“And Miriam was shut out of the camp seven days: and the people journeyed not, till Miriam was brought in again.” — Numbers 12:15
Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth[1]. When Aaron and Miriam murmur against Moses in Numbers 12, God rises to Moses’ defense and singles out Miriam for seven days of leprosy and separation from the people of God. It is interesting what charge they attempt to lay against Moses. They spoke against him verse 1 says, “for he had married an Ethiopian woman.” Throughout scripture we are warned against marrying unbelievers. And indeed there were seven tribes explicitly marked for destruction, but the Ethiopians were not one of them. Miriam and Aaron took their assurance from their ancestry rather than from their God, and were forerunners of the Pharisees in this regard. Salvation is of the Lord, and if the Lord did not rebuke Moses’ choice of spouse it must mean that the woman was indeed a believer, a stranger who took hold of God’s covenant by faith, thus foreshadowing the gospel era.
We may wonder why Aaron was not also stricken with leprosy, seeing as he was guilty of the same sin. God’s reply to Moses’ prayer for Miriam’s restoration may hold the answer. “If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again.”[2] Emphasis mine on “her father.” The statement implies that Miriam does not have a husband to reprove her and that she would have feared her father’s rebuke more than she fears the Lord’s. When Sarah laughs inwardly at the Lord’s promise of a child in old age[3], the Lord chides Abraham rather than Sarah, because God has placed Abraham as Sarah’s head in the marriage covenant. Likewise in the garden, the blame of the fall is placed primarily on Adam, who as the husband was given headship over the wife.[4] Therefore without a male head in her life, the responsibility to walk in the Lord’s ways fell on Miriam herself.
God said to Israel through the prophet Malachi, “A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear?”[5] God detests it when we show more fear of man than of God. So the Lord allows Miriam to be shut out of the camp for seven days, but in all that time the glory cloud never departs from the camp forcing them to abandon her in the wilderness. The Lord may chasten us sore, but he does not leave us to death[6]. He is faithful who promised never to fail nor forsake us.[7]
“For the LORD thy God is a merciful God, he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.”
— Deuteronomy 4:31
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