Journal Through the Bible: Week 22 Thursday

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Numbers chapter 12

This is a short chapter, but it is fraught with peril. It is also difficult to determine exactly what was transpiring in Moses' life at the time.

Athough it wasn't bad enough that the people of the congregation of Israel grumbled about everything their leader did or did not do (which sounds exactly like many church congregations today), even Moses's older brother and sister grumbled about him. Jealousy and sibling rivalry are nothing new either.

It appears that Moses' family did not like his wife, the "Ethiopian" woman that he had married. There is no further mention of Zipporah by name in Old Testament scripture so it is possible that this obscure reference to an "Ethiopian" woman, which can also mean a Cushite woman (from the family of Cush, grandson of Noah, who settled in the northeastern part of Africa) could be Zipporah and this family squabble is about her. After the circumcision episode in the inn (see Exodus 4:24-26) it is possible that she went back home to her father, Jethro, who then brought her and her sons to Moses when he was back in the neighborhood, encamped around Mount Sinai. Remember that we just read a couple of days ago that Moses asked his father-in-law to go to the Promised Land with the Israelites but Jethro said he was content in his own home. If indeed the "Ethiopian" is Zipporah it is clear that she did not meet the expectations of Miriam and Aaron!

If the reference is not to Zipporah it means that Moses married another woman sometime within the year after the exodus, a very busy year of his life: one where he spent most of his time conversing with God which seems to leave little time for wooing and winning a wife. If this was indeed a second marriage for Moses, and the text does tend to make it sound as though it was, she had to have met the strenuous qualifications for marrying into the Levitical family of which Moses was a part. There is never any record of children from a second marriage, and there would be one, because Moses was the great genealogical recorder who gave us his family tree in Genesis and Exodus all the way up from its roots in Adam!

Does God make any promises in this chapter?

• When addressing Aaron and Miriam from the door of the tabernacle God promised that He would speak directly via dreams and visions to any prophets He had chosen but He promised that He would speak directly to Moses. Miriam was temporarily cursed with leprosy and was shut out of the camp for presuming too much.

Does this chapter teach anything about Jesus?

• Verse 3 references Moses' meekness as being the meekest man on earth. This would be a type of Christ, the truly meekest man who ever walked the earth.
• Moses is the type of Christ when he intercedes for the guilty. In this case it was his sister, Miriam.

Does this chapter teach anything about yet-future events?

• Judgment awaits those who speak against God's anointed. In this chapter it was Miriam speaking against Moses. In the future it will be those who speak against Jesus. In both cases, the offenders are shut out of God's dwelling place. In the passage it is the camp. In eternity it is Heaven and the New Earth.

Does God issue any commands?

• After Aaron and Miriam criticized Moses and his wife God commanded the three siblings to come to the tabernacle to meet with Him.