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Numbers

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Chapter 12

1 Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married⁠ (for he had married an Ethiopian woman).⁠ 2 They said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has he not also spoken through us?” And the Lord heard it. 3 (Now the man Moses was very humble, more so than any man on the face of the earth.) 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. 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.⁠ 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. 7 My servant Moses is not like this; he is faithful in all my house. 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?” 9 The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he departed. 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.” 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. 16 After that the people moved from Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.

Texts in conversation

Compare Numbers 12:10 and Deuteronomy 24:9

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

In Numbers, Miriam is afflicted with leprosy after speaking against Moses, and in Deuteronomy, the moment is recalled with a warning to remember her. These establish an unusual pattern where inappropriate speech results in physical consequences.

Passages

Numbers 12:10

Hebrew Bible
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?” 9 The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he departed. 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!”
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Numbers

Deuteronomy 24:9

Hebrew Bible
7 If a man is found kidnapping a person from among his fellow Israelites, and regards him as mere property and sells him, that kidnapper must die. In this way you will purge the evil from among you. 8 Be careful during an outbreak of leprosy to follow precisely all that the Levitical priests instruct you; as I have commanded them, so you should do. 9 Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam along the way after you left Egypt. 10 When you make any kind of loan to your neighbor, you may not go into his house to claim what he is offering as security. 11 You must stand outside and the person to whom you are making the loan will bring out to you what he is offering as security.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

References

"... Judges 12 tells of how Jephthah, previously so slow to go to war against Israel's foreign enemy, the Ammonites, rushes after his victory over them to initiate a civil war among the Israelites, in which Jephthah and his fellow Gileadites kill 40,000 from the tribe of Ephraim. It would appear that the sacrifice of just one innocent human, his own daughter, quickly hardened and desensitized Jephthah to the precipitate slaying of tens of thousands of his own people. Soon thereafter, he died, and, the text tells us, he was buried in cities of Gilead (12:7). This odd reference to a number of cities, the Midrash tells us, is not a scribal error of some sort, but signifies that he died a horrible death - his limbs atrophied and fell off one by one from his body, and were buried separately where each loss of limb occurred, as required by Jewish law. Of course, the text and the Midrash together are telling us of classic manifestations of leprosy, the Divine punishment throughout the Bible for moral transgressions committed through improper speech and its destructive consequences. (Numbers 12:10 and Deuteronomy 24:9) ..."
Lippman Bodoff, “The Tragedy of Jephthah,” JBQ 28.4 (2000): 251–255.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Numbers 12:10 and Deuteronomy 24:9

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