Discovery BoxNumbers 20:12
Context20:12 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough 1 to show me as holy 2 before 3 the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this community into the land I have given them.” 4
Numbers 20:2
Context20:2 And there was no water for the community, and so they gathered themselves together against Moses and Aaron.
Numbers 12:10-12
Context12:10 When 5 the cloud departed from above the tent, Miriam became 6 leprous 7 as snow. Then Aaron looked at 8 Miriam, and she was leprous!
12:11 So Aaron said to Moses, “O my lord, 9 please do not hold this sin against us, in which we have acted foolishly and have sinned! 12:12 Do not let her be like a baby born dead, whose flesh is half-consumed when it comes out of its 10 mother’s womb!”
Numbers 12:1
Context12:1 11 Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against 12 Moses because of the Cushite 13 woman he had married 14 (for he had married an Ethiopian woman).
Numbers 13:21-22
Context13:21 So they went up and investigated the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, 15 at the entrance of Hamath. 16 13:22 When they went up through the Negev, they 17 came 18 to Hebron where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, 19 descendants of Anak, were living. (Now Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan 20 in Egypt.)
Proverbs 3:12
Context3:12 For the Lord disciplines 21 those he loves,
just as a father 22 disciplines 23 the son in whom he delights.
Revelation 3:19
Context3:19 All those 24 I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent!
[20:12] 1 tn Or “to sanctify me.”
[20:12] 2 sn Using the basic meaning of the word קָדַשׁ (qadash, “to be separate, distinct, set apart”), we can understand better what Moses failed to do. He was supposed to have acted in a way that would have shown God to be distinct, different, holy. Instead, he gave the impression that God was capricious and hostile – very human. The leader has to be aware of what image he is conveying to the people.
[20:12] 3 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
[20:12] 4 tn There is debate as to exactly what the sin of Moses was. Some interpreters think that the real sin might have been that he refused to do this at first, but that fact has been suppressed from the text. Some think the text was deliberately vague to explain why they could not enter the land without demeaning them. Others simply, and more likely, note that in Moses there was unbelief, pride, anger, impatience – disobedience.
[12:10] 5 tn The disjunctive vav (ו) is here introducing a circumstantial clause of time.
[12:10] 6 tn There is no verb “became” in this line. The second half of the line is introduced with the particle הִנֵה (hinneh, “look, behold”) in its archaic sense. This deictic use is intended to make the reader focus on Miriam as well.
[12:10] 7 sn The word “leprosy” and “leprous” covers a wide variety of skin diseases, and need not be limited to the actual disease of leprosy known today as Hansen’s disease. The description of it here has to do with snow, either the whiteness or the wetness. If that is the case then there would be open wounds and sores – like Job’s illness (see M. Noth, Numbers [OTL], 95-96).
[12:11] 9 tn The expression בִּי אֲדֹנִי (bi ’adoni, “O my lord”) shows a good deal of respect for Moses by Aaron. The expression is often used in addressing God.
[12:12] 10 tc The words “its mother” and “its flesh” are among the so-called tiqqune sopherim, or “emendations of the scribes.” According to this tradition the text originally had here “our mother” and “our flesh,” but the ancient scribes changed these pronouns from the first person to the third person. Apparently they were concerned that the image of Moses’ mother giving birth to a baby with physical defects of the sort described here was somehow inappropriate, given the stature and importance of Moses.
[12:1] 11 sn In this short chapter we find a prime example of jealousy among leaders and how God dealt with it. Miriam and Aaron are envious of Moses’ leadership, but they use an occasion – his marriage – to criticize him. Often the immediate criticism is simply a surface issue for a deeper matter. God indicates very clearly he will speak through many people, including them, but Moses is different. Moses is the mediator of the covenant. The chapter is a lesson of what not to do. They should have fulfilled their duties before God and not tried to compete or challenge the leader in this way. There is a touch of divine irony here, for Miriam is turned white with leprosy. The chapter falls easily into the sections of the story: the accusation (vv. 1-3), the
[12:1] 12 tn The preposition bet (בְּ) has the adversative sense here, “[speak] against” (see also its use for hostile speech in 21:5, 7). Speaking against is equal to the murmuring throughout the wilderness period. The verb of the sentence is וַתְּדַבֵּר (vattÿdabber), the feminine form of the verb. This indicates that Miriam was the main speaker for the two, the verb agreeing with the first of the compound subject.
[12:1] 13 tn The Hebrew text has הַכֻּשִׁית (hakkushit, “the Cushite”) as the modifier of “woman.” The Greek text interpreted this correctly as “Ethiopian.” The word Cush in the Bible can describe the Cassites, east of Babylon of the later period (Gen 10:18), or Ethiopia (Isa 20:3; Nah 3:5; et al). Another suggestion is that it would refer to Cushan of Hab 3:7, perhaps close to Midian, and so the area Moses had been. This would suggest it could be Zipporah – but the Bible does not identify the Cushite as Zipporah. The most natural understanding would be that it refers to an Egyptian/Ethiopian woman. The text does not say when Moses married this woman, or what Miriam’s problem with her was. It is clear that it was a racial issue, by virtue of the use of “Cushite.” Whether she was of darker skin than the Hebrews would be hard to say, since the Bible gives no further detail. Neither does it say if this is a second wife, or a woman Moses married since Zipporah went home (Exod 18:2). These do not seem to be the issues the text wishes to elaborate on; it is simply stating that this woman was the occasion for a deeper challenge.
[13:21] 15 sn Zin is on the southern edge of the land, but Rehob is far north, near Mount Hermon. The spies covered all the land.
[13:21] 16 tn The idiom uses the infinitive construct: “to enter Hamath,” meaning, “on the way that people go to Hamath.”
[13:22] 17 tc The MT has the singular, but the ancient versions and Smr have the plural.
[13:22] 18 tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the following clause. The first verse gave the account of their journey over the whole land; this section focuses on what happened in the area of Hebron, which would be the basis for the false report.
[13:22] 19 sn These names are thought to be three clans that were in the Hebron area (see Josh 15:14; Judg 1:20). To call them descendants of Anak is usually taken to mean that they were large or tall people (2 Sam 21:18-22). They were ultimately driven out by Caleb.
[13:22] 20 sn The text now provides a brief historical aside for the readers. Zoan was probably the city of Tanis, although that is disputed today by some scholars. It was known in Egypt in the New Kingdom as “the fields of Tanis,” which corresponded to the “fields of Zoar” in the Hebrew Bible (Ps 78:12, 43).
[3:12] 21 tn Heb “chastens.” The verb יָכַח (yakhakh) here means “to chasten; to punish” (HALOT 410 s.v. יכח 1) or “to correct; to rebuke” (BDB 407 s.v. 6). The context suggests some kind of corporeal discipline rather than mere verbal rebuke or cognitive correction. This verse is quoted in Heb 12:5-6 to show that suffering in the service of the
[3:12] 22 tc MT reads וּכְאָב (ukh’av, “and like a father”) but the LXX reflects the Hiphil verb וְיַכְאִב (vÿyakh’iv, “and scourges every son he receives”). Both readings fit the parallelism; however, it is unnecessary to emend MT which makes perfectly good sense. The fact that the writer of Hebrews quotes this passage from the LXX and it became part of the inspired NT text does not mean that the LXX reflects the original Hebrew reading here.
[3:12] 23 tn The verb “disciplines” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is implied by the parallelism; it is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.
[3:19] 24 tn The Greek pronoun ὅσος (Josos) means “as many as” and can be translated “All those” or “Everyone.”
