Discovery BoxNumbers 12:3-16
Context12:3 (Now the man Moses was very humble, 1 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 2 said, “Hear now my words: If there is a prophet among you, 3 I the Lord 4 will make myself known to him in a vision; I will speak with him in a dream. 12:7 My servant 5 Moses is not like this; he is faithful 6 in all my house. 12:8 With him I will speak face to face, 7 openly, 8 and not in riddles; and he will see the form 9 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 10 the cloud departed from above the tent, Miriam became 11 leprous 12 as snow. Then Aaron looked at 13 Miriam, and she was leprous!
12:11 So Aaron said to Moses, “O my lord, 14 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 15 mother’s womb!”
12:13 Then Moses cried to the Lord, “Heal her now, O God.” 16 12:14 The Lord said to Moses, “If her father had only spit 17 in her face, would she not have been disgraced for seven days? Shut her out from the camp seven days, and afterward she can be brought back in again.”
12:15 So Miriam was shut outside of the camp for seven days, and the people did not journey on until Miriam was brought back in. 18 12:16 After that the people moved from Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.
[12:3] 1 tc The spelling of the word is a Kethib-Qere reading with only a slight difference between the two.
[12:6] 3 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] 4 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] 5 sn The title “my servant” or “servant of the
[12:7] 6 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] 7 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] 8 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] 9 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] 10 tn The disjunctive vav (ו) is here introducing a circumstantial clause of time.
[12:10] 11 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] 12 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).
[12:10] 13 tn Heb “turned to.”
[12:11] 14 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] 15 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.
[12:13] 16 tc Some scholars emend אֵל (’el, “God”) to עַל(’al, “no”). The effect of this change may be seen in the NAB: “‘Please, not this! Pray, heal her!’”
[12:14] 17 tn The form is intensified by the infinitive absolute, but here the infinitive strengthens not simply the verbal idea but the conditional cause construction as well.
[12:15] 18 tn The clause has the Niphal infinitive construct after a temporal preposition.
