Third Rebellion: Challenge to Moses’ Authority (12:1–16)

Cushite wife (12:1). The geographical setting is Hazeroth (see comment on 11:35). “Cush” has a few possible identifications:98 (1) On the basis of Genesis 2:13; 10:6; Psalm 68:31; Isaiah 18:1, Cush, the first son of Ham, is identified with Nubia in modern Sudan, bordering ancient Egypt on the south. If this connection is assumed, Moses’ Cushite wife would be a woman other than Zipporah, his Midianite wife from the clan of Jethro and Reuel. Some have suggested that Zipporah died and the Cushite wife is of a recent marriage.99 (2) The synonymous parallel cola in Habakkuk 3:7 suggest an association of Cushan with the Midianites, giving credence to the identity of the Cushite woman with Zipporah. (3) The term Cushite may refer to a distinguishable physiological trait, such as that of the deeply tanned Midianites from northwest Arabia.

Ethnic purity was an important issue in ancient Israel; note the commands to drive out and/or annihilate the Canaanites from the Promised Land (33:51–56). The Pentateuch, however, contains explicit instructions that there was to be one code of law for the native Israelite and the sojourning foreigners in their midst. In 9:14, aliens living among the Israelites could even celebrate the Passover if they did so according to the statutes related to its commemoration, including circumcision as an indicator of that individual’s coming under the covenant relationship with the God of Israel (Ex. 12:48–49; cf. also Lev. 24:22; Num. 15:14–16, 29). It would seem, then, that Miriam’s complaint against Moses on the basis of ethnicity is not the real reason for her objections.

Statue of Nubian woman

Mulhu, courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Leprous like snow (12:10). On the Hebrew word ṣāraʿat (“skin disease, leprosy”), see comments on 5:2. Harrison suggests that “ṣāraʿat is a generic term for a group of pathological conditions and serves the same sort of function as the term cancer, which covers a wide range of degenerative tissue states.”100 Miriam probably does not suffer from Hansen’s disease, as skin deformity in leprosy is seldom “white as snow.” This description is the same as that with which God afflicted Moses at his point of unbelief at the burning bush (Ex. 4:6).

“Leprosy” in the ancient Near East and in the Bible was often seen as punishment for offenses against God (or the gods).101 The reference to Miriam’s degenerating to the appearance of “a stillborn infant,” whose scaly flesh sometimes peels off with the amniotic fluids when handled after birth, may indicate a severe form of eczema.

Desert of Paran (12:16). The Paran Desert is in the southeast Negev or northeast Sinai region.102 The Desert of Paran was the goal of the first phase of the journey (10:11), and from that area the spies are sent to explore the Promised Land (13:3).