Lesson 248: Miriam Becomes Leprous

Num. 12

Full Lesson HERE

INTRODUCTION. The children of Israel reached Mount Sinai three months after leaving Egypt. While they camped at the base of the mountain, the Lord delivered to them the Ten Commandments. However, because the people feared the thundering, lightning, and smoking mountain, they wanted Moses to go up into the mountain to commune with God (Ex. 19-20:21 ).

While Moses was in the mountain, he received from the Lord the two tables of stone containing the Ten Commandments written with the finger of God. The Lord also gave to Moses many other laws and instructions for building the tabernacle and establishing the priesthood (Ex. 20:22-26; 21-31 ).

After forty days and forty nights, Moses came down from the mountain. When he saw the children of Israel worshipping a golden calf, he threw down the tables of stone in great anger and broke them. When God in his wrath threatened to destroy the Israelites because of their idolatry, Moses pleaded with him to spare the people. Moses reminded God of his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He said that the Egyptians would say the God of Israel had brought the people out of Egypt to slay them in the mountains. Moses then challenged those that were on the Lord's side to come to him. The Levites gathered themselves to Moses, and he sent them throughout the camp with their swords. The Levites slew three thousand men that day who were worshipping the golden calf (Ex. 32).

God told Moses to hew two new tables of stone and come up into the mountain again. For forty days and forty nights, Moses was in the mountain a second time, and once more the Lord wrote the Ten Commandments on the tables of stone (Ex. 34).

After Moses descended the mountain the second time, he spoke the laws to the people. He gave them God's instructions for constructing the tabernacle and making the priestly

garments (Ex. 35-39). The tabernacle was completed and raised up on the first day of the first month in the second year after the Israelites left Egypt (Ex. 40: 17). On the first day of the second month the Lord told Moses to number the people. All the men twenty years and older, able to go to war, were numbered and the total was 603,550. However, the Levites were not included in this number, for they were given the special charge of caring for the tabernacle (Num. 1 ).

On the twentieth day of the second month in the second year, the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle. The children of Israel once again resumed their journey toward Canaan, entering the wilderness of Paran (Num. 10:11-12). This wilderness, described as a wild desert region, is a tableland in the central part of the Sinai Peninsula, rising from 3900 feet to 5290 feet above sea level.

Sometime after resuming their journeys, the people grew tired of the manna. They complained to Moses that in Egypt they had fish, fruits, and vegetables to eat. The Lord became angry and told Moses that He would send flesh (meat) to the people, and they would eat, not one day, not two days, not five days, not ten days, nor twenty days, but a whole month until it came out their nostrils and was loathsome to them (Num. 11 :1-23).

Accordingly, the Lord sent a wind which brought quails from the sea round about the camp that reached a day's journey in each direction. The quails flew about two cubits above the ground (approximately three feet), and the people gathered them for two days and a night. While they ate and the flesh was between their teeth, before it was chewed, the Lord's anger was kindled against the people and they became very ill (Num. 11 :24-35).

Later Miriam and Aaron rebelled against Moses' leadership, accusing him of assuming too much authority. They spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married. Whether this woman was Zipporah whom Moses had married while tending Jethro's flocks after he fled from Egypt (Ex. 2:21 ), or whether this was a second wife is unknown. The complaint of Miriam and Aaron against Moses' wife was probably just an excuse, for the real motive of their rebellion seemed to be jealousy-they were jealous of Moses' authority.