The prophet Miriam appears in relatively few scenes in Exodus and Numbers, but her role in the Judeo-Christian tradition cannot be underestimated. Miriam's importance was such that by the time Jesus was born, 40 percent of all women were named either Mary (Maryam, Miriam, Mariamne, Maria), after the first woman named as a prophet in the Hebrew Scriptures, or Salome, which is a variant spelling of shalom — the Hebrew concept encompassing hope, wholeness, harmony, health, and peace.
This article had its genesis (so to speak) in the attempt to understand the weird little scene in Numbers 12 in which Aaron and Miriam, apparently unhappy with their baby brother's hogging of all the glory of leadership, complain — and (in another, later context) the Bible saying that only Miriam was punished for standing up for herself (Deut. 24:8-9). I am indebted to Thomas W. Butler's excellent book Let Her Keep It for the suggestion as to how Numbers 12 ought to be understood, which makes perfect sense to me. You go, Tom!
Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live." (Ex. 1:22) It was roughly 1270 B.C.E. More than a third of all newborns died before they reached their first birthday. Another third was dead before the age of 16, either of hardship or of diseases we don't even think about any more. (Penicillin was invented during World War II!) A Hebrew girl would be capable of mothering Egyptian babies — if she were alive to do so.
(In the social structure of the time, of course, boy babies were considered more valuable because males stayed with the family/tribe and their work contributed to increasing the family/tribe's size and wealth. Girls, on the other hand, were valuable only for the work they did while still girls and the bride-price they brought with them when they married into a new family/tribe. (The bride-price was intended to support the new wife in the event she was widowed, but her father-in-law and husband were in charge of managing her money for her, with the results one might expect from such a system.) )
Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. (Ex. 2:1a) The Levites claimed descent from the tribe of Levi (one of Jacob's 12 sons), a tribe may or may not have existed in "real life." The best translation of the word Levite is probably "devoted/consecrated to the service of Godde." Levitical priests claimed their descent from Aaron, Moses's older brother, and at the time the Exodus story went from legend to the written word, were still "the" priests to be. (By the time the first century rolled around, "the" priesthood had been usurped by a group called Zadokites, and the Levites had become something like "priests j.g." or deacons (or even sextons), the Jerusalem priesthood preferring to keep the fun stuff to itself.)
According to Exodus 6, Jacob/Israel's third-oldest son, Levi, lived for 137 years — in modern terms, he was an exceptionally holy person. Levi's eldest son was named Gershon, which means "resident alien" or "person living in exile." (Moses named his oldest son after this relative.) Levi's second-oldest son, Kohath ("congregation"), "lived for 133 years."
Kohath's son Amram ("an exalted people") married Kohath's sister, Jochebed ("whose glory is Godde ") (6:20). Their children included Aaron ("a teacher" or "lofty"), Miriam ("excellent" or "beloved" [FN1]), and Moses (see below) — or possibly, Miriam, Aaron, and Moses; most of the Bible, written predominantly by men devoted to the service of the exclusively masculine Yahweh, does not particularly care about women outside of their function as mothers (except, of course, to upbraid them for honoring Godde's feminine expressions in their worship).
In other words, the genealogy went: Abraham and Sarah, Rebekah and Isaac, Jacob and Leah, Levi and
his unnamed wife (or one of his unnamed wives), Levi’s daughter Jochebed and her nephew Amram, and
their three children, the heroes of the Exodus story — all three simultaneously grandchildren and
It was probably the descendants of the Joseph tribe who took part in the Exodus, since they were there in the first place. The verse's intention is to stress the part about Moses being "devoted/consecrated to the service of Godde."
The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was
a fine baby, she hid him for three months. (Ex. 2:1b) Hebrew boys were circumcised
eight days after being born, although it is not certain when infant circumcision became the rule. The boy was
generally named at that time (see, e.g., Luke 2:21). The baby's mother was then allowed to rest for 33 days.
(Thirty-three days for boys; 66 days for girls [Num. 12:1-5]. It was believed that the loss of blood a woman
experienced during childbirth meant the loss of life force and thus the loss of closeness to Godde; males,
associated by the culture with greater vitality (understandable, since no male died in childbed), were
supposedly less debilitating to give birth to.)
The Hebrew baby was breast-fed for anywhere up to three years (2 Maccabees 7:27),
presumably because mother's milk was less likely to carry the germs for such diseases as dysentery. It is
probable that there is a symbolic meaning for "three months" that has cultic significance — but if so, I
haven't been able to track it down yet.
When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and daubed it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the Nile. (Ex. 2:2-3) The Hebrew word that is translated “basket” is teba, and it is normally translated into English as “chest” or “ark” — as in, the Ark of the Covenant. (The Hebrew word for the sort of basket in which the firstfruits of the harvest are dedicated to Godde is tene.) Bitumen (asphalt or tar) and pitch (asphalt) were as close as they could get to waterproofing in those ancient times. Pitch, incidentally, bubbles up from underground liquid, but hardens quickly on exposure to air; it has to be melted under quite a hot fire before it is malleable.
I find it interesting that the Bible does not see fit to record what Amram thought about Jochebed's
His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him. (Ex.
2:4) Although Exodus 2 does not name Moses's sister, two other verses do: Numbers 26:59 and 1
Chronicles 6:3. Any number of them may have existed, but the Bible names no other sisters. Miriam was
therefore probably about 10 years older than her younger brother. Interestingly, Jochebed was probably at
least 10 years older than her nephew/husband.
The Exodus story contains many references not merely to water (a feminine symbol)
but also to protective older women. The Women's Bible Commentary says, "Because the final editing of
the text as we have it was in all probability the work of men with concerns specific to the priesthood" (which,
again, is why Moses is called a descendant of Levi rather than the more plausible Joseph), "it is difficult to
determine the extent to which the stories and traditions related to women reflect actual female experience.
Given the sex-segregated culture of ancient Israel, it seems probable that distinct female traditions emerged
simultaneously with the better preserved male heritage. The inclusion of stories centered on independent
women, such as the midwives (Shiphrah and Puah) and Pharaoh's unnamed daughter, may indicate the
preservation of such traditions that, by virtue of their antiquity, were deemed inviolate by later editors" (p.
27).
The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. (Ex. 2:5) The Hebrews were cleanly people, but remember, you had to be fabulously wealthy to have a whole room set aside for nothing but bathing. For most people, bathing required either a courtyard and a shallow bowl similar to those that used to be found on washstands (as Bathsheba bathed), or, for full immersion, the closest river.
She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child — and how it wept! She took pity on the baby, saying, "This must be one of the Hebrews' children." (Ex. 2:6) Remember, this young woman's father had decreed a few months earlier that all male Hebrew babies were to be killed at birth. The heroic midwives Shiphrah and Puah claimed that they didn't kill the boy babies because Hebrew women were so robust that they delivered their boys before the midwife's arrival (Ex. 1:19) — whereupon the Pharaoh gave up on the midwives and decreed that all boy babies were to be thrown into the Nile. Neither the midwives nor Pharaoh's daughter appears to have suffered for their defiance of masculine authority; indeed, Ex. 1:21 reports that the midwives were blessed with children of their own (presumably daughters).
Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?" (Ex. 2:7) Notice that there is no question in either girl's mind about whether to check, see whether the baby is a boy, and if so, obediently throw him into the Nile to drown.
Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Yes." So the girl went and called the child's mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages." So the woman took the child and nursed it. (Ex. 2:8-9) Some commentators ask why, if the baby's sister is Miriam, the text does not say, "So the girl went and called her mother." Remember, the focus here is not on the girl but on the fulfillment of the original audience's expectations about miraculous events surrounding the birth of a major prophet.
When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and
she took him as her son. She named him Moses, "because," she said, "I drew him out of the
water." (Ex. 2:10) A truly wonderful new translation,The Inclusive Hebrew Scriptures: The Torah,
comments, "The name [Moses] is packed with meaning. Moses, or Mss, is an old Egyptian
name meaning 'child of,' as in Ra'amses — child of Ra — so Pharaoh's daughter is simply naming him 'my
son.' But the name in Hebrew, Moshe, is a deliberate pun. Pharaoh's daughter thinks the name Moshe recalls
her act of 'pulling out' the baby from the Nile. But, as commentator Everett Fox points out, 'the verb for
moshe is active, not passive, and thus it is Moshe himself who will one day "pull out" Israel from the
life-threatening waters of both slavery and the Sea of Reeds.'"
I first learned about the Egyptian meaning of Moses in seminary, and wondered
whether, just as Ramses means "son of Ra" and Thutmose means "son of Thut," Moses might mean, "son of
the Godde who may not be named" (YHWH).
Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. (Ex. 15:20) In the Hebrew Scriptures, prophets are men or women who are believed to receive messages from Godde that they then pass on to others either in words or by semeions, or sign-actions. (Baptism, for example, is a semeion showing that the one baptized has been reborn.) They generally begin by saying, "Godde says— ," and frequently they act under divine compulsion, as Moses himself did. Some prophets foretell the future (some more accurately than others), some do magic tricks, some berate kings. All of them represent and defend Godde in opposition to religious apostasy, syncretism, or lay leaders (usually kings) who flout Godde's moral demands or forget who's boss.
More than one scholar has pointed out that Yahweh did not become the only god in the Universe overnight. To sum up the history of more than 2,000 years in "25 words or less": First Asherah and El ruled as consorts; then Yahweh appeared on the scene as a sort of equivalent to the Canaanites' Marduk (think Sir Lancelot, King Arthur, and Queen Guinevere); then Yahweh took over and El retired to the background (surviving only in such words as Elohim and Israel); then Yahweh muscled Asherah out of the picture altogether. One of Asherah's titles was Shaddai, the breasted one; Yahweh took over the title and is referred to in the Torah as El Shaddai — probably wherever the original ancient text referred to Asherah.
Just as Yahweh didn't "take over" overnight, so did the male priests of Yahweh not succeed in excluding women from religious leadership overnight. A thousand years or more after the events that take place in this story, Jeremiah ranted against the women and men who offered "cakes to the Queen of Heaven" (7:14, 44:19) — Asherah.
Women in Scripture says that in this verse, Miriam "becomes thereby the archetype of the female prophetic tradition, even as Moses heads the male (compare Deut. 34:10)." Genesis records that Sarah performed actions that her contemporaries would have acknowledged as priestly; Judges does the same thing for Deborah, and the other "history" books for the various queens of the Northern Kingdom. No matter what her father's name was (Jethro, Hobab, or Reuel), Moses's wife Zipporah was the daughter of a priest, and she knew exactly what ritual to perform to save Moses's life in Exodus 4:24-26 — the act of circumcision itself; the blood offering; the liturgical pronouncement. Until the YHWH cult finally succeeded in excluding women altogether, in approximately 500 B.C.E., women worshipped Godde in the company of other women, and their leaders were priests by any non-Magisterial definition of the word. According to the Women's Bible Commentary, "The work of sociologist Nancy Jay points out a relationship between blood sacrifice and the institution of patrilineal descent (i.e., tracing descent through the male line). Thus, it may have been a developing association of the Israelite priesthood with blood sacrifce or a concern with establishing patrilineage, rather than a dissociation from ritualized sexuality, that led to women's exclusion from the cult."
And Miriam sang to them:
"Sing to YHWH, for Godde
has triumphed gloriously;
horse and rider
Godde has thrown into the sea." (Ex. 15:21)
The Oxford Annotated New Revised Standard Version comments, "The Song of Miriam, one of the
oldest poetic couplets in the [Hebrew Scriptures], may have been composed by an eyewitness of the event."
Women in Scripture goes on to point out, like the Song of Deborah, the first, lengthier poem that
appears in the Bible (in Exodus attributed to Moses) is actually based on the following, older fragment,
attributed to a woman.
(The following passage appears out of its biblical order to help explain the passage from Numbers that follows.)
[As this excerpt begins, Godde and Moses are discussing how to impress the Pharaoh with Moses's powers, so as to persuade Pharaoh to allow the Hebrews to attend a pilgrimage festival, or hag (today's hadj), in the desert.] YHWH said to Moses, "What is that in your hand?" He said, "A staff." And Godde said, "Throw it on the ground." So Moses threw the staff on the ground, and it became a snake; and Moses drew back from it. (Ex. 4:2-3) The snake was an important symbol in most ancient cultures, not merely because it spents much of its life in hiding or in pits underground (the underworld), but because it moves apparently effortlessly without feet, it is born from an egg like a bird, it can often kill with its mouth, and it appears able to rejuvenate itself through the shedding of its skin.
More important for our understanding, the snake in the Bible was almost invariably a symbol for Asherah, acknowledged as Yahweh's consort (although not by the Bible) until about 600 B.C.E. This is why the serpent (Asherah) is the only being whom "the Lord" explicitly curses in Genesis 3; the men of the Yahweh cult were certain that if there is only one Godde in the Universe, that Godde must be male and only male.
In this scene, then, and in the subsequent scenes where the magic staff is given to Aaron and his staff-
serpent devours the staff-serpents of the Pharaoh's magicians
Then YHWH said to Moses, "Reach out your hand, and seize it by the tail" — so he reached out his hand and grasped it, and it became a staff in his hand — "so that the Egyptians may believe that YHWH, the Godde of their ancestors, the God of Sarah and Abraham, the Godde of Rebekah and Isaac, and the God of Leah and Rachel and Jacob, has appeared to you." (Ex: 4:4-5) This is evidence of the ancientness of the text: YHWH is not the Godde of the Egyptians' ancestors.
Again, YHWH said to Moses, "Put your hand inside your cloak." He
put his hand into his cloak; and when he took it out, his hand was covered with disease, as
white as snow. Then Godde said, "Put your hand back into your cloak" — so he put his
hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored like the rest of his body
— "If they will not believe you or heed the first sign, they may believe the second sign."
(Ex. 4:6-8) "Leprosy," the word used in the original Hebrew, referred to any number of skin
diseases, not merely Hansen's disease, as we moderns tend to assume. The scaling and flaking of the diseases
described as tzara'at were felt to resemble death and decay; the same word was used to describe
mildew and dry rot. (“Dear, the porch steps have leprosy.”)
This is, in other words, a second example of Godde's giving Moses power over death
and regeneration — the snake that symbolizes resurrection and the horrifying disease/magical cure again
symbolizing death and its reversal.
Needless to say, these two miraculous powers fail to impress the Pharaoh, and YHWH ends up having to visit the ten plagues upon Egypt before the Pharaoh will let the Hebrews go, not to mention killing the Pharaoh and his entire army after they set out to pursue and recover what they saw as their property.
The Bible tells us that Moses lived as a prince in Egypt for 40 years, to learn leadership; he was an
outcast in Midian for 40 years, to learn humility (Ex. 7:7); and then for the final 40 years of his life, he
accomplished his life work, leading the twelve tribes out of Egypt and back to the Promised Land. "Forty
years," of course, was scriptural shorthand for, "a very long time." (Remember that primitive peoples begin
counting this way: "one, two, three, a whole bunch." When they get slightly more sophisticated, they can
count to ten (fingers) or twenty (fingers and toes) — "one, two,
Most commentators interpret the following scene, which begins Numbers 12, without reference to any other part of the Bible. A typical explanation can be found in The Bible Reader's Companion: "Only Miriam was stricken by [this skin disease] not because she was a woman or because her sin was any worse than Aaron's, but because God in grace refused to deprive His [sic] people of the high priest's ministry."
While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam (and Aaron) spoke against
Moses because of the Cushite [Ethiopian] woman whom he had married (for he had indeed
married a Cushite woman). (Num. 12:1) Cush is the ancient name for Ethiopia, and the
Septuagint says “Aethiopian.” Zipporah, the only wife of Moses whom the Bible names, was a Midianite, that
is, a member of a nomadic tribe that may have lived near Cush. Moses appears in the canon roughly
halfway between Jacob/Israel, with two wives and two concubines, and David, with anywhere up to 17 wives
and dozens of concubines.
Some commentators have noticed that Ethiopians' skin was (and is) quite black, and
have seen a racial interpretation for the "white as snow" in verse 10. Others have pointed out that in that era,
Cushites had a higher social status than Hebrews did — Moses "married up."
An interesting note: not only does Miriam's name come first (almost unheard of), but
also the Hebrew verb that is used is feminine singular. In other words, a more accurate translation would be,
"While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron, she spoke against Moses." Hazeroth, incidentally, is the
feminine plural of a word that may have meant "villages."
And they said, "Has YHWH spoken only through Moses? Has Godde
not spoken through us also?" And YHWH heard it. (Num. 12:2) Most commentators
interpret this as a complaint against Godde's preference for Moses, i.e., a token of jealousy on the parts of his
older brother and sister — "What are we, who are leaders and prophets too? Chopped liver?"
The scholar Judith Antonelli has proposed that Moses as the leader of his people felt
he had to refrain from sex so as to stay ritually pure for those midnight calls from Godde. For an alternate
explanation of this verse, Antonelli writes that Miriam "wanted to know why she could be a prophet and stay
married to Caleb, and Aaron could be a prophet and stay married to Elisheva, but Moses had to leave
Zipporah in order to prophesy." In other words, Antonelli proposes, Miriam was saying, "You married her,
Moses, you owe her a little sex now and then. Godde speaks through me and through Aaron just fine without
our withholding sex from our spouses."
Now the man Moses was very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth. (Num. 12:3) According to the Oxford Annotated NRSV, another appropriate translation is, "Moses was very devout." They comment, "This verse is an age-old stumbling block to the belief that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch." (Even the parts that were first inscribed onto parchment or papyrus centuries after his death.)
Suddenly YHWH said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, "Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting." So the three of them came out. (Num. 12:4) Called on the carpet!
Then YHWH came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the entrance of the tent, and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forward. (Num. 12:5) The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night were how YHWH could lead the Chosen People without their being stricken blind by Godde's glory.
And Godde said, "Hear my words: When there are prophets among you, I, YHWH, make myself known to them in visions; I speak to them in dreams." (Num. 12:6) The Septuagint uses the words oramati, or "visions/sighting"s, and gnwsthaysomai, which means something closer to "revelations"; the word is a verb, the first-person future passive of ginwskw, to know/understand — in other words, "I wll be discerned." Aaron and Miriam, then, are accustomed as prophets to understanding Godde through dreams and what the Septuagint two verses later calls ainigmatoi, riddles, enigmas, baffling statements — the form in which prophesies and oracles are given. In the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Gerhard Kittle comments, "Among both Greeks and Jews, the essence of prophetic utterance is thus speaking in riddles in the sense of saying things [that] require elucidation."
"Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house." (Num. 12:7) The Septuagint phrases this as, en holw tw oikw mou pistos estin, literally, "in whole house my faithful/trusty is." Pistos is obviously similar to pistis, faith/trust; it is an adjective, in this case masculine singular (like oikw), meaning faithful, trusty, credible, or true- hearted. In other words, at least according to the Septuagint, this phrase could also be translated, "His whole house gets all my support."
"With him I speak face to face — clearly, not in riddles [ainigmati]; and he beholds the glory of YHWH. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?" (Num. 12:8) In the first few chapters of Genesis, people "beheld the form of YHWH" all over the place, with no ill effects. Moses was the last person before Jesus to behold Godde and live to tell the tale.
And the righteous indignation of YHWH was kindled against them, and Godde departed. (Num. 12:9) In the Septuagint, the phrase usually translated “anger” is orgay thumou, the righteous indignation of the soul, or a passionate wrath. But notice that the Bible says only that Godde was angry, not that Godde expressed that anger through any sort of action beyond departure from the presence of the uppity prophets.
When the cloud went away from over the tent, Miriam had become as white as snow with a skin disease. And Aaron turned toward Miriam and saw that she was diseased. (Num. 12:10) Now, remember: in Exodus 4, Godde gave Moses the power to turn a staff into a snake and to strike someone with "leprosy" (eczema, seborrhea, etc.).
And Moses said, “Oops.”
Then Aaron said to Moses, "Oh, my lord, do not lay sin upon us for
a sin that we have so foolishly committed." (Num 12:11) This is important: In
terms of the plain language of this verse, Aaron does NOT think that Godde has punished Miriam (and not
himself) for being "uppity." Aaron thinks that Moses has punished Miriam. The phrase
in the Septuagint is sunepithay haymin hamartian, or "'verb' our sin." Sunepithay is the second
person singular imperative second aorist of sunepitithaymi, "to join in attacking" — which is a
"Do not let her be like one stillborn, whose flesh is half consumed when it comes out of its mother's womb." (Num. 12:12) Isn't modern medicine wonderful? Aren't you glad you live in an age of antibiotics and neonatal intensive care units?
And Moses cried to YHWH, "O Godde, please heal her." (Num:12:13) Remember, although Godde gave Moses the power to strike "leprosy" in Exodus 4, the Bible never mentions this power again. It seems at least possible that Moses had no idea how to un-strike someone with "leprosy," beyond asking Godde to do it the way Godde did in Exodus 4:7.
But YHWH said to Moses, "If her father had but spat in her face,
would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut out of the camp for seven
days, and after that she may be brought in again." (Num. 12:14) This is a bewildering
comment, on its face. The Bible says that if a man who has a disease involving a disgusting discharge from his
penis spits on you, you need to wash, but are ceremonially unclean for the rest of the day (Lev. 15:2-8). The
Bible says that if a man refuses to marry his brother's widow and sire heirs for his brother on her, the widow
is entitled to spit in his face and shame him for the rest of time (Deut. 25:5-10). In other words, there is
absolutely no cultic significance to Godde's comment.
Tom Butler comments that on the other hand, if it was Moses who struck
Miriam with "leprosy," "Miriam can be healed from this sin [of Moses's that] has been laid upon her, but
Moses must understand that he cannot simply impose and then withdraw such powerful signs at a whim. She
must at least go through the same rite of purification that would be required if her father (or, it might be said,
her brother) had [spat] on her!
So Miriam was shut out of the camp for seven days; and the people did not set out on the march until Miriam had been brought in again. (Num. 12:15) Leviticus 14:1-32 sets out the ritual of purification for someone who is cleansed of a skin disease. The priest examines you outside the camp; if you have been healed, the priest calls for two live, unblemished birds, a (red) clay bowl filled with "living" water (water from a running stream), some cedar (red) wood, some (red) hyssop, and some scarlet (red) yarn. (Blood, the symbol of life, was the only color believed to have the inherent power to drive away evil spirits.) The priest has one of the birds slaughtered over the bowl; mixes in the wood, hyssop, and yarn; dips the live bird into the mixture and onto the recovered patient; and then releases the bird (and whatever evil spirits might have caused the death symbolism of the disease) to fly into open country. The recovered patient is then allowed to return to the camp, but may not sleep in a tent again for another seven days. On the seventh day after that, the recovered patient must shave off all the hair on his or her body, including eyebrows, and then have a ceremonial bath. On the eighth day, the recovered patient must offer two male lambs (females are too valuable), six quarts of fine flour mixed with oil, and one and a half "measures" of oil. The priest slaughters one of the lambs and puts some of its blood on the recovered patient's right ear (so that she or he will hear the word of Godde), right hand (so she will do the will of Godde), and right big toe (so she will walk in Godde's ways).
I mention all this because the ritual of purification is virtually identical to the ritual for ordaining a priest; the one who is thus anointed is entering a new life of service to Godde (in this case in gratitude for being healed). It is at least plausible that in the original story, Miriam was consecrated as a priest to the female followers of YHWH; but when this text was redacted, several hundred years later, the men of the YHWH cult were so firmly convinced of the implausibility of a woman being ordained a priest that they invented the “leprosy” story to explain why Miriam went through the seven-day ritual.
This all may have been a little long-winded and confusing. Following is what I believe to be a plausible translation. Most of it is my own translation from the Septuagint, and I might add that the Greek had some surprises (like the "pitchy Ethiopian"!); I wish I had studied Hebrew too. Here and there, I have inserted some colloquialisms to highlight what I believe was the original author's intended meaning. When I wasn't certain of the Greek, I consulted the New Revised Standard Version and the wonderful new translation by Priests For Equality. (The Greek, incidentally, names the female prophet "Mary.")
YHWH said to Moses, "Put your hand inside your cloak." He put his hand into his cloak; and when he took it out, his hand was covered with the scaling and flaking of an infectious skin disease, and was as white as snow. Then Godde said, "Put your hand back into your cloak" — so he put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored like the rest of his body. And God said, "If the Pharaoh isn't impressed when you turn your staff into a snake, maybe he'll be impressed by this." (Exodus 4:6-8)
Miriam and Aaron talked down Moses because of the Ethiopian wife he had married, who was black-red as pitch — and a higher social class to boot. They said, "Is Moses the only one who speaks on behalf of Our Godde? Don't we? What are we, chopped liver?"
And Our Godde heard. Now, Moses was the gentlest and most forgiving human being in the whole world. So Godde said immediately to Moses and Miram and Aaron, "You three — come into the tent/tabernacle of witness [skene of martyrs]." And they did.
And, descended as a pillar of cloud, Our Godde came and stood at the entrance of the tent of witness, and called Aaron and Miriam and they both came out.
And Godde said to them, "Listen to my words:
"When I create prophets, I speak to them in visions, in revelations, and in dreams. Not so my servant Moses, who gets my full support; I speak to him face to face [literally, mouth against mouth], plainly and not in enigmas, and he sees the glory of Your Godde.
I go to that much trouble for my servant Moses, and you are still not afraid to talk him down? What am I, chopped liver?"
And in righteous wrath, Godde left, and the cloud withdrew from the tent.
And at some point in the confusion, Miriam had turned white as snow with an infectious skin disease. When Aaron saw Miriam's disease, he said to Moses, "I ask you, my lord — do not you , Moses, join Godde in attacking our sin; because you know we were as blameless as little white lambs. Do not transform Miriam into someone as good as dead, like a premature fetus that comes from its mother's womb half consumed by disease."
And Moses bellowed to Godde like a lion, "O Godde, I ask you — heal her!"
And Godde said to Moses, "It's not that easy, smart guy. If her father had spat [Greek: ptui] in her face, would she not have to live in shame for seven days? Let her go through the seven-day ritual for purifying a sufferer of disease or readying someone for ordination, out of the camp, and then she can come back in."
So Miriam was shut out of the camp for seven days, and no one would stir a foot until the prophet had been returned to the camp, purified and ordained.
The Israelites, the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of
Zin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh. Miriam died there, and was buried
there. (Num. 20:1) Zin, or "flat," referred to the desert between the Dead Sea and, on the east,
Arabah. Kadesh ("holy") was the farthest point the Israelites got to Canaan before getting restive,
complaining, and starting the strictly penal part of their long hadj. According to the Rev. H. Clay Trumbull
and Smith's Bible Dictionary, it was the holy fountain that gushed forth when Moses whacked the rock
in Exodus 17:6. The word is etymologically almost identical with today's wadi.
For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from
the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. (Micah
6:4) This is the only place in the Bible where a female prophet is mentioned outside of
whatever story she is a participant in, and is another indication of Miriam's extraordinarily high status in
Judaism.
Godde has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does YHWH require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your Godde? (Micah 6:8)