Discovery BoxNumbers 12:2-10
Context12:2 They 1 said, “Has the Lord only 2 spoken through Moses? Has he not also spoken through us?” 3 And the Lord heard it. 4
12:3 (Now the man Moses was very humble, 5 more so than any man on the face of the earth.)
12:4 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. 12:5 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.
12:6 The Lord 6 said, “Hear now my words: If there is a prophet among you, 7 I the Lord 8 will make myself known to him in a vision; I will speak with him in a dream. 12:7 My servant 9 Moses is not like this; he is faithful 10 in all my house. 12:8 With him I will speak face to face, 11 openly, 12 and not in riddles; and he will see the form 13 of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” 12:9 The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he departed. 12:10 When 14 the cloud departed from above the tent, Miriam became 15 leprous 16 as snow. Then Aaron looked at 17 Miriam, and she was leprous!
[12:2] 1 tn Now the text changes to use a plural form of the verb. The indication is that Miriam criticized the marriage, and then the two of them raised questions about his sole leadership of the nation.
[12:2] 2 tn The use of both רַק and אַךְ (raq and ’akh) underscore the point that the issue is Moses’ uniqueness.
[12:2] 3 tn There is irony in the construction in the text. The expression “speak through us” also uses דִּבֵּר + בְּ(dibber + bÿ). They ask if God has not also spoken through them, after they have spoken against Moses. Shortly God will speak against them – their words are prophetic, but not as they imagined.
[12:2] 4 sn The statement is striking. Obviously the
[12:3] 5 tc The spelling of the word is a Kethib-Qere reading with only a slight difference between the two.
[12:6] 10 tn The form of this construction is rare: נְבִיאֲכֶם (nÿvi’akhem) would normally be rendered “your prophet.” The singular noun is suffixed with a plural pronominal suffix. Some commentators think the MT has condensed “a prophet” with “to you.”
[12:6] 11 tn The Hebrew syntax is difficult here. “The Lord” is separated from the verb by two intervening prepositional phrases. Some scholars conclude that this word belongs with the verb at the beginning of v. 6 (“And the Lord spoke”).
[12:7] 13 sn The title “my servant” or “servant of the
[12:7] 14 tn The word “faithful” is נֶאֱמָן (ne’eman), the Niphal participle of the verb אָמַן (’aman). This basic word has the sense of “support, be firm.” In the Niphal it describes something that is firm, reliable, dependable – what can be counted on. It could actually be translated “trustworthy.”
[12:8] 17 tn The emphasis of the line is clear enough – it begins literally “mouth to mouth” I will speak with him. In human communication this would mean equality of rank, but Moses is certainly not equal in rank with the
[12:8] 18 tn The word מַרְאֶה (mar’eh) refers to what is seen, a vision, an appearance. Here it would have the idea of that which is clearly visible, open, obvious.
[12:8] 19 tn The word “form” (תְּמוּנָה, tÿmunah) means “shape, image, form.” The Greek text took it metaphorically and rendered it “the glory of the
[12:10] 21 tn The disjunctive vav (ו) is here introducing a circumstantial clause of time.
[12:10] 22 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] 23 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).
