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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 12:8 and LXX Numbers 12:8 and Onkelos Numbers 12:8

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint · Targum

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Summary

In Numbers 12, Moses sees God and speaks with Him face to face, and this raises theological questions for translators who avoid physical descriptions of God. The Greek Septuagint and Aramaic Targum resolve this by referring to God’s “glory.”

Passages

Numbers 12:8

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

LXX Numbers 12:8

Septuagint
7 My servant Moses is not so; he is faithful in all my house. 8 I will speak to him mouth to mouth in appearance, and not in riddles; and he has seen the glory of the Lord; and why were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? 9 And the great anger of the Lord was upon them, and he departed.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Numbers

Onkelos Numbers 12:8

Targum
7 But My servant Moses is different; he is trusted among all My people. 8 I speak with him directly; in a vision, not in riddles; and he shall see the likeness of the glory of the Lord. Why, then, is it that you have not been afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses? 9 And the displeasure of the Lord was strong against them, and He went up.
50–500 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Onkelos Numbers

References

"... when God is the object, not the subject, of bodily actions, the targumists were faced with a problem. It was obvious that the human actions themselves could not be metaphorical; but the object of them had to be understood in a different way. when the Bible says that someone saw God, it is clear that they saw something, and that something had to be identifiable as God, without suggesting that God himself was visible in bodily form. One solution to this is to introduce God’s “glory”, understood as a visible bright light ... (Compare also the Septuagint and Targum Onkelos at Numbers 12:8) ..."
Edward M. Cook, “The Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in the Targums,” in A Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism, ed. Matthias Henze (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 92–117.

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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  • How are you dating the Masoretic text older than the Septuagint we don’t have the paleo Hebrew the original scriptures were written in. Why do you keep referring to modern Hebrew as the original text when the Septuagint is closer to the original Hebrew text you are lying

    zachary wilde, September 10, 2025

Numbers 12:8 and LXX Numbers 12:8 and Onkelos Numbers 12:8

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