Numbers 12 as a story of Restorative Justice
I’m not sure I’ve ever paid full attention to this narrative before, but here are some reflections for you, as I’ve read and thought about it recently.
12:1 1 Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married (for he had married an Ethiopian woman). 12:2 They said, “Has the LORD only spoken through Moses? Has he not also spoken through us?” And the LORD heard it.
12:3 (Now the man Moses was very humble, more so than any man on the face of the earth.)
Whereas chapter 11 of Numbers presents a popular movement against Moses’ leadership and YHWH, chapter 12 mirrors this with a challenge from within the leadership, Moses’ own family.
The presenting issue, the cause for slander and back-speech by Miriam and Aaron, is that Moses has married a ‘Cushite’ women. This term could refer to (i) an Ethiopian or Nubian, (ii) a Kassite (see Gen 10:8, i.e. from east of Babylon), or (iii) ‘Cushan’, which parallels Midian in Hab 3:7. Commentators have generally been divided whether Zipporah is meant, who could be spoken of in the third category, though Ex 18:2 suggests Zipporah has gone home with Jethro; others therefore speak of a second wife, lawfully married, of Ethiopian origin.
We should, however, recognise that there is a clear ethnic, and almost certainly colourist, dimension to the complaint. Moses has married a foreign woman, though presumably one incorporated into Israel (perhaps from the group mentioned in Ex 12:38 who joined Israel in the Exodus), and almost certainly a Black woman.
At the same time, their complain is multifaceted, in that they are complaining about Moses’ unique leadership role, and asserting their own claim or portion as spokespersons for God.
Verse 3 has always struck readers as odd – did Moses really write that he was the humblest guy on earth? That does seem unlikely. It also seems unlikely that the point is about humility per se, so much as meekness. Moses, by his own character, would not have asserted himself at this juncture, but YHWH intervenes. The text doesn’t tell us, but we ought to stop and ponder what sort of pain would Moses have felt, at the betrayal and opposition of his own siblings?
12:4 The LORD spoke immediately to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam: “The three of you come to the tent of meeting.” So the three of them went. 12:5 And the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent; he then called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward.
12:6 The LORD said, “Hear now my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known to him in a vision; I will speak with him in a dream. 12:7 My servant Moses is not like this; he is faithful in all my house. 12:8 With him I will speak face to face, openly, and not in riddles; and he will see the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” 12:9 The anger of the LORD burned against them, and he departed. 12:10 When the cloud departed from above the tent, Miriam became leprous as snow. Then Aaron looked at Miriam, and she was leprous!
God intervenes directly in this situation, and calls both the offenders (Aaron and Miriam) and the offended (Moses) to the tent of meeting, but only calls the offenders into his presence. In that context, he lays out the truth of the situation, and confronts Aaron and Miriam with their sin. The process of justice requires a truth-telling, and here it is God who does it. In vv 6-8 he affirms the unique status of Moses – Moses indeed is ‘my servant’, ‘faithful’, and God speaks to him ‘face to face’, ‘openly’, and he sees ‘the form of YHWH’. Most of these are unique, or near-unique, privileges throughout the OT. No one shares as intimate, confidante-like, open communication with God. And so Miriam and Aaron’s slander is wrongly grounded – YHWH does speak through them, but not like he speaks to Moses.
Justice here requires a punishment. I’m not convinced that this means justice always needs a punishment, but God gives one to Miriam in particular, and I believe we are meant to connect this to v1 in particular, because Miriam becomes leprous as snow. This punishment is ironic in that Miriam exhibits prejudice against a dark-skinned woman, and in turn is made white, as an affliction, that would result in her exclusion from the community (the very thing that Miriam probably believed ought to apply to Moses’ wife).
12:11 So Aaron said to Moses, “O my lord, please do not hold this sin against us, in which we have acted foolishly and have sinned! 12:12 Do not let her be like a baby born dead, whose flesh is half-consumed when it comes out of its mother’s womb!”
12:13 Then Moses cried to the LORD, “Heal her now, O God.” 12:14 The LORD said to Moses, “If her father had only spit in her face, would she not have been disgraced for seven days? Shut her out from the camp seven days, and afterward she can be brought back in again.”
The text here is ironic. Aaron, who desired to have Moses’ role as mediatory and intercessor to God, acts instead as an intercessor for Miriam to Moses. He specifically asks Moses not to hold this sin against them – a plea for forgiveness and restoration. Moses in turn acts as intercessor directly to God, the unique role he has, and exercises it on behalf of those who wronged him. Moses very act of intercession depends upon his own extension of grace and forgiveness to Aaron and Miriam. God, however, sets instead a time limit – seven days’ exclusion outside the camp. The reference to spitting appears to have in view a sign of contempt (e.g. Deut 25:9, Isa 50:6), and the Torah generally prescribes (minimum) 7-day exclusion periods for cleansing from ‘leprosy’ (whether actual leprosy or not). Miriam’s exclusion for 7 days thus (i) represents a minimal sentence, (ii) exposes her to public disgrace, (iii) has built into it the notion of cleansing.
12:15 So Miriam was shut outside of the camp for seven days, and the people did not journey on until Miriam was brought back in. 12:16 After that the people moved from Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.
Miriam is not left behind, though. She is shut out, for a time, and the whole community does not move on without her. It seems that even at this time, YHWH leads the people with the pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night (cf. Num 14:14), which hints that the cloud-pillar did not arise to lead them from this camping spot at this time. I tentatively suggest then that the community did not move on without Miriam precisely because God did not let them. He waited, and so they waited, until she could be restored. And when she was restored, everything was restored – the community has been made whole again, the transgression has been dealt with, the uncleanness has been cleansed, and Miriam, Aaron, Moses, and Moses’ Black wife, experience shalom together.
Now, it would be a little remiss if I stopped here, because I don’t think you should leave an OT text in the OT, without taking it through Jesus. And here I do think you can go a lot more directly to the ‘now’, but you still ought to take the text to Jesus first. Because we ought to see in this passage Jesus in two ways. Firstly, in that Moses is a type of Jesus, and in the words of Psalm 69:9b, “the insults of those who insult you fall upon me”. Jesus is the reviled leader and intercessor against whom we have offended, and who in turn interceded before the Father on our behalf that we might not be judged. And yet Jesus not only intercedes on our behalf in prayer, but it is he who takes the penalty, which is why Heb 13:12 says, “Jesus also suffered outside the camp” - his execution on the hill outside the holy city is his exclusion on our behalf as unclean and unworthy. Yet on the third day he is raised in glory, vindicated, and restored, and so it is in him too that we are cleansed, and re-enter the camp, the presence of the holy community gathered around the throne….
When we read the OT Christologically, we are in a much better place hermeneutically to read and apply it to the community of the new covenant. Presuming that this is a dynamic within the sacred family, when slander, prejudice, discord, rivalry, or other forms of conflict arise, the offended party should take comfort that nothing they are suffering is alien to Jesus who has borne our sufferings and our iniquities. We are united in him in suffering, and our suffering is modelled on his. So too, the forgiveness that comes from him, enables us not only to forgive others, but in fact to intercede for them and seek their good. That, nonetheless, may require some forms of temporal rehabilitation. Similarly, those who are offenders may rest secure in the knowledge that Christ himself has taken our sins, borne our disgrace, and extends his forgiveness and his reincorporation into the sacred community to us as sinners. This security creates the humility that allows us to repent before others, to bear temporal punishments if needed, and to desire reintegration and restoration as (hopefully) a little-bit-more-sanctified humans in our community.
All Biblical quotations from The NET Bible, First Edition (2005)