron the tabernacle was in his charge. The duties of Moses were
not sacerdotal, but administrative and prophetic. Not to the priests, but to Moses
and succeeding prophets, was intrusted the office of receiving and declaring the holy
oracles which make wise unto salvation. The aggregate of believers in Jesus Christ
are now God’s house. Hebrews 3:6.
PULPIT, "My servant Moses is not so. No words could more clearly and sharply
draw the distinction between Moses and the whole laudabilis numerus of the
prophets. It is strange that, in the face of a statement so general and so emphatic, it
should have been doubted whether it applied to such prophets as Isaiah or Daniel. It
was exactly in "visions" and in "dreams," i.e; under the peculiar psychological
conditions so-called, that these greatest of prophets received their revelations from
heaven. The exceeding richness and wonder of some of these revelations did not
alter the mode in which they were received, nor raise them out of the ordinary
conditions of the gradus propheticus. As prophets of future things they were much
greater than Moses, and their writings may be to us far more precious; but that does
not concern the present question, which turns exclusively upon the relation between
the Divine Giver and the human receiver of the revelation. If words mean anything,
the assertion here is that Moses stood on an altogether different footing from the
"prophet of the Lord" in respect of the communications which he received from the
Lord. It is this essential superiority of position on the part of Moses which alone
gives force and meaning to the important declarations of Deuteronomy 18:15; John
1:21 b.; John 6:14; John 7:40, &c. Moses had no successor in his relations with God
until that Son of man came, who was "in heaven" all the time he walked and spake
on earth. Who is faithful in all mine house, ‫ן‬ ָ‫מ‬ ֶ‫ֶא‬‫נ‬ with ‫בּ‬ means to be proved, or
attested, and so established (cf. 1 Samuel 3:20; 1 Samuel 22:14). The Septuagint
gives the true sense, ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ οἴκῳ μου πιστός, and so it is quoted in the Epistle to
the Hebrews (John 3:2). The "house" of God, as the adjective "whole" shows, is not
the tabernacle, but the house of Israel; the' word "house" standing for household,
family, nation, as so often in the sacred writings (see Genesis 46:27; Le Genesis 10:6;
Hebrews 3:6).
65

66. 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?”
BARNES, "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.
GILL, "With him will I speak mouth to mouth,.... And face to face, as he had
done, Exo_33:11; in a free, friendly, and familiar manner, as one friend speaks to
another, without injecting any fear or dread, and consternation of mind, which was
sometimes the case of the prophets; or without a middle person, a mediator, as Aben
Ezra, not by means of an angel, as in some cases, but the Lord himself spake to him:
even apparently, and not in dark speeches; the word "apparently", or "vision",
being opposed to "dark speeches", shows that this is not to be understood of the
appearance or vision of an object presented to the sight, or to the mind, which is denied
of Moses, though usual with other prophets; but of the vision, or plain sense and
meaning of words, which are so plainly expressed, that the sense is easily seen and
understood; it was not under figures and allegories, and parables and dark
66

67. representations of things, that the law of the decalogue, and other laws, statutes, and
ordinances, and the proclamation the Lord made of himself, as the Lord gracious,
merciful, &c. were delivered unto Moses, but in plain words and clear expressions; not in
such enigmatical, parabolical, and allegorical terms as many of the visions and
prophecies of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Amos, and Zechariah, were exhibited to them;
See Gill on Num_12:6,
and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold: as he had at the burning bush, and
at Mount Sinai, with the elders of Israel, and when the Lord proclaimed his name before
him; at which several times it is highly probable he beheld the Lord, even the Lord
Christ, in an human form, as a presage of his future incarnation, and as he might also
after this: the Targum of Jonathan is,"the similitude which is after my Shechinah (or
divine Majesty) he saw;''that is, his back parts, as Jarchi, and other Jewish writers,
interpret it; but Bishop Patrick thinks the word not should be repeated from the
preceding clause, and that the sense is, that he did not behold him in similitudes, nor did
the Lord speak to him by them, as to other prophets, see Hos_12:10,
wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? or
against my servant, against Moses; against any servant of mine, but especially against
Moses, so faithful in my house, so much approved of and honoured by me, and so
superior to all other prophets.
JAMISON, "with him will I speak mouth to mouth — immediately, not by an
interpreter, nor by visionary symbols presented to his fancy.
apparently — plainly and surely.
not in dark speeches — parables or similitudes.
the similitude of the Lord shall he behold — not the face or essence of God, who
is invisible (Exo_33:20; Col_1:15; Joh_1:18); but some unmistakable evidence of His
glorious presence (Exo_33:2; Exo_34:5). The latter clause should have been conjoined
with the preceding one, thus: “not in dark speeches, and in a figure shall he behold the
Lord.” The slight change in the punctuation removes all appearance of contradiction to
Deu_4:15.
ELLICOTT, " (8) With him will I speak.—Better, do I speak, mouth to mouth.
Comp. Exodus 33:11.
Even apparently.—The noun mareh, which is here used, is cognate with that which
occurs with the preposition in Numbers 12:6, and which is rendered “a vision.” It
differs from it only in punctuation, and is sometimes identical in meaning. It
appears, however, here to denote an objective reality, as in Exodus 3:3, where it is
rendered sight. The clause might be rendered, and (as) an appearance, and not in
riddles (or, enigmas).
And the similitude of the Lord . . . —Or, and the form of Jehovah doth he behold.
The word which is here rendered similitude (temunah) is the same which occurs in
Exodus 20:4; Deuteronomy 4:15-16; Deuteronomy 4:23; Deuteronomy 4:25;
67

68. Deuteronomy 5:8; Psalms 17:15. It is sometimes rendered likeness, and sometimes
similitude. The noun mareh, which is here rendered “apparently,” and that which is
rendered similitude, are found in conjunction in Job 4:16 : “I could not discern the
form (or appearance), mareh, thereof: an image (or form), temunah, was before
mine eyes.” (Comp. Exodus 33:20-23.)
TRAPP, "Numbers 12:8 With him will I speak mouth to mouth, 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?
Ver. 8. And the similitude.] {See Trapp on "Exodus 33:20"}
POOLE, " Mouth to mouth, i.e. distinctly, by an articulate voice; immediately, not
by an interpreter, nor by shadows and representations in his fancy, as it is in visions
and dreams; and familiarly. This is called speaking face to face, 2 John 1:12 3 John
1:14.
Apparently; plainly and certainly. Not in dark speeches; not in parables,
similitudes, riddles, dark resemblances; as by showing a boiling pot, an almond tree,
&c. to Jeremiah, a chariot with wheels, &c. to Ezekiel.
The similitude of the Lord; not the face or essence of God, which no man can see
and live, Exodus 33:20; it being invisible, Colossians 1:15, and never seen by man,
John 1:18; but some singular manifestation of his glorious presence, as Exodus
33:11,20, &c.; Exodus 34:5, &c.; Deuteronomy 34:10. Yea, the Son of God appeared
to him in a human shape, which he took up for a time, that he might give him a
foretaste of his future incarnation.
My servant; who is so in such an eminent and extraordinary manner.
SIMEON, "AARON AND MIRIAM REPROVED
Numbers 12:8-9. Wherefore were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?
And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them: and he departed.
WHEN men are angry, we may often, and with reason, doubt, whether there be any
just occasion for their displeasure: but when we see Almighty God expressing
indignation, we may always ask with confidence, “Is there not a cause?” It is no
slight degree of anger which God manifests in the passage before us. And what
could be the reason? We are told that “Aaron and Miriam spake against Moses
because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married [Note: ver. 1.].” But this
seems only to have been, if not a fictitious, at least a secondary, reason. (It must be
strange indeed if they now began to be displeased with a thing which they knew to
have been done many years, and which had never, in that instance, been
disapproved by God.) The true reason, I apprehend, was, that they were offended at
68

69. his not having consulted them about the seventy persons whom he had selected to
bear a part of his burthen with him: and it is possible enough that they might
ascribe this to his wife’s influence. They thought, that, as God had spoken by them
as well as by Moses himself [Note: Compare ver. 2 with Micah 6:4.], Moses should
have treated them with more respect. (This is precisely the way in which many, yea
and good people too, are prone to act. If overlooked in any instance wherein they
think they had a right to be consulted, they forget all the distinguishing honours
which they already enjoy, and become querulous on account of the supposed slight
which is cast upon them — — —) Of this complaint Moses took no notice; but
meekly passed it over in silence. (Herein he shews how unreasonable murmurers
and complainers should be treated. Would to God we were more like him in this
particular! If querulous objections be met by passionate answers, contentions soon
arise [Note: The common history of quarrels is, that they begin like those of the
ambitious disciples, and proceed like those of the jealous tribes. Matthew 20:21;
Matthew 20:24; 2 Samuel 19:43.]; whereas silence, or “a soft answer, would turn
away wrath.”) But the less anxious we are to vindicate our own character, the more
readily and effectually will God interpose for us. “He heard,” though Moses was as
one that heard not; and he immediately summoned the offenders before him, in
their presence vindicated the character of his servant Moses, and smote Miriam
with a leprosy: and though, at the request of Moses, he restored her to health, yet he
ordered her to be put out of the camp for seven days; and thus exposed to shame the
persons, who, through the pride of their hearts, had arrogated to themselves an
honour which belonged not to them.
On account of the importance of these subordinate circumstances, we have dwelt
upon them somewhat longer than usual. But it is not our intention to enlarge any
more on them: we wish rather to turn your attention to the great and leading points
contained in the words of our text. In them, God expostulates with Aaron and
Miriam for presuming to speak against Moses. Now Moses sustained a variety of
characters; in reference to which the words before us may be differently
understood. As he was a civil magistrate, they shew God’s anger against those who
resist the magistracy. As he was a teacher of God’s word, they shew how God is
offended with a neglect of his faithful ministers. And, as he was a representative of
our great Lawgiver and Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, they shew what
indignation God will exercise against those who either openly reject, or secretly
despise, his only dear Son.
First then we shall consider them as expressing God’s displeasure against those,
I. Who oppose the civil magistrate—
[Magistrates are appointed of God to bear a portion of his authority; and they are
invested with it, that they may be a terror to evil-doers, and a protection to the good.
To these we are to be subject, not reluctantly through fear of their displeasure, but
willingly, and for conscience sake: and “if we will resist them, we shall receive to
ourselves damnation [Note: Romans 13:1-5.].” Both temporal and eternal judgments
69

70. must be expected by us if we rebel against the constituted authorities. Nor is it of
open and avowed rebellion only that we speak, but of murmuring and complaining
against them without just and great occasion. This was the fault of Aaron and
Miriam; “they were not afraid to speak against” the person, whom God had
ordained to be “king in Jeshurun.” Persons of this class are invariably represented
by God himself as enemies to him. “Presumptuous are they, says he, and self-willed,
and are not afraid to speak evil of dignities [Note: 2 Peter 2:10.].” They take liberties
with earthly potentates, which the first archangel dared not to take with Satan
himself [Note: Jude, ver. 8, 9.]. It would be well if religious people were sufficiently
on their guard respecting this. We have seen, during the French Revolution, great
multitudes even of them drawn after Satan; and the supporters of civil government
traduced by every opprobrious epithet: and though the generality of these deluded
people have seen their error, yet the necessity for cautioning you on this head has
not ceased. That the rights of people are very different in different countries, is
certain; and that rulers may so conduct themselves, as totally to destroy the compact
between them and their subjects, is also certain: but it is no less certain, that
religious people, above all, should be “the quiet in the land,” and should ever
conform to that solemn injunction, “Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy
people [Note: Acts 23:5.].”]
II. Who disregard the ministers of the Gospel—
[Those who minister in holy things are ambassadors from God, and speak to the
people “in Christ’s stead [Note: 2 Corinthians 5:20.].” Their word, as far as it
accords with the inspired volume, is “to be received, not as the word of men, but as
the word of God himself [Note: 1 These. 2:13.]:” and whatever, in the name and by
the authority of God, they bid you to observe, that you are bound to observe and do
[Note: Matthew 23:2-3.]. It is true, that ministers are “not lords over God’s heritage
[Note: 1 Peter 5:3.],” neither have they any “dominion over your faith [Note: 2
Corinthians 1:24.]:” yet it is also true, that in things pertaining to God they are
invested with a divine authority: they “are over you in the Lord [Note: 1
Thessalonians 5:12.]:” they “have the rule over you, and you are to obey them, and
submit yourselves [Note: Hebrews 13:17.]:” and if, while “they labour in the word
and doctrine, they rule well, they are to be counted worthy of double honour [Note:
1 Timothy 5:17.]” What shall we say then to those who despise the ministers of God,
and that too in proportion to their fidelity? This we must say, that “in despising us,
they despise both Christ, and the Father who sent him [Note: Luke 10:16.]:” and
their opposition to such ministers is felt by God as opposition to himself [Note:
Zechariah 2:8.]; such opposition too as will meet with a dreadful recompence in the
day of judgment [Note: Matthew 18:6.]. What Moses had said and done, was by the
direction and authority of God: and it was at the peril of the greatest people of the
land to contradict and oppose him.]
III. Who neglect the Lord Jesus Christ—
[Moses, as the head of the Church and people of God, certainly prefigured the Lord
70

71. Jesus Christ. The very encomiums here passed on Moses by God himself, are such
as of necessity lead our minds to Christ. Was Moses a prophet far superior to all
others [Note: ver. 6, 7.]? Christ is that Prophet of whom Moses was only a shadow,
and whom all are commanded to hear at the peril of their souls [Note: Acts
3:22-23.]. Was Moses faithful in all God’s house as a servant [Note: ver. 7.]? Christ
is that Son who presides over his own house [Note: Hebrews 3:2-6.]. Was Moses the
meekest of all men upon the face of the earth [Note: ver. 3.]? Christ is he whose
unparalleled meekness is our great encouragement to learn of him [Note: Matthew
11:29.]. In reference to Christ therefore, the expostulation in our text has tenfold
weight. O, who must not be afraid to speak against him, or to entertain so much as a
thought contrary to his honour?
Here then we have not to address the unbelievers; for they may well be classed
under the former head: those who openly reject Christ, cannot even in profession
obey his ministers. But many who are partial to faithful ministers, are yet far from
being conformed to the mind of Christ. Many who are in high repute in the Church
of Christ, have yet their unsubdued lusts, which rise in allowed hostility against
their Lord and Saviour. The murmurs of Aaron and Miriam were not public; but
“The Lord heard them.” And so these vile affections may not be known; but God
sees them: and he will, if we continue to harbour them, be “a swift witness against
us” — — —
With what awful authority did he summon Aaron and Miriam before him [Note:
ver. 4, 5.]! But with a more awful voice will he call us forth to judgment. With what
indignation did he, after reproving their iniquity, “depart [Note: ver. 9.]!” and will
he not depart from such professors here; yea, and bid them to depart from him for
ever? Did he expose their sin to all? Did he inflict a most disgraceful punishment?
Did he order Miriam to be excluded from the camp of Israel [Note: ver. 10, 14.]?
Who reads not here the shame and misery of those, who, under a cloak of religion,
have harboured any secret lusts? Were the most distinguished characters in the
whole kingdom dealt with thus? Who then has not reason to fear and tremble? “Be
wise now therefore, O ye kings, be instructed, ye judges of the earth. O kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way [Note: Psalms 2:10-12.].” Behold, the
sin of these two professors delayed the progress of all the hosts of Israel for seven
days [Note: Numbers 22:15.]! Armed hosts, or intervening seas, could not retard
them: but sin, that evil and accursed thing, did what all the powers of earth and hell
could not have done. O professor, think how many may be retarded in their
progress towards heaven by one sin of thine; yea perhaps may be turned out of the
way, and ruined for ever! Remember what our Lord has said, “Woe unto the world
because of offences! but woe, most of all, unto him, by whom the offence cometh.” It
is on this account that God enjoined all his people to “bear in mind what he had
done to Miriam by the way, after that they were come forth out of Egypt [Note:
Deuteronomy 24:9.].” The Lord grant that none of us may ever lose sight of it! May
we remember what an evil and bitter thing it is to lose in any degree the fear and
love of God [Note: Jeremiah 2:19.]!]
71

72. Address—
[To those who have sinned in any of the foregoing particulars, we would
particularly recommend, that, like Aaron, they confess their sin humbly, and
without delay [Note: ver. 11.]. Yea, entreat that very Saviour whose authority you
have despised, to intercede for you. Seek an interest in him: implore forgiveness for
his sake: so will God “pardon your offences, though he may take vengeance of your
inventions [Note: ver. 13, 14.].” “Turn with unfeigned sorrow from your
transgressions; so your iniquity shall not be your ruin.” Leprous as ye are, ye shall
yet be healed: and, deserving as ye are to be expelled from the camp of Israel, ye
shall yet be received into it, and, through the tender mercy of your God, shall
proceed in comfort to the promised land.]
WHEDON, " 8. Mouth to mouth — This answers to “face to face” in Exodus 33:11.
It implies great familiarity, mutual confidence and esteem, and the absence of all
reserve and of any mediation. Such converse is the highest honour bestowed upon
man under the Old Testament dispensation.
Even apparently — Literally, as an appearance; R.V., “manifestly,” implying sight,
or rather insight, and not vision. Dreams and visions are subjective; that is, pertain
to the internal perception of the thinking subject. But the phenomena attending the
intercourse of Jehovah with Moses were not intuitive and subjective, but objective;
that is, outward and addressing the senses.
Dark speeches — Riddles or enigmas. These are a test to one on probation who is
not yet approved and taken into the fullest confidence. Moses was treated as a man
of fixed fidelity who had passed his probation.
The similitude of the Lord — The form of Jehovah was not the essential nature of
God, his unveiled glory, for this no mortal can see, (Exodus 33:18-20,) “but some
unmistakable evidence of his glorious presence.” — Bible Commentary. He talked
with Moses without figure, addressing his spiritual intuitions in such a way as to
give to him infallible certainty. Thus since the day of Pentecost, Jesus manifests
himself to the advanced believer. John 14:21, note. “Here (in Numbers 12:2-8) we
have, as it were, in epitome, the mystery of the prophetic gift and function; and in
such a manner as to exhibit the strength of this credential most impressively. It is
the voice of Jehovah, jealous of his own honour and of the honour of his servants, at
once describing and defending the prophetic law of revelation.” — W.B. Pope.
Were ye not afraid — In view of the extraordinary honour which God had bestowed
upon Moses they should have restrained all murmuring and envious words.
PULPIT, "Numbers 12:8
72

73. Mouth to mouth. Equivalent to face to face in Exodus 33:11. What the exact facts of
the case were it is not possible to know, scarcely to imagine; but the words seem to
imply a familiar speaking with an audible voice on the part of God, as distinguished
from the internal voice, inaudible to the ear, with which he spake "in" the prophets.
To assert that the revelations accorded to Moses were only subjective modifications
of his own consciousness is to evacuate these strong words of any meaning whatever.
Apparently. ‫ה‬ ֶ‫א‬ ְ‫ר‬ ַ‫מ‬ is an accusative in apposition to what goes before by way
(apparently) of further definition. It is the same word translated "vision" in Exodus
33:6; but its meaning here must be determined by the expression "in riddles," which
stands in antithesis to it. It was confessed]y the case with most prophetic utterances
that the language in which they were couched was quite as much intended to conceal
as to express their full meaning; but to Moses God spake without any such
concealments. The similitude of the Lord shall he behold. ‫ה‬ ֶ‫א‬ ְ‫ר‬ ַ‫מ‬ . Not the essential
nature of God, which no man can see, but a form (wholly unknown and
unimaginable to us) in which it pleased him to veil his glory. The Septuagint has τὴν
δόξαν κυρίου εἷδε, referring, apparently, to the vision promised in Exodus 33:22;
and the Targum Palestine speaks here of the vision of the burning bush. The motive
for this alteration is no doubt to be sought in a profound jealousy for the great truth
declared in such texts as Deuteronomy 4:15; Isaiah 40:18, and afterwards in John
1:18; 1 Timothy 6:16. But the statement in the text is a general one, and can only
mean that Moses habitually in his intercourse with God had before his eyes some
visible manifestation of the invisible God, which helped to make that intercourse at
once more awfully real and more intensely blessed. Such manifestation to the sense
of sight must be distinguished both from the visionary (or subjective) sight of God in
human figure accorded to Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:26), to Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1), to St. John
(Revelation 4:2, Revelation 4:8), and perhaps to others, and also from such
theophanies in angel guise as are recorded in Genesis 32:30; 13:9, 13:2, and
elsewhere. On the other hand, the seventy elders seem to have seen the "Temunah"
of the Lord upon that one occasion when they were called up into Mount Sinai
(Exodus 24:10, Exodus 24:11). Wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against
my servant Moses! No doubt it was the double fact of their relationship to Moses
after the flesh, and of their sharing with him in certain spiritual gifts and
prerogatives, which made them oblivious of the great distinction which lifted him
above their rivalry, and should have lifted him above their contradiction. That
contradiction, however, served to bring out in the clearest way the singular and
unapproached position of the mediator of Israel; and it serves still to enable us to
estimate aright the peculiar dignity of his legislation and his writings. The substance
of prophetic teaching may be of deeper interest and of wider import titan "the law,"
but this latter will still rank higher in the scale of inspiration, as having been more
directly communicated front on high. Thus "the law" (as the Jews rightly taught)
remained the body of Divine revelation until "that Prophet" came who was "like
unto" Moses in the fact that he enjoyed constant, open, and direct communication
with the Godhead.
73

74. 9 The anger of the Lord burned against them, and
he left them.
GILL, "And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them,.... Which might be
visible by some outward token, as by lightning from the cloud, or, however, what follows
was sufficient to show it:
and he departed; from the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, where he had
stood in the pillar of cloud for some time; but as soon as he had given his testimony of
Moses, and expressed his displeasure at Aaron and Miriam, he went away directly from
them; not staying to hear what they had to say for themselves, which was a plain
indication of his anger against them.
HENRY, " God, having thus shown them their fault and folly, next shows them his
displeasure (Num_12:9): The anger of the Lord was kindled against them, of which
perhaps some sensible indications were given in the change of the colour of the cloud, or
some flashes of lightning from it. But indeed it was indication enough of his displeasure
that he departed, and would not so much as hear their excuse, for he needed not,
understanding their thoughts afar off; and thus he would show that he was displeased.
Note, The removal of God's presence from us 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.
CALVIN, "9.And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them. The
expostulation is succeeded by punishment. God’s departure was a sign of immediate
condemnation; because there was no need of any further questioning, as concerning
some matter of obscurity. After God, then, had convicted them of their sin, and had
inveighed in a severe and stern reprehension against the ingratitude of Miriam and
Aaron, He first pronounced their sentence, and then suddenly withdrew. What
follows, that “the cloud departed,” is added in explanation; for God, who fills all
things, never moves from His place; but His name is applied metaphorically to the
cloud, which was the symbol of His absence or presence.
The nature of the punishment which was inflicted upon Miriam was very
appropriate to the offence. The foolish woman, puffed up with pride, had coveted
more than was lawful; and her ignominy was the just reward of her arrogance,
according to the declaration of Christ, “Every one that exalteth himself shall be
abased.” (Luke 18:14.) Let us understand, then, that in proportion as the proud are
led away by their ambition to long for unlawful honors, they bring upon themselves
74

75. nothing but disgrace; and although they may gloriously triumph for a season, still, it
cannot be but that their glory will at length be turned into disgrace. For inasmuch
as all who exalt themselves wage war with God, He must needs encounter them with
the awful power of His hand, in order to restrain their madness. Now, whosoever
are moved by envy to enter into contention with His servants, endeavor, as hr as in
them lies, to overthrow His glory by obscuring the gifts of the Spirit. No wonder,
then, that God should avenge the insult offered to Himself, and should repay them
with the infamy they deserve; as it is written,
“Them that honor me I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly
esteemed.” (1 Samuel 2:30.)
Miriam desired to be equal with her brother, whom God had exalted above all
others; what she attains is, that she should not occupy the extremist corner of the
people, but be cut off from companionship with mankind. A similar instance
occurred in the case of king Uzziah, who, not contented with the royal dignity, when
he had unlawfully attempted to make an incense-offering, was also smitten with
leprosy, so as to be no longer suffered to continue in association even with the
common people. (2 Chronicles 26:16.)
Here, however, the question arises, why, when Aaron participated in the guilt, he
was exempted from the punishment? If no reason existed, still we should have to
adore the judgment of God; for it is not our business to complain, when He has
mercy upon whom He will have mercy, nevertheless, it appears probable that God’s
wrath was more exceedingly kindled against Miriam, because she had applied the
torch to the ungodly contention, and had inflamed her brother’s mind, as we see at
the beginning of the chapter. It was just, then, that the blame should rest on her,
since she had been the origin of the evil. I imagine, however, that in sparing Aaron,
He had regard to the priesthood, inasmuch as, in his person, it would have been
subjected almost to eternal disgrace. Since, therefore, Aaron was an image of God’s
only-begotten Son and our only Mediator, and this great dignity had recently had its
commencement in him, it was of exceeding importance that he should be exempted
from such infamy, lest any diminution of the reverence due to religion should arise.
COFFMAN, ""And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against them; and he
departed. And the cloud removed from over the Tent; and behold, Miriam was
leprous, as white as snow: and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and behold, she was
leprous. And Aaron said unto Moses, Oh, my lord, lay not, I pray thee, sin upon us,
for that we have done foolishly, and for that we have sinned. Let her not, I pray, be
as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother's
womb. And Moses cried unto Jehovah, saying, Heal her, O God, I beseech thee. And
Jehovah said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be
ashamed seven days? let her be shut up without the camp seven days, and after that
she shall be brought in again. And Miriam was shut up without the camp seven
days: and the people journeyed not until Miriam was brought in again. And
75

76. afterward the people journeyed from Hazeroth, and encamped in the wilderness of
Paran."
This sudden affliction of Miriam with leprosy was indeed a dreadful and shocking
penalty, little short of death itself in the shame and wretchedness inflicted by it.
Aaron and Moses understood the lesson at once, and Aaron immediately appealed
to Moses. Moses having been appealed to, could appeal only to God; and that he
promptly did.
"Heal her, O God, I beseech thee ..." (Numbers 12:13). Older versions add the word
now. Heal her now! Scholars agree that the now should be omitted. Nevertheless,
Gray stated that the narrative "implies that Miriam was healed immediately."[16]
Despite this, the quarantine of lepers, even though healed, for a period of seven days
was not lifted. God had a law for the cleansing of lepers, and it involved the leper's
being thrust without the camp. In this instance, God would not change his law, even
for the benefit of Miriam. Healed or not, she would be excluded for a full week.
"If her father had but spit in her face ..." (Numbers 12:14). Such an inelegant
statement as this is thought to be undignified on God's part by some; and the Jewish
interpreters render it, "If her father had corrected her."[17] God, however, always
used language that men could understand, and no Jew of that generation could have
misunderstood this. It referred to a public disgrace inflicted upon a child by a
father, who had a right so to do, and who felt that the conduct of his offspring had
been sufficiently reprehensible that such a public repudiation of it was required. "In
patriarchal times, this was a most severe penalty and entailed a period of seclusion
and mourning on the part of the offender."[18] In the light of this, how much more
severe penalty was to be expected for Miriam who had insulted God Himself by thus
opposing and speaking against God's chosen Servant, and even daring to claim a
share of his authority for herself! Even though God, in mercy, healed her upon the
intercession of Moses, she was required to be excluded as unacceptable to the
congregation for a full seven days, during which time the people could not travel.
REALITIES OF THE NEW COVENANT TYPIFIED HERE
We are indebted to Adam Clarke for the following summary of the typical
importance of this chapter:[19]
1. Zipporah, a Cushite married by Moses, shows the choice which Jesus Christ made
in his calling the Gentiles to become his Bride the Church.
2. The jealous opposition of Miriam and Aaron to Moses shows the envious hatred
of the Jews against Christ and his apostles, when they saw that the Gentiles also
were invited to share the heavenly banquet.
3. The leprosy that came to Miriam foreshadows the wretched state of the Jews as a
consequence of their opposing God's will, ever afterward being: (a) without temple;
76

77. (b) without sacrifice; (c) without state; (d) and without head.
4. Moses in this place is said to be: (a) the meekest of all men; (b) the faithful servant
in all God's house; (c) that he had an intimate face to face relation to God; and (d)
that God revealed all truth to him clearly. Of Jesus Christ alone could all these be
said without reservation, leaving the certainty that God gave these words, though
applied to the type, as eloquent witnesses of the Greater Prophet "like unto Moses."
TRAPP, "Numbers 12:9 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them; and
he departed.
Ver. 9. And he departed.] Yea, woe also to them when I depart from them; [Hosea
9:12] then all evils come in as by a sluice. The final absence of God is hell itself.
POOLE, " From the door of the tabernacle, in token of his great displeasure, not
waiting for their answer, and judging them unworthy of any further discourse.
Verse 10
From off the tabernacle; not from the whole tabernacle, for then they must have
removed, but from that part of the tabernacle whither it was come, to that part
which was directly over the mercy-seat, where it constantly abode.
Miriam became leprous; she, and not Aaron, either because she was first or chief in
the transgression, or because God would not have his worship either interrupted or
dishonoured, which it must have been if Aaron had been leprous.
White as snow: this kind of leprosy was the most virulent and incurable of all. See
Exodus 4:6 2 Kings 5:27. It is true, when the leprosy began in a particular part, and
thence spread itself over all the flesh by degrees, and at last made it all white, that
was an evidence. of the cure of the leprosy, Leviticus 13:12,13; but it was otherwise
when one was suddenly and extraordinarily smitten with this universal whiteness,
which showed the great corruption of the whole mass of blood, as it was here.
PETT, "Verse 9-10
‘And the anger of Yahweh was kindled against them, and he departed, and the
cloud removed from over the Tent. And, behold, Miriam was skin-diseased, as white
as snow. And Aaron looked on Miriam, and, behold, she was skin-diseased.’
And Yahweh’s aversion to their behaviour 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
77

78. ‘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 with Exodus 4:6). 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.
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 recognised what a close escape he himself had had. However, to his credit his
concern was for Miriam.
WHEDON, " MIRIAM PUNISHED, Numbers 12:9-15.
9. He departed — Phraseology importing that the Lord withdrew all manifestation
of his presence when the cloud departed from the tabernacle.
10 When the cloud lifted from above the tent,
Miriam’s skin was leprous[a]—it became as white
as snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that
she had a defiling skin disease,
78

79. CLARKE, "Miriam became leprous - It is likely Miriam was chief in this mutiny;
and it is probable that it was on this ground she is mentioned first, (see Num_12:1), and
punished here, while Aaron is spared. Had he been smitten with the leprosy, his sacred
character must have greatly suffered, and perhaps the priesthood itself have fallen into
contempt. How many priests and preachers who deserved to be exposed to reproach and
infamy, have been spared for the sake of the holy character they bore, that the ministry
might not be blamed! But the just God will visit their transgressions in some other way,
if they do not deeply deplore them and find mercy through Christ. Nothing tends to
discredit the work of God so much as the transgressions and miscarriages of those who
minister in holy things.
GILL, "And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle,.... Not from off the door
of the tabernacle, as Aben Ezra, for that is implied in the last clause of Num_12:9, but
from off that part of the tabernacle, the most holy place, where it had used to abide; but
now it went up higher in the air, or removed at some distance from thence, which was a
further indication of the sore displeasure of God; that as he would not stay with Aaron
and Miriam at the door of the tabernacle, so neither would he suffer the cloud to
continue over it, as it was wont to do, so long as they were there:
and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow; was smote immediately
with a leprosy by the Lord, as the hand of Moses was in a miraculous way, Exo_4:6; and
as Gehazi was, who was smitten of God in like manner, 2Ki_5:27; in an ordinary and
gradual leprosy, when it was all white, the man was clean, Lev_13:13; but in an
extraordinary one, and which was immediately from God, and at once, in this case it was
a sign it was incurable. Miriam only, and not Aaron, was smitten with a leprosy; though
Chaskuni says, that some of their Rabbins were of opinion, that Aaron was; but this does
not appear, nor is it likely that he should be thus defiled and dishonoured, being the
priest of the Lord, and since he was not so deep in the transgression as Miriam, and was
drawn into it by her, and also repented of it:
and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous; he not only cast
his eye upon her, as it were accidentally, and saw what was her case; but, as the priest of
the Lord, looked upon her, as it was the business of his office to do, and perceived she
was leprous, and was obliged to pronounce her so; and perhaps she was the first, after
the law of the leprosy, that he was called to look upon, and pronounced her unclean,
which must be a great mortification to him.
HENRY 10, "Here is, I. God's judgment upon Miriam (Num_12:10): The cloud
departed from off that part of the tabernacle, in token of God's displeasure, and
presently Miriam became leprous; when God goes, evil comes; expect no good when God
departs. The leprosy was a disease often inflicted by the immediate hand of God as the
punishment of some particular sin, as on Gehazi for lying, on Uzziah for invading the
priest's office, and here on Miriam for scolding and making mischief among relations.
The plague of the leprosy, it is likely, appeared in her face, so that it appeared to all that
saw her that she was struck with it, with the worst of it, she was leprous as snow; not
only so white, but so soft, the solid flesh losing its consistency, as that which putrefies
79

80. does. 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. Note, Those distempers which any way deform us
ought to be construed as a rebuke to our pride, and improved for the cure of it, and
under such humbling providences we ought to be very humble. It is a sign that the heart
is hard indeed if the flesh be mortified, and yet the lusts of the flesh remain unmortified.
It should seem that this plague upon Miriam was designed for an exposition of the law
concerning the leprosy (Lev. 13), for it is referred to upon the rehearsal of that law, Deu_
24:8, Deu_24:9. Miriam was struck with a leprosy, but not Aaron, because she was first
in the transgression, and God would put a difference between those that mislead and
those that are misled. Aaron's office, though it saved him not from God's displeasure, yet
helped to secure him from this token of his displeasure, which would not only have
suspended him for the present from officiating, when (there being no priests but himself
and his two sons) he could ill be spared, but it would have rendered him and his office
mean, and would have been a lasting blot upon his family. Aaron as priest was to be the
judge of the leprosy, and his performing that part of his office upon this occasion, when
he looked upon Miriam, and behold she was leprous, was a sufficient mortification to
him. He was struck through her side, and could not pronounce her leprous without
blushing and trembling, knowing himself to be equally obnoxious. This judgment upon
Miriam is improvable by us as a warning to take heed of putting any affront upon our
Lord Jesus. If she was thus chastised for speaking against Moses, what will become of
those that sin against Christ?
JAMISON, "Num_12:10-16. Miriam’s leprosy.
the cloud departed from the tabernacle — that is, from the door to resume its
permanent position over the mercy seat.
Miriam became leprous — This malady in its most malignant form (Exo_4:6; 2Ki_
5:27) as its color, combined with its sudden appearance, proved, was inflicted as a divine
judgment; and she was made the victim, either because of her extreme violence or
because the leprosy on Aaron would have interrupted or dishonored the holy service.
COKE, "Numbers 12:10. And, behold, Miriam became leprous— We have here
another instance of the expressive beauty of the original being spoiled by the
insertion of the italics. Nothing can be more nervous and significative than the
passage is without them: the cloud departed; and behold Miriam leprous as snow!
As a token of the divine displeasure, after having justified Moses, the Lord instantly
withdrew, and struck Miriam with a leprosy, whose whiteness declared it of the
most inveterate kind. See Exodus 4:6. 2 Kings 5:27.
ELLICOTT, " (10) And the cloud departed . . . —The withdrawal of the cloud was
the visible token of the Divine displeasure. The word sar, departed, which is here
used, is an entirely different word from that which occurs in Numbers 9:17 : “When
the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle.” The lifting up of the cloud was the
80

81. signal for the breaking up of the camp and the resumption of the march; the
withdrawal of the cloud was the token of the withdrawal of the Divine presence and
direction.
Leprous, white as snow.—Better, was leprous as snow, as in Exodus 4:6, where the
same words occur; or, a leper (as white), as snow, as in 2 Kings 5:27. In an ordinary
case of leprosy, when the disease covered the whole body, and the whole of the flesh
had turned white, the man was to be pronounced clean. It was otherwise in cases in
which persons were smitten with leprosy by the immediate hand of God, as in the
case of Moses and in that of Gehazi.
And Aaron looked upon Miriam . . . —Or, and Aaron turned towards Miriam—i.e.,
directed his attention to her, &c. This may have been the first case in which Aaron
was required to carry into execution the laws laid down in Leviticus 13, 14,
respecting the inspection of the leper; and the duties which devolved upon him must
have been doubly painful from the fact that the leper stood in a near relationship to
himself, and that he had been a participator in the sin which had called for so severe
a punishment.
TRAPP, "Numbers 12:10 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.
Ver. 10. Miriam became leprous.] How escaped Aaron? for the dignity of the
priesthood he was spared, saith Chrysostom. (a) Rather he met God by repentance,
and so disarmed his indignation, and redeemed his own sorrow.
WHEDON, "10. Leprous — See the symptoms of leprosy described in Leviticus xiii,
and notes. Also, 2 Kings 5:27. This disease developes itself so slowly that it requires
a week or two for the priest to determine its character. See the rules laid down in
Leviticus 13. Hence the suddenness of this leprosy of Miriam shows that it was a
supernatural infliction.
PULPIT, "Numbers 12:10
The cloud departed from off the tabernacle. During this awful interview the cloud of
the Presence had rested on the tabernacle, as if it were the Divine chariot waiting for
the King of Israel while he tarried within (of. Psalms 104:3; Isaiah 19:1; Revelation
11:12). Now that his work is done he ascends his chariot again, and soars aloft above
the host. Miriam became leprous. The Hebrews had become familiar with this
terrible disease in Egypt. The Levitical legislation had made it more terrible by
affixing to it the penalty of religious and social excommunication, and the stigma, as
it were, of the Divine displeasure. Before this legislation Moses himself had been
made partially and temporarily leprous, and that solely for a sign, and without any
sense of punishment (Exodus 4:6). In Miriam's ease, however, as in all subsequent
81

82. cases, the plague of leprosy was endued with moral as well as physical horror (cf. 2
Kings 5:27). As snow. This expression points to the perfect development of the
disease, as contrasted with its earlier and less conspicuous stages. Aaron looked
upon Miriam. If we ask why Aaron himself was not punished, the answer appears to
be the same here as in the case of the golden calf.
1. He was not the leader in mischief, but only led into it through weakness.
2. He was, like many weak men, of an affectionate disposition (cf. Le Numbers
10:19), and suffered his own punishment in witnessing that of others.
3. He was God's high priest, and the office would have shared in the disgrace of the
man.
11 and he said to Moses, “Please, my lord, I ask
you not to hold against us the sin we have so
foolishly committed.
GILL, "And Aaron said unto Moses, alas, my lord!.... The word for "alas" is
generally interpreted by the Jewish writers as a note of beseeching and entreating, as it
is here by the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan,"I beseech thee, my lord,''or "upon me,
my lord" (k), be all the blame; such was his tenderness to his sister, and the compassion
he had on her; and such reverence and respect did he show to Moses his brother, though
younger than he, because of his superior dignity as a prophet, and chief magistrate, and
prime minister, and servant of the Lord, calling him "my lord":
I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us; the punishment of it, bear not hard upon
us, or suffer us to be punished in a rigorous manner, without interceding to the Lord for
us, for the abatement of removal of it; such a powerful and prevailing interest he knew
he had with God, that by his prayers their punishment would be mitigated, or not laid,
or, if laid, removed:
wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned; he owns they
had sinned, but suggests, and so he would have it understood, that it was not through
malice, and purposely and presumptuously, but through and ignorance, inadvertency
and weakness, and hoped it would be forgiven.
82

83. HENRY, "II. Aaron's submission hereupon (Num_12:11, Num_12:12); he humbles
himself to Moses, confesses his fault, and begs pardon. He that but just now joined with
his sister in speaking against Moses is here forced for himself and his sister to make a
penitent address to him, and in the highest degree to magnify him (as if he had the
power of God to forgive and heal) whom he had so lately vilified. Note, Those that
trample upon the saints and servants of God will one day be glad to make court to them;
at furthest, in the other world, as the foolish virgins to the wise for a little oil, and the
rich man to Lazarus for a little water; and perhaps in this world, as Job's friend to him
for his prayers, and here Aaron to Moses. Rev_3:9. In his submission, 1. He confesses
his own and his sister's sin, Num_12:11. He speaks respectfully to Moses, of whom he
had spoken slightly, calls him his lord, and now turns the reproach upon himself, speaks
as one ashamed of what he had said: We have sinned, we have done foolishly. Those sin,
and do foolishly, who revile and speak evil of any, especially of good people or of those in
authority. Repentance is the unsaying of that which we have said amiss, and it had better
be unsaid than that we be undone by it. 2. He begs Moses's pardon: Lay not this sin
upon us. Aaron was to bring his gift to the altar, but, knowing that his brother had
something against him, he of all men was concerned to reconcile himself to his brother,
that he might be qualified to offer his gift. Some think that this speedy submission which
God saw him ready to make was that which prevented his being struck with a leprosy as
his sister was. 3. He recommends the deplorable condition of his sister to Moses's
compassionate consideration (Num_12:12): Let her not be as one dead, that is, “Let her
not continue so separated from conversation, defiling all she touches, and even to
putrefy above ground as one dead.” He eloquently describes the misery of her case, to
move his pity.
JAMISON, "On the humble and penitential submission of Aaron, Moses interceded
for both the offenders, especially for Miriam, who was restored; not, however, till she
had been made, by her exclusion, a public example [Num_12:14, Num_12:15].
K&D, "When Aaron saw his sister smitten in this way, he said to Moses, “Alas! my
lord, I beseech thee, lay not this sin upon us, for we have done foolishly;” i.e., let us not
bear its punishment. “Let her (Miriam) not be as the dead thing, on whose coming out
of its mother's womb half its flesh is consumed;” 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.
CALVIN, "11.And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas! my lord. Although Aaron was
aware that, through God’s indulgence, his own punishment was remitted, still he
does not cease to consider what he had deserved. For we ought not to wait until God
smites ourselves, but since in chastising others He invites us to repentance, although
He may spare ourselves, we should profit betimes by their punishments. The
disfigurement, therefore, of his sister, alarmed and terrified Aaron, so that,
examining his own condition, he acknowledged himself to be deserving of a similar
judgment. His humble prayer manifests that those high aspirations were subdued,
which had carried him away into unholy jealousy. Moses, who was younger than
83

84. himself, and whose superiority he just before could not endure, tie now calls his
lord, and confesses himself to be subject to his authority and power. Thus the dread
of punishment was the best medicine to cure his disease of ambition. In beseeching
Moses not to impute his sin to him, he does not usurp for mortal man a right which
God by Isaiah claims for Himself alone; (46) but inasmuch as Moses had been
injured, he asks his pardon, lest by his accusation he should be brought before the
divine tribunal. Where he confesses his own and his sister’s foolishness, he does not
extenuate the grossness of his crime, as most people do, when they generally seek to
cover their transgressions under the plea of error or thoughtlessness; but it is
precisely as if he had said that they were senseless, and out of their minds, as we
gather from the next clause, in which he plainly acknowledges their criminality.
By the comparison which he introduces, it is evident that the leprosy of Miriam was
of no ordinary kind, for nothing can be more disgusting than the dead body of any
abortive foetus, corrupt with purulence and decay.
COKE, "Numbers 12:11. Aaron said,—Alas, my Lord— Alarmed at this terrible
punishment inflicted upon his sister, and justly apprehensive of the like, Aaron,
conscious of his misdemeanour, in the humblest terms, begs of Moses to forgive
them, and to intercede with God for the life of his sister, who, he knew, without the
divine interposition, must needs die of this loathsome and consuming distemper;
Numbers 12:12. Calmet observes, that it was probably on account of this repentance
that he himself was spared; as also because he is thought to have been less in fault,
(see note on Numbers 12:1.) and from a regard to his sacred character, that the
priesthood might not fall into contempt.
ELLICOTT, " (11) Alas, my lord.—The word rendered alas! is an exclamation of
entreaty rather than of lamentation. It is used towards superiors in conjunction with
adoni (my lord) in Genesis 40:20; 1 Kings 3:17.
Lay not the sin upon us . . . —Better, lay not sin (i.e., the punishment which is due to
it) upon us, for that (or, inasmuch as) we have done foolishly, &c. Aaron does not
seek to shift the guilt which had been incurred from himself and Miriam to any
others, but prays that they may not be constrained to bear the punishment which
their sin had justly deserved. In Zechariah 14:19 the same word hattath is rendered
punishment.
TRAPP, "Numbers 12:11 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.
Ver. 11. And Aaron said unto Moses.] His late sin had choked him, as it were, - as
David in like case felt his mouth stopped, [Psalms 51:15] - and therefore he
84

85. requesteth Moses to mediate for Miriam. Our own key may be rusty sometimes, and
we glad to make use of another’s key, to open the cabinet of God’s grace, that
therehence we may take out mercy for ourselves and others.
PETT, "Verse 11
‘And Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, lay not, I pray you, sin on us, in that we
have done foolishly, and in that we have sinned.’
Broken in heart and spirit and recognising 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
recognised 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 (Numbers 12:7). 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?
WHEDON, " 11. I beseech thee — Here we have an instance of a double
supplication. Aaron, the anointed high priest, having sympathized with the revolt
against Moses, dare not go directly to Jehovah and plead for his partner in sin, but
feels that he himself needs a mediator.
We have sinned — Here is Aaron’s confession of complicity in the wrong. The
exigency was too great for him to wait till the great day of atonement, in which he
could offer a sin offering for himself, and thus become qualified to offer for the sins
of the people. Leviticus 16:11, note.
PULPIT, "Numbers 12:11
Aaron said unto Moses, Alas, my lord, I beseech thee. Septuagint, δέομαι, Κύριε. In
thus addressing his brother Aaron acknowledged his superior position, and tacitly
abandoned all pretension to equality. Lay not the sin upon us. Aaron speaks to
85

86. Moses almost as if he were praying to God, so completely does. he recognize in his
brother the representative of God (in a far higher sense than himself), who had
power to bind and loose in the name and power of God. What Aaron really prays
for is that the sin, which he frankly confesses, may not be imputed to them. The
Levitical law had taught them to look upon sin as a burden, which in the nature of
things the sinner must carry, but which by the goodness of God might be got rid of,
or transferred to some one else (cf. Le Numbers 4:4; Numbers 16:21; John 1:29).
12 Do not let her be like a stillborn infant coming
from its mother’s womb with its flesh half eaten
away.”
GILL, "And Aaron said unto Moses, alas, my lord!.... The word for "alas" is
generally interpreted by the Jewish writers as a note of beseeching and entreating, as it
is here by the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan,"I beseech thee, my lord,''or "upon me,
my lord" (k), be all the blame; such was his tenderness to his sister, and the compassion
he had on her; and such reverence and respect did he show to Moses his brother, though
younger than he, because of his superior dignity as a prophet, and chief magistrate, and
prime minister, and servant of the Lord, calling him "my lord":
I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us; the punishment of it, bear not hard upon
us, or suffer us to be punished in a rigorous manner, without interceding to the Lord for
us, for the abatement of removal of it; such a powerful and prevailing interest he knew
he had with God, that by his prayers their punishment would be mitigated, or not laid,
or, if laid, removed:
wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned; he owns they
had sinned, but suggests, and so he would have it understood, that it was not through
malice, and purposely and presumptuously, but through and ignorance, inadvertency
and weakness, and hoped it would be forgiven.
HENRY, "God, having thus shown them their fault and folly, next shows
them his displeasure (Num_12:9): The anger of the Lord was kindled
against them, of which perhaps some sensible indications were given in the
change of the colour of the cloud, or some flashes of lightning from it. But
indeed it was indication enough of his displeasure that he departed, and
would not so much as hear their excuse, for he needed not, understanding
86

87. their thoughts afar off; and thus he would show that he was displeased.
Note, The removal of God's presence from us 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.
ELLICOTT, "(12) Let her not be as one dead.—This is another of the places in
which the Scribes are said to have altered the text. The original is said to have been
as follows:—Let her not be as one dead, who proceeded from the womb of our
mother, and half of our flesh be consumed. The leper was “as one dead” in two
respects—(1) as being shut out from inter course with his brethren; and (2) as
causing ceremonial defilement in the case of those who were brought into contact
with him, similar to that which was caused by touching a dead body. “He was,” as
Archbishop Trench has remarked, “a dreadful parable of death” (On the Miracles,
p. 214). In the most severe types of leprosy there was, as the same writer has
observed, “a dissolution, little by little, of the whole body, so that one limb after
another actually decayed and fell away” (Ibid, p. 213).
TRAPP, "Numbers 12:12 Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half
consumed when he cometh out of his mother’s womb.
Ver. 12. As one dead.] As "free among the dead," free of that company.
POOLE, " As one dead; either naturally, because part of her flesh was putrefied
and dead, and not to be restored but by the mighty power of God; or morally,
because she was cut off from all converse with others, Leviticus 13:46.
When he cometh out of his mother’s womb; like an untimely birth, without due
shape and proportion, or like a still-born child that hath been for some time dead in
the womb, which when it comes forth is white and putrefied, and part of it
consumed.
PETT, "Verse 12
‘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.’
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.
(Note: ‘Leprous’ is probably a misnomer. Modern leprosy was seemingly fairly rare
in Old Testament times. The word means rather a general skin disease. It could also
be used of mould and fungi in clothes and houses.)
87

88. WHEDON, "12. As one dead — Cut off from society and from all religious
privileges, dwelling alone without the camp. Compelled to proclaim her own
defilement to all comers. Leviticus 13:45-46, notes. Keil renders this thus: Let her
not be as the dead thing on whose coming out of his mother’s womb half its flesh is
consumed; that is, like a stillborn child, which comes into the world half
decomposed. Leprosy decomposes the living body.
13 So Moses cried out to the Lord, “Please, God,
heal her!”
BARNES, "Num_12:13
Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee - Others render these words: “Oh not so;
heal her now, I beseech Thee.”
GILL, "And Moses cried unto the Lord,.... With a loud voice, and with great
earnestness and importunity, being heartily affected with the miserable condition
Miriam was in:
saying, heal her now, O God, I beseech thee; in the original text it is, "O God now,
heal her now"; for the same particle is used at the close as at the beginning of the
petition; and the repetition of it shows his earnestness and importunity that she might
be healed directly, immediately, without any delay; and Moses uses the word "El", which
signifies the strong and mighty God, as expressive of his faith in the power of God, that
he was able to heal her; and at the same time suggests that none but he could do it; and
so Aben Ezra interprets it,"thou that hast power in thine hand, now heal her;''this prayer
is a proof of his being of a meek, humble, and forgiving spirit.
HENRY, "The intercession made for Miriam (Num_12:13): He cried unto the Lord
with a loud voice, because the cloud, the symbol of his presence, was removed and stood
at some distance, and to express his fervency in this request, Heal her now, O Lord, I
beseech thee. By this he made it to appear that he did heartily forgive her the injury she
had one him, that he had not accused her to God, nor called for justice against her; so far
from this that, when God in tenderness to his honour had chastised her insolence, he
was the first that moved for reversing the judgment. By this example we are taught to
pray for those that despitefully use us; and not to take pleasure in the most righteous
punishment inflicted either by God or man on those that have been injurious to us.
88

89. Jeroboam's withered hand was restored at the special instance and request of the
prophet against whom it had been stretched out, 1Ki_13:6. So Miriam here was healed
by the prayer of Moses, whom she had abused, and Abimelech by the prayer of
Abraham, Gen_20:17. Moses might have stood off, and have said, “She is served well
enough, let her govern her tongue better next time;” but, not content with being able to
say that he had not prayed for the inflicting of the judgment, he prays earnestly for the
removal of it. This pattern of Moses, and that of our Saviour, Father, forgive them, we
must study to conform to.
K&D, "Moses, with his mildness, took compassion upon his sister, upon whom this
punishment had fallen, and cried to the Lord, “O God, I beseech Thee, heal her.” The
connection of the particle ‫ָא‬‫נ‬ with ‫ל‬ ֵ‫א‬ is certainly unusual, but yet it is analogous to the
construction with such exclamations as ‫י‬ ‫א‬ (Jer_4:31; Jer_45:3) and ‫ֵה‬‫נּ‬ ִ‫ה‬ (Gen_12:11;
Gen_16:2, etc.); since ‫ל‬ ֵ‫א‬ in the vocative is to be regarded as equivalent to an
exclamation; whereas the alteration into ‫ל‬ ַ‫,א‬ as proposed by J. D. Michaelis and Knobel,
does not even give a fitting sense, apart altogether from the fact, that the repetition of ‫ָא‬‫נ‬
after the verb, with ‫ָא‬‫נ‬ ‫ל‬ ַ‫א‬ before it, would be altogether unexampled.
CALVIN, "13.And Moses cried unto the Lord. The event now proves, what was
recently asserted, that Moses was of a meek and gentle disposition beyond all other
men; for he is not only ready at once to forgive, but also intercedes with God for
them. And thus the presumption of Miriam is best reproved; for the only hope of
safety that remains to her is in the dignity of Moses, which of late she could not
endure.
From the reply of God, it is manifest that the punishment which she alone had
received was intended for the instruction of all. The pride and temerity of Miriam
were sufficiently chastised, but God wished it to be a lesson for all, that every one
should confine himself to his own bounds. Meanwhile, let us learn from this passage
to pay due honor to the judgments of God, so that they may suffice us as the rule of
supreme equity. For if such power over their children is accorded to earthly parents,
as that they may put them to shame at their will, how much more reverence is due to
our heavenly Father, when he brands us with any mark of disgrace? This was the
reason why Miriam was shut out for seven days, not only that she might mourn
apart by herself, but also that her chastisement might be profitable to all. It is
likewise addressed to us, that we may learn to blush whensoever God is angry with
our sins, and thus that shame may produce in us a dislike of sin. This special
example afterwards passed into a law, as we have already seen, (Deuteronomy 24:9);
(47) for when God commands lepers to be separated, He recalls to the recollection of
the people what He had appointed with respect to Miriam, lest, if internal impurity
be cherished, its infection may spread beyond ourselves.
89

90. TRAPP, "Numbers 12:13 And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, Heal her now, O
God, I beseech thee.
Ver. 13. And Moses cried.] Passing by all the unkindness, he prayed earnestly for
her. This was a noble kind of revenge. David was much in it.
PETT, "Verse 13
‘And Moses cried to Yahweh, saying, “Heal her, O God, I beseech you.’
So Moses heard their plea and prayed to Yahweh and begged Him to heal her. Note
that his prayer was to ‘God’, not ‘Yahweh’, recognising that by her behaviour
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.
WHEDON, " 13. Heal her now — Strong faith always insists on a present blessing.
Says J. Wesley, in respect to the healing of the leprosy of inbred sin, “If it is by faith,
why not NOW?” Weak faith drops out the now, grasps no definite time, and looks
only for a gradual cure. The greatest achievement of faith requires for its condition
the idea of immediateness and instantaneousness.
PULPIT, "Moses cried unto the Lord. A much harder and prouder man than Moses
was must needs have been melted into pity at the sight of his sister, and the terrible
suggestion of Aaron. Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee. The "now" has no place
here, unless it be merely to add force to the exclamation. Moses, although directly
appealed to himself, can only appeal to God.
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.”
90

91. BARNES, "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?
CLARKE, "If her father had but spit in her face - This appears to have been
done only in cases of great provocation on the part of the child, and strong irritation on
the side of the parent. Spitting in the face was a sign of the deepest contempt. See Job_
30:10; Isa_50:6; Mar_14:65. In a case where a parent was obliged by the disobedient
conduct of his child to treat him in this way, it appears he was banished from the father’s
presence for seven days. If then this was an allowed and judged case in matters of high
provocation on the part of a child, should not the punishment be equally severe where
the creature has rebelled against the Creator? Therefore Miriam was shut out of the
camp for seven days, and thus debarred from coming into the presence of God her
father, who is represented as dwelling among the people. To a soul who knows the value
and inexpressible blessedness of communion with God, how intolerable must seven days
of spiritual darkness be! But how indescribably wretched must their case be who are cast
out into outer darkness, where the light of God no more shines, and where his
approbation can no more be felt for ever! Reader, God save thee from so great a curse!
Several of the fathers suppose there is a great mystery hidden in the quarrel of Miriam
and Aaron with Moses and Zipporah. Origen (and after him several others) speaks of it
in the following manner: -
“1. Zipporah, a Cushite espoused by Moses, evidently points out the choice which
Jesus Christ has made of the Gentiles for his spouse and Church.
2. The jealousy of Aaron and Miriam against Moses and Zipporah signifies the hatred
and envy of the Jews against Christ and the apostles, when they saw that the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven had been opened to the Gentiles, of which they
had rendered themselves unworthy.
3. The leprosy with which Miriam was smitten shows the gross ignorance of the
Jews, and the ruinous, disordered state of their religion, in which there is neither a
head, a temple, nor a sacrifice.
4. Of none but Jesus Christ can it be said that he was the most meek and patient of
men; that he saw God face to face; that he had every thing clearly revealed without
enigmatical representations; and that he was faithful in all the house of God.” This,
and much more, Origen states in the sixth and seventh homilies on the book of
Numbers, and yet all this he considers as little in comparison of the vast mysteries
that lie hidden in these accounts; for the shortness of the time, and the magnitude
of the mysteries, only permit him “to pluck a few flowers from those vast fields -
not as many as the exuberance of those fields afford, but only such as by their
odour he was led to select from the rest.” Licebat tamen ex ingentibus campis
paucos flosculos legere, et non quantum ager exuberet, sed quantum ordoratui
91

92. supiciat, carpere.
GILL, "And the Lord said unto Moses,.... By a voice out of the cloud, though at a
distance; unless it was by a secret impulse upon his spirit, darting such words into his
mind as if he heard an audible voice:
if her father had but spit in her face; or, "in spitting spitted" (l); spit much, and
continued spitting till he had covered her face with spittle; which, as it would have been
a token of anger and displeasure in him, an earthly father, who is meant, and of shame
and disgrace to her; so there is some likeness in spittle to leprosy, both being white, and
in such a case to the abundance of it, her thee being covered with leprosy; and which
came as it were from the mouth of the Lord, by his order and appointment, immediately,
as spittle from a man, and like that, in a way of detestation and contempt, and to make
abhorred and despised:
should she not be ashamed seven days? hide herself, and never appear in the
family, and especially in her father's presence, because of the shame she was put unto,
for the space of seven days; how much more ashamed then should she be, now her
heavenly Father did spit in her face, and covered it with a white leprosy and for as long a
time at least, or indeed longer? fourteen days, say the Targum of Jonathan, and Jarchi,
but no more than seven are required, when more might have justly been, for her
separation and shutting up from company and conversation:
let her be shut out from the camp seven days; for so long the leper was to be shut
up at the trial of his leprosy, and so long he was to be out of his tent at the cleansing of
him, Lev_13:5,
and after that let her be received again; into the camp and into society with her
relations and friends.
HENRY, " The accommodating of this matter so as that mercy and justice might
meet together. 1. Mercy takes place so far as that Miriam shall be healed; Moses forgives
her, and God will. See 2Co_2:10. But, 2. Justice takes place so far as that Miriam shall be
humbled (Num_12:14): Let her be shut out from the camp seven days, that she herself
might be made more sensible of her fault and penitent for it, and that her punishment
might be the more public, and all Israel might take notice of it and take warning by it not
to mutiny. If Miriam the prophetess be put under such marks of humiliation for one
hasty word spoken against Moses, what may we expect for our murmurings? If this be
done in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry? See how people debase and
diminish themselves by sin, stain their glory, and lay their honour in the dust. When
Miriam praised God, we find her at the head of the congregation and one of the brightest
ornaments of it, Exo_15:20. Now that she quarrelled with God we find her expelled as
the filth and off-scouring of it. A reason is given for her being put out of the camp for
seven days, because thus she ought to accept of the punishment of her iniquity. If her
father, her earthly father, had but spit in her face, and so signified his displeasure
against her, would she not be so troubled and concerned at it, and so sorry that she had
deserved it, as to shut herself up for some time in her room, and not come into his
92

93. presence, or show her face in the family, being ashamed of her own folly and
unhappiness? If such reverence as this be owing to the fathers of our flesh, when they
correct us, much more ought we to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of the
Father of spirits, Heb_12:9. Note, When we are under the tokens of God's displeasure
for sin, it becomes us to take shame to ourselves, and to lie down in that shame, owning
that to us belongs confusion of face. If by our own fault and folly we expose ourselves to
the reproach and contempt of men, the just censures of the church, or the rebukes of the
divine Providence, we must confess that our Father justly spits in our face, and be
ashamed.
JAMISON, "her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed
seven days? — The Jews, in common with all people in the East, seem to have had an
intense abhorrence of spitting, and for a parent to express his displeasure by doing so on
the person of one of his children, or even on the ground in his presence, separated that
child as unclean from society for seven days.
K&D, "Jehovah hearkened to His servant's prayer, though not without inflicting deep
humiliation upon Miriam. “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not be
ashamed seven days?” i.e., keep herself hidden from Me out of pure shame. She was to
be shut outside the camp, to be excluded from the congregation as a leprous person for
seven days, and then to be received in again. Thus restoration and purification from her
leprosy were promised to her after the endurance of seven days' punishment. Leprosy
was the just punishment for her sin. In her haughty exaggeration of the worth of her own
prophetic gift, she had placed herself on a par with Moses, the divinely appointed head
of the whole nation, and exalted herself above the congregation of the Lord. For this she
was afflicted with a disease which shut her out of the number of the members of the
people of God, and thus actually excluded from the camp; so that she could only be
received back again after she had been healed, and by a formal purification. The latter
followed as a matter of course, from Lev 13 and 14, and did not need to be specially
referred to here.
COKE, "Numbers 12:14. If her father had but spit in her face, &c.— That is to say,
"If she had, by some undutiful behaviour, provoked her father to be angry with her,
and to spit in her face, as an indication of that anger, (Job 30:10. Isaiah 50:6. Mark
14:65; Mark 15:19.) she would certainly be ashamed for some time to look him in
the face. How much more, then, ought she to be ashamed, when she lies under this
severe mark of my displeasure; and to exclude herself, at least, from the camp
during the time appointed for legal cleansing from such impurities." Leviticus 14:8.
Numbers 6:9.
Many of the fathers have considered the events of this chapter as remarkably
typical. Zipporah, espoused to Moses, is, according to them, a type of the Gentiles
espoused by our Saviour: Miriam and Aaron represent the jealous synagogue; the
leprosy of Miriam, the sin of the Jews; Moses, Jesus Christ: in fine, says Calmet, the
eulogy which God himself gives to Moses is too elevated to be applied in the
strictness of the letter to that law-giver. It is only of Jesus Christ that we can say,
93

94. with strict truth, that he is the most meek and the most patient of all men, that he
saw God face to face, and is most faithful in the house of God.
ELLICOTT, " (14) If her father had but spit in her face.—Or, in her presence.
Spitting in the presence of any one, much more spitting in the face of any one, is
regarded in the East as an indication of the utmost degree of abhorrence and
indignation. Comp. Deuteronomy 25:9; Job 30:10; Isaiah 1:6; Matthew 26:67.
Seven days.—This was the time during which the person suspected of being leprous
was to be shut up in the first instance (Leviticus 13:4; Leviticus 13:21, &c.); and this
was also the time during which the leper, when cleansed, was to “tarry abroad out
of his tent,” after he had come into the camp, before the appointed sacrifices were
offered on his behalf (Leviticus 14:8; Leviticus 14:10). It was thus that she who had
placed herself on a level with the divinely-appointed head and ruler of her nation
was to be excluded for seven days from any part or lot in the privileges which were
enjoyed by the humblest member of the congregation.
TRAPP, "Numbers 12:14 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].
Ver. 14. Let her be shut out.] That her sorrow for her sin may be sound and
soaking, deep and downright.
POOLE, " Spit in her face, i.e. expressed some eminent token of indignation and
contempt, which this was, Job 30:10 Isaiah 1:6.
Should she not be ashamed, and withdraw herself from her father’s presence? as
Jonathan did upon a like occasion, 1 Samuel 20:34. So though God healed her
according to Moses’s request, yet he would have her publicly bear the shame of her
sin, and be a warning to others to keep them firm the same transgression.
Seven days, the time appointed for cleansing the unclean. See Numbers 6:9 31:19.
PETT, "Verse 14
‘And Yahweh said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, should she not
be ashamed seven days? Let her be shut up without the camp seven days, and after
that she shall be brought in again.” ’
Yahweh’s reply was stern. It was important that Miriam learned 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). This being like one spit in the
94

95. face compares with Moses’ meekness (Numbers 12:3 - see analysis in that verse). 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 dishonourable and was being virtually disowned. It may well be that
to so be spat on by a father rendered a woman unclean for seven days, although we
are nowhere told so. 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 recognise that it was
because of a sin that deserved the utmost contempt.
WHEDON, " 14. Spit in her face — “Spitting at or upon a person or thing has been
the mode of expressing the utmost contempt from very ancient times. It is still an
intolerable insult, and you may thus interpret the spitting upon the ground by
fanatical Moslems as we pass them. They dare not do more, or we would have it in
our faces! Many years ago I saw a woman in great rage pluck off her old shoe, and,
spitting on the sole of it, shake it frantically in the face of her antagonist.” — Dr.
W.M. Thomson.
Ashamed seven days — The humiliating indignity and defilement of the father’s
spitting in a child’s face would cause her to hide seven days from the presence of
Jehovah at the tabernacle. Much more ought she to be banished from the holy God
and his holy people, after receiving so striking evidence of Jehovah’s displeasure,
infinitely more polluting than the contempt of her supposed father.
PULPIT, "Numbers 12:14
The Lord said unto Moses. Presumably in the tabernacle, whither Moses would
have returned to supplicate God. If her father had but spit in her face. The "but" is
superfluous, and obscures the sense; the act mentioned is referred to not as
something trifling, but as something in its way very serious. The Septuagint renders
it correctly εἰ ὁ πατὴρ … πτύων ἐνέπτυσεν. The Targums have, "if her father had
corrected her." Probably they used this euphemism from a sense of a certain want
of dignity and propriety in the original expression, considered as coming from the
mouth of God. The act in question was, however, not uncommon in itself, and in
significance clearly marked (see Deuteronomy 25:9). It was the distinctive note of
public disgrace inflicted by one who had a right to inflict it. In the case of a father, it
meant that he was thoroughly ashamed of his child, and judged it best (which would
be only in extreme cases) to put his child to shame before all the world. So public a
disgrace would certainly be felt in patriarchal times as a most severe calamity, and
entailed by ordinary custom (as we learn here) retirement and mourning for seven
days at least. How much more, when her heavenly Father had been driven to inflict
a public disgrace upon her for perverse behavior, should the shame and the sorrow
not be lightly put away,, but patiently endured for a decent period! (cf. Hebrews
95

96. 12:9).
15 So Miriam was confined outside the camp for
seven days, and the people did not move on till she
was brought back.
GILL, "And Miriam was shut out of the camp seven days,.... And so in later
times lepers dwelt alone, and in a separate house, as long as the leprosy was upon them,
see 2Ch_26:21; Miriam no doubt was healed at once, but, as a punishment for her sin,
she was obliged to keep out of the camp of Israel for such a space of time:
and the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again; partly out of
respect unto her, she being a prophetess, and one that went before them, and led them
with Moses and Aaron, Mic_6:4; and partly for want of the cloud to direct them, which
had departed at a distance from them.
HENRY, "The hindrance that this gave to the people's progress: The people
journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again, Num_12:15. God did not remove the
cloud, and therefore they did not remove their camp. This was intended, 1. As a rebuke
to the people, who were conscious to themselves of having sinned after the similitude of
Miriam's transgression, in speaking against Moses: thus far therefore they shall share in
her punishment, that it shall retard their march forward towards Canaan. Many things
oppose us, but nothing hinders us in the way to heaven as sin does. 2. As a mark of
respect to Miriam. If the camp had removed during the days of her suspension, her
trouble and shame had been the greater; therefore, in compassion to her, they shall stay
till her excommunication be taken off, and she taken in again, it is probable with the
usual ceremonies of the cleansing of lepers. Note, Those that are under censure and
rebuke for sin ought to be treated with a great deal of tenderness, and not be over-
loaded, no, not with the shame they have deserved, not counted as enemies (2Th_3:15),
but forgiven and comforted, 2Co_2:7. Sinners must be cast out with grief, and penitents
taken in with joy. When Miriam was absolved and re-admitted, the people went forward
into the wilderness of Paran, which joined up to the south border of Canaan, and thither
their next remove would have been if they had not put a bar in their own way.
JAMISON, "the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again —
Either not to crush her by a sentence of overwhelming severity or not to expose her,
being a prophetess, to popular contempt.
96

97. K&D, "Num_12:15-16
The people did not proceed any farther till the restoration of Miriam. After this they
departed from Hazeroth, and encamped in the desert of Paran, namely at Kadesh, on
the southern boundary of Canaan. This is evident from ch. 13, more especially v. 26, as
compared with Deu_1:19., where it is stated not merely that the spies, who were sent out
from this place of encampment to Canaan, returned to the congregation at Kadesh, but
that they set out from Kadesh-barnea for Canaan, because there the Israelites had come
to the mountains of the Amorites, which God had promised them for an inheritance.
With regard to the situation of Kadesh, it has already been observed at Gen_14:7, that
it is probably to be sought for in the neighbourhood of the fountain of Ain Kades, which
was discovered by Rowland, to the south of Bir Seba and Khalasa, on the heights of
Jebel Helal, i.e., at the north-west corner of the mountain land of Azazimeh, which is
more closely described at Num_10:12, where the western slopes of this highland region
sink gently down into the undulating surface of the desert, which stretches thence to El
Arish, with a breadth of about six hours' journey, and keeps the way open between
Arabia Petraea and the south of Palestine. “In the northern third of this western slope,
the mountains recede so as to leave a free space for a plain of about an hour's journey in
breadth, which comes towards the east, and to which access is obtained through one or
more of the larger wadys that are to be seen here (such as Retemat, Kusaimeh, el Ain,
Muweileh).” At the north-eastern background of this plain, which forms almost a
rectangular figure of nine miles by five, or ten by six, stretching from west to east, large
enough to receive the camp of a wandering people, and about twelve miles to the E.S.E.
of Muweileh, there rises, like a large solitary mass, at the edge of the mountains which
run on towards the north, a bare rock, at the foot of which there is a copious spring,
falling in ornamental cascades into the bed of a brook, which is lost in the sand about
300 or 400 yards to the west. This place still bears the ancient name of Kudēṡ. There can
be no doubt as to the identity of this Kudēṡ and the biblical Kadesh. The situation agrees
with all the statements in the Bible concerning Kadesh: for example, that Israel had then
reached the border of the promised land; also that the spies who were sent out from
Kadesh returned thither by coming from Hebron to the wilderness of Paran (Num_
13:26); and lastly, according to the assertions of the Bedouins, as quoted by Rowland,
this Kudes was ten or eleven days' journey from Sinai (in perfect harmony with Deu_
1:2), and was connected by passable wadys with Mount Hor. The Israelites proceeded,
no doubt, through the wady Retemat, i.e., Rithmah (see at Num_33:18), into the plain of
Kadesh. (On the town of Kadesh, see at Num_20:16.)
(Note: See Kurtz, History of the Old Covenant, vol. iii. p. 225, where the current
notion, that Kadesh was situated on the western border of the Arabah, below the
Dead Sea, by either Ain Hasb or Ain el Weibeh, is successfully refuted.)
TRAPP, "Numbers 12:15 And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days: and
the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in [again].
Ver. 15. And the people journeyed not.] But stayed for her restoration. She had once
stayed for Moses, saith Jarchi, when he was cast into the river, [Exodus 2:4]
therefore the people stay for her. There is a memorandum set upon this leprosy of
97

98. Miriam, [Deuteronomy 24:9] like as afterwards was upon Lot’s wife’s
transformation. [Luke 17:32]
POOLE, "Which was a testimony of respect to her both from God and from the
people, God so ordering it, partly lest she should be overwhelmed by such a public
rebuke from God, and partly lest, she being a prophetess, together with her person,
the gift of prophecy should come into contempt.
WHEDON, " 15. And the people journeyed not — More than two million people —
Bertheau calculates three million — are retarded in their journey by the sin of one
influential person. Thus the unbelieving spies kept the whole nation out of Canaan
nearly thirty-nine years. The sins of the great are national calamities.
Till Miriam was brought in — There is no account of her healing. She was probably
healed when Moses prayed. The healed leper was not permitted to enter his tent till
seven days after the priest declared him healed. Leviticus 14:8. Two of the Targums
read thus: “Because Miriam, the prophetess, had watched for a little hour on the
river bank to know what would be the fate of Moses, for the sake of that merit all
Israel, numbering sixty myriads, being eighty legions, and the cloud of glory, the
tabernacle, and the well, went not till she was healed.”
PULPIT, "Numbers 12:15
Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days. It does not say that Miriam was
healed forthwith of her leprosy, but the presumption is to that effect. Not the
punishment itself, but the shame of it, was to last according to the answer of God.
Her ease, therefore, would not fall under the law of Numbers 5:2, or of Le 13:46, but
would be analogous to that treated of in Leviticus 14:1-57. No doubt size had to
submit to all the rites there prescribed, humiliating as they must have been to the
prophetess and the sister of the law-giver; and these rites involved exclusion from
her tent for a period of seven days (Le Leviticus 14:8). By God's command exclusion
from her tent was made exclusion from the camp.
16 After that, the people left Hazeroth and
encamped in the Desert of Paran.
CLARKE, "The wilderness of Paran - This could not be the same Paran with that
98

99. mentioned Deu_1:1, for that was on the borders of the promised land, see the note on
Deu_1:1, Deu_1:2; they were long near the borders of Canaan, and might have speedily
entered into it, had it not been for their provocations and iniquities. They spent thirty-
eight years in a journey which might have been accomplished in a few weeks! How many
through their unfaithfulness have been many years in gaining that for which, in the
ordinary procedure of Divine grace, a few days had been sufficient! How much ground
may a man lose in the Divine life by one act of unfaithfulness or transgression! Israel
wandered in the wilderness because Israel despised the pleasant land, and did not give
credence to the word of the Lord. They would have a golden calf, and they had nothing
but tribulation and woe in return.
GILL, "And afterwards the people removed from Hazeroth,.... After seven
days, where they had been so long at least; the cloud being returned to the tabernacle,
and having been taken up, which was the signal for motion, the camps of Israel, in their
order, removed and marched forward:
and pitched in the wilderness of Paran; at a place in it called Rithmah, Num_
33:18; which, according to Bunting (m), was eight miles from Hazeroth, near to which
was another place called Kadesh, or else this was another name of Rithmah, see Num_
13:3; and now the Israelites were very near the land of promise, and from hence they
sent spies to make their observations on it, and bring a report of it; and had it not been
for their ill conduct in that affair, in all probability would have been quickly in it, but on
that account were kept out thirty eight years longer: it was on the twenty eighth or
twenty ninth of the month Sivan the Israelites came to this place, according to the
Jewish writers (n), which month answers part of our May and part of June.
JAMISON, "pitched in the wilderness of Paran — The station of encampments
seems to have been Rithma (Num_33:19).
CALVIN, "Numbers 12:16.And afterward the people departed from Hazeroth. At
first sight Moses appears to be at variance with himself: for he here states that he
sent the spies at God’s command, whereas in Deuteronomy 1:22, he relates that he
made this concession at the request of the people; (48) but the two statements are
easily reconciled. It is, indeed, unquestionable that God had regard to the infirmity
and distrust of the people; for the spies are not sent to see in what direction the land
was to be attacked, with which design two were afterwards sent by Joshua, but God
had here no other object than to encourage them, when they else were cowardly and
inert, to throw off their inactivity, and eagerly to advance. The necessity of such a
remedy was evidently shown, when they all demanded this of Moses. The second
narrative, therefore, is fuller, and in it Moses goes back further than he had done in
the first, viz., that it arose from the timidity and pusillanimity of the people that he
did not at onto hasten whither God invited him; for, if they had straightway obeyed,
they would have won the land of their enemies without any delay; but they
requested that a respite might be given them. It is, then, by no means inconsistent
that Moses did, at the request of the people, what God at the same time enjoined,
99

100. because tie saw that they were otherwise hesitating, and but little disposed to
advance, and needed this stimulus. For, if the spies had honestly per.-formed their
duty, the people would have been led forward as if they had seen the land
themselves, which would have been the readiest means for putting an end to all
delays.
First, however, the place is described, from whence the spies were sent, viz., at no
great distance from mount Sinai, although they had encamped twice, so that it was
their third station. It has already been stated in chapter 10, that the cloud rested in
the wilderness of Paran, which some understand to have been said by anticipation,
( πρόληψιν,) as if Moses had said that, from the time when the people left Mount
Sinai, they had not made any permanent halt, until they came to that wilderness,
and there pitched their tents. But this opinion is by no means consistent; for it is
clear that they stayed some time in Taberah; and many days were spent at the
graves of lust, (Kibroth-hattaavah;) for there they were gorged for a month with the
flesh of the birds, and then the pestilence attacked them, which cut off many of
them, for whose burial it was necessary to provide. Now, their next halt was for
more then seven days. It, therefore, appears probable to me that by the word Paran,
a different place is not expressed; but that it is merely meant that, though they
advanced, they still remained in some part of that wilderness. For, since the
wilderness of Paran was in one direction contiguous to Mount Sinai, that name is
sometimes given to it; for Moses certainly confounds them elsewhere, as also does
the Prophet Habakkuk. (Deuteronomy 33:3; Habakkuk 3:3.)
COKE, "Numbers 12:16. And pitched in the wilderness of Paran— That all the
people might be admonished of the sin of Miriam, they were not permitted to
remove from Hazeroth till her days of cleansing were fulfilled, when they removed
and pitched in the wilderness of Paran. This station was at the mountain of the
Amorites, at the south part of Canaan; (Deuteronomy 1:20.) so that their next
removal was to have been into the promised land, had not they hindered themselves
by their rebellion. "As tradition," says Dr. Shaw, "has continued down to us the
names of Shur, Marah, and Sin, so has it also that of Paran; the ruins of the late
convent of Paran, built upon those of an ancient city of that name (which might give
denomination to the whole desart) being found about the half way between Sinai
and Corondel, which lie at forty leagues distance. This situation of Paran, so far to
the south of Kadesh, will illustrate Genesis 14:5-6 where Chedorlaomer, and the
kings that were with him, are said to have smote the Horites in their mount Seir,
unto El Paran, (i.e. unto the city, as I take it, of that name,) which is in or by the
wilderness. The whole country round about Paran is very mountainous, making
part of the μελανα ορη of Ptolemy; which, he tells us, extended from the promontory
of Paran as far as Judaea.—From the more advanced part of the wilderness of
Paran, (the same which lay in the road betwixt Midian and Egypt, 1 Kings 11:18.)
Moses sent a man out of every tribe to spy out the land of Canaan, ch. Numbers 13:3
who returned to him, after forty days, unto the same wilderness, to Kadesh Barnea;
ch. Numbers 32:8. Deuteronomy 1:1-2. Joshua 14:7. This place or city, which in
100

101. Genesis 14:7 is called En-mishpat, (i.e. the fountain Mishpat,) is, ch. Numbers 20:1,
Numbers 27:14, Numbers 33:26 called Tzin Kadesh, or simply Kadesh, as in Genesis
16:14; Genesis 20:1 and being equally ascribed to the desart of ‫,צין‬ Tzin, and to the
desart of Paran, we may presume that the desarts of Tzin and Paran were one and
the same: ‫,צן‬ or ‫,צנים‬ may be so called from the plants of divers palm grounds upon
it." Travels, quarto, p. 318.
REFLECTIONS.—God's displeasure was manifest, and now it appeared,
1. Miriam becomes leprous. She, who was challenging equality with Moses, bears in
her forehead a brand of infamy, and becomes viler than the meanest Israelite. Those
who walk in pride God is able to abase. The fair face that swells the heart with
vanity, one stroke of disease can quickly make loathsome. Aaron is spared, as least
in the offence, or perhaps for his office-sake, that it may not appear vile; but, as
God's high-priest, he is obliged to pronounce that sentence on his sister, which must
cover himself with confusion. In the execution of their office no connections must
influence ministers; if their nearest relatives are found leprous, they should be
excluded from the communion of God's people.
2. Aaron's humble submission and entreaty. He acknowledges their mutual sin, asks
pardon of his brother, whom he has vilified, and earnestly begs his intercession for
his sister, that she might not be cut off, as one dead, from the congregation of the
Lord. Note; (1.) They who revile God's servants shall be brought to bow to them,
like Aaron in time, or like Dives in eternity. (2.) When we have offended, we cannot
be too early in begging forgiveness both of God and man. To continue impenitent is
certain ruin. (3.) They who are cut off from the communion of the Lord by their
sins, are, worse than leprous Miriam, spiritually dead.
3. Moses's charity appears as exemplary as his meekness. He instantly cries to God
for help. Instead of calling down judgment as she deserved, he prays for that
forgiveness with God which he found from himself. We must thus learn to forgive
our enemies, and pray for them who despitefully use us. This is the spirit of
Christianity.
4. His request is granted. Miriam is healed. But for her humiliation, and for example
to others, she is excluded the camp seven days, to bear her shame for such
ungrateful conduct. When we do evil, we ought to take that shame to ourselves that
we have deserved, and submit to every humiliatory process which may serve to shew
our own sorrow, and to warn others against our sin.
5. During the time of Miriam's separation the people halted. Note; (1.) In our way to
heaven all our hindrances arise from our sins. (2.) God will have us treat those with
the greatest tenderness, who, however vile they have made themselves, are now in
penitential tears returning from their evil ways.
6. The people go forward to the borders of Canaan. One step more, and they had
101

102. been safely lodged in it. But the next chapter relates a fatal change. Note; While we
are on this side the grave we need to watch and pray. Many have gone to the
borders of heaven, who will never enter it; they were almost, but not altogether
Christians.
General Reflections on the eleventh and twelfth Chapters.
What can be so horrible as the ingratitude, so senseless as the rebellion of this
infatuated populace! They form a camp, they dwell in it, they change it, enjoying a
perfect liberty and security under the immediate protection of God their legislator,
their creator, the guide and conductor of their whole army: yet they long again for
their servitude in Egypt, hard and intolerable as it was—that servitude in which
their souls had so often been depressed; which had caused them so many labours, so
many groans! How striking a resemblance of those wretched worldlings, who always
prefer the past, though far worse, to the present and the future; and that with a
design to lessen those obligations which the ungrateful are unwilling to avow for
benefits received!
The pillar of cloud and of fire, which appeared day and night, was a manifest sign to
the Israelites of the Divine presence. They saw God, if we may so say, as in a mirror;
and though they enjoyed the most uncommon and precious privileges, temporal and
spiritual, they were less sensible of all these blessings, than of the few miserable
ideas of the fish, the melons, the cucumbers and onions of Egypt! Can there be a
more melancholy instance of our corruption, than to see reasonable beings thus
preferring nothing to the most important realities; earth to heaven; death to life?
For an appointed season they gather the heavenly and miraculous mature: they
grow satiated with this delicious food; and, not content with this, these worms of the
earth are still craving for meat. They prescribe laws to God their Creator,
Redeemer, and Preserver: day after day they turned back and tempted God, and
limited the Holy One of Israel; foolish enough to wish to set bounds, as it were, to
his omnipotence! Nor was this the first instance of their rebellion: before their
arrival at mount Sinai they had shewn the same spirit. But God bore with the crimes
they committed before the promulgation of the law. After that law was given, God
altered his conduct in this respect, and always proportioned the crime to the light
wherewith he endued them: a consideration which ought peculiarly to influence
Christians, whose offences are aggravated according to their knowledge; and who
can have no excuse for preferring earthly things to heavenly, now that life and
immortality are so fully brought to light by the Gospel.
It is remarkable, that Moses, to whom nothing in general appeared difficult after he
had accepted the commission of lawgiver to the people of God, lost all courage as
soon as this unhappy people fell into any great crime. The sins of a nation are more
terrible than the most invincible armies: holiness and piety are the best bulwarks
for covering and defending it. There was, perhaps, something too impatient in the
complaint of Moses, ch. 11: Numbers 12:11, &c. nevertheless God took pity of his
102

103. weakness, as well knowing that it had for its motive true zeal and undissembled
love; but the complaint of the Israelites arose from far different causes: it is true,
their petition was granted, but the grant was punishment. How should this instruct
Christians to submit all their desires to the will of God! They often know not what
they ask: and when they ask improperly and impatiently, God frequently fulfils
their desires, and accomplishes their wishes, to shew them in a little time that this
accomplishment is the greatest evil. The Christian's best prayer at all times is, NOT
MY WILL, BUT THINE BE DONE.
It was a severe trial to Moses to be exposed to the murmurings of the people; but
how much more severe to be exposed to those of his own brother and sister! Good
men frequently experience the heaviest trials, even from those who ought most to
comfort and assist them; but this instructs them to draw nearer to God, whose
comforts are everlasting. Who can look for love and prosperity at once, when Moses
finds enmity in his own flesh and blood? Authority cannot fail of opposition, if it be
ever so mildly swayed; to do well, and hear ill, is princely. It is no uncommon thing
to find the evil attempts of enemies productive of effects directly contrary to their
design. The envy of Miriam and Aaron proved the occasion of confirming the
authority, and of gaining from the Almighty the highest eulogium of Moses. The
remunerations of the Almighty are infinitely gracious. He never will want honour
and patronage who seeks the honour of his Maker. The ready way to true glory is
goodness.
Though both Aaron and Miriam sinned, Miriam alone is punished. It was not the
dignity of his priesthood alone which rescued Aaron; the greatness of that dignity
added heinousness to his sin. It was his repentance which delivered him. We cannot
wonder to see him escape while we see him penitent. The universal antidote for all
the judgments of God, is the merit of the atoning Blood made over to the humble
penitent.
Miriam would have wounded Moses with her tongue; Moses would heal her with
his. Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee! The wrong is the greater because his sister
did it. He does not say, "I sought not her shame, she sought mine: if God have
revenged it, I have no reason to consider her as a sister, who considered me as an
adversary;" but, as if her leprosy were his own, he intercedes for her cure.—
Admirable meekness of Moses! His people, the Jews, rebelled against him: God
proffers punishment; he declares himself ready to die, rather than they should
perish. His sister rebelled against him: God avenges him; he will not cease to
importune that God till she be restored. Behold a noble and worth example for us to
follow! How far are they from this disposition, who are not only content that God
should punish, but are ready to prevent God's punishment with their own revenge!
To return good for evil, and to pray for those who despitefully use us, is the certain
fruit of a true Christian temper: endowed with which, we shall not only be blest
ourselves, but, by our pious and charitable prayers, through the alone merits of
Christ, appease the wrath of God towards others, and engage for them his grace and
103

104. favour.*
ELLICOTT, "(16) In the wilderness of Paran.—See Note on Numbers 10:12. It
appears from the 26th verse of the following chapter that the encampment was at
Kadesh, which has been supposed by some to be identical with Rithniah (Numbers
33:18).
TRAPP, "Numbers 12:16 And afterward the people removed from Hazeroth, and
pitched in the wilderness of Paran.
Ver. 16. Wilderness of Paran.] At a place called Rithmah, [Numbers 33:18] and
Kadeshbarnea. [Numbers 13:3; Numbers 13:26]
POOLE, " Hazeroth, where they abode, as is said, Numbers 11:35, for Miriam’s
sake.
In the wilderness of Paran, i.e. in another part of the same wilderness, as may be
gathered from Numbers 10:12: see also Deuteronomy 33:2. It is possible they might
have removed out of one part of that wilderness into another wilderness, and then
returned again into another part of it, as we know the Israelites had many strange
windings and turnings in their wilderness travels. And this part was more especially
called Rithmah, Numbers 33:18, and Kadesh-barnea, Numbers 13:26 Deuteronomy
1:19, which were two noted places in that part, both which seem to be
comprehended within their camp, or near adjoining to it.
PETT, "Verse 15
‘And Miriam was shut up outside the camp seven days, and the people journeyed
not 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 rumoured. They would see
her here excluded from the camp and rumour 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.
Verse 16
‘And afterwards the people journeyed from Hazeroth, and encamped in the
wilderness of Paran.’
104

105. The whole incident is a reminder that those who are truly servants of God should be
honoured 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 honours those who honour Him. It is a
reminder to all Christian leaders that they must honour 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.
PULPIT, "In the wilderness of Paran. It is somewhat strange that this note of place
should be used a second time without explanation (see Numbers 10:12, Numbers
10:33). Probably it is intended to mark the fact that they were still within the limits
of Paran, although on the very verge of their promised laud. In the list of stations
given in Numbers 33:1-56, it is said (Numbers 33:18), "They departed from
Hazeroth, and pitched in Rithmah." This is with some probability identified with
the Wady Redemat, which opens front the mountain mass of the Azazimat into the
singular plain of Kudes, or Kadesh, the scene of the decisive events which followed.
WHEDON, " FROM HAZEROTH TO KADESH, Numbers 12:16.
16. Wilderness of Paran — Genesis 12:6, note; Numbers 10:12, note. By comparing
Numbers 13:26 with Deuteronomy 1:19-24, it will be seen that the place in this
wilderness to which they removed was Kadesh-barnea. Genesis 14:7; Joshua 10:41,
note. But in Numbers 33:18, the station after Hazeroth is Rithma, which is either the
same as Kadesh or perhaps the modern Wady Abu Retemet, a wide and well-
watered plain near Ain Gadis, which Rowland and other recent travelers identify
with Kadesh.
105