Go to Related Reading
About this book

Numbers

About this book
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 KTU 1.3 V:7 and Numbers 12:5

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Hebrew Bible

Share:

Summary

The meeting tent in Numbers 12 shares El's dwelling in the Baal Cycle as a place to approach a god, giving the dispute over Moses' authority a setting drawn from older ideas of divine presence.

Passages

KTU 1.3 V:7

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
“I shall trample him like a lamb to the ground; I shall make his gray hair run with blood, the gray hair of his beard with gore, if he does not give a house to Baal like the gods, and a dwelling like the sons of Athirat!” She stamped her feet, and the earth shook. Then she set her face towards El at the source of the rivers, amidst the springs of the two deeps. She rolled back the tent of El, and came to the pavilion of the King, the Father of the Bright One. She came to the territory, the tent of the creator. Bull El her father heard her voice. El replied from within the seven chambers, through the eight façades of the closed rooms: […] Above […] “At the feet of the divine assistants I fall: I am much afraid!
1350–1185 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in KTU

Numbers 12:5

Hebrew Bible
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?”
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Numbers

References

“... Moreover, the description of Yahweh’s dwelling-place as a “tent” (’o¯hel) (e.g., Psalms 15:1; 27:6; 91:10; 132:3), called in the Pentateuchal traditions the “tent of meeting” (’ohel moˆ‘e¯d) (Exodus 33:7–11; Numbers 12:5, 10; Deuteronomy 31:14, 15), recalls the tent of El. The tabernacle of Yahweh has qeˇra¯sˇıˆm, usually understood as “boards” (Exodus 26–40); Numbers 3:36; 4:31), whereas the dwelling of El is called qrsˇ, perhaps “tabernacle” or “pa- vilion” (CAT 1.2 III 5; 1.3 V 8; 1.4 IV 24; 1.17 V 49). ...”
Mark S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 142.

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

Your feedback

KTU 1.3 V:7 and Numbers 12:5

Leave a comment

Your questions and comments are welcome!

Comments

Glossary

Search the Library