Texts in Conversation
Numbers 12:12 is one of the “tiqqune soferim,” a traditional list of scribal corrections where editors changed language considered improper. The likely change from “our flesh” and “our mother” to “its flesh” and “its mother” may have removed the implicit shame of Moses’ family having a disfigured child.
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Numbers 12:12
Hebrew Bible
10 After the cloud had departed from above the tent, there was Miriam, leprous like snow. Then Aaron turned toward Miriam, and realized that she was leprous. 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 Do not let her be like a baby born dead, whose flesh is half consumed when it comes out of its mother’s womb!” 13 Then Moses cried to the Lord, “Heal her now, O God.” 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.”
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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LXX Numbers 12:12
Septuagint
10 And the cloud drew away from the tent, and, look, Miriam was leprous, like snow. And Aaron looked on Miriam, and, look, she was leprous. 11 And Aaron said to Moses, “I beseech, my lord, that sin not be laid on us, because we did not realize that we sinned. 12 Let her not become the same as dead, like an untimely birth coming forth from the mother’s womb, eating up half of her flesh.” 13 And Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “O God, I beseech you to heal her.” 14 And the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had indeed spit in her face, would she not be turned out for seven days? Let her be shut out for seven days outside the encampment. And afterward she will reenter the camp.”
Date: 3rd Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The words “its mother” and “its flesh” are among the so-called tiqqune sopherim, or “emendations of the scribes.” According to this tradition the text originally had here “our mother” and “our flesh,” but the ancient scribes changed these pronouns from the first person to the third person. Apparently they were concerned that the image of Moses’ mother giving birth to a baby with physical defects of the sort described here was somehow inappropriate, given the stature and importance of Moses ..."
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