Archaeologists have not determined the location of Taberah (v. 3). It must have been an insignificant spot geographically since Moses did not include it in the list of Israel's encampments in chapter 33 (cf. 33:16-17). It was a significant spot spiritually, however.
Not long after Israel left Sinai the people began to grumble again.
"A modern traveller [sic] would sympathize."89
"There is a cyclical nature to Israel's rebellions against God; obdurate people tend to repeat the sins of the past. The first rebellion of the redeemed people came on the third day of marching toward the Mount of God after their miraculous crossing of the Sea of Reeds (Exod 15:22-24). Now, three days out on their triumphal march to Canaan from Mount Sinai, they fall back into their complaining behavior. The pattern of three days' in both cases shows both similarity of actions as well as an intemperate, impatient attitude on the part of the people."90
To warn them that their dissatisfaction could develop into more serious rebellion God sent fire on the outskirts of the camp. It is not clear whether the fire (lightning?) that God sent killed some of the people or only burned up things such as bushes and tents. Evidently the people recognized this event as a warning from God and cried out to Moses whose intercession moved God to withhold further discipline.
"In the midst of his wrath, the Lord remembers mercy. This is one of the ongoing themes of Scripture and is a particular truism in the Book of Numbers."91
The people named the site Taberah (burning) in memory of this event.
This is the third time in the Pentateuch that an event such as this happened. God had wrestled with Jacob after Jacob had parted from his father-in-law and before he reentered the Promised Land (Gen. 31:55; 32:22-32). God had sought to kill Moses after Moses had left Sinai and had parted from his father-in-law and before he rejoined the Israelites (Exod. 4:24-26). Now God sent fire from heaven to the Israelites after they had left Sinai and Moses' father-in-law and before they entered the Promised Land. Each incident casts a foreboding mood over events and hints that something worse may follow soon.92
The "rabble"(v. 4) were the non-Israelites who had come out of Egypt with God's people (Exod. 12:38). It did not take them long to become discontented with conditions in the desert and to complain about their bland diet of manna. Their grumbling quickly infected the Israelites (v. 4). These malcontents despised God's provision of manna for them and longed for the stronger flavors they had enjoyed in Egypt. They failed to take heed to the warning God had given at Taberah.
"To spurn a regularly occurring, abundant and nutritious food only because it is boring is understandably human--a pitiable mark of our tendency toward ingratitude."93
Moses must have felt caught in the middle (vv. 10-15). On the one hand the people seemed to be mutinous, and on the other God was angry because of their attitude (v. 10). The discomfort of desert travel seems to have affected him too. He failed to look to God for His wisdom and provision. Instead he became frustrated. This frustration seems traceable to Moses' taking on more responsibility for the people than was really his.
Moses' use of the mother figure to describe God (v. 12) is unusual but not unique in Scripture (e.g., Exod. 4:22; Isa. 49:15; 66:13; Hos. 11:1; cf. 1 Thess. 2:7). Normally the Bible presents God as a male because He relates to people in traditionally male roles primarily. However, He also deals with us in ways that are more typically female, and in these instances He compares Himself to females.
God again accommodated to Moses' weakness (vv. 16-23; cf. Exod. 4:14) and provided 70 men to share Moses' responsibility of explaining God's will to the people. He did this so their complaining would not grow into mob violence. God's Spirit rested on Moses in a special measure (v. 17). God now gave these elders His Spirit in similar fashion and with Him the ability to prophesy.
"Prophesying here does not refer to prediction or even to proclamation but to giving (in song or speech) praise and similar expressions without prior training (see the comparable experience of Saul in 1 Sam. 10:9-11)."94
The people's discontent with God and His will for them (v. 20) had given them an unrealistic picture of their situation. They claimed to have been well-off in Egypt (vv. 18, 20). They forgot that they had been slaves.
". . . in ancient times meat was eaten in Israel only on special occasions. In the wilderness it would have been very much a luxury. In any event, the offense of the demand for meat was just part of the larger offense of romanticizing the time in Egypt, where there had always been an abundance of fish and fresh vegetables. They were saying in effect that the entire so-called deliverance' from slavery had turned out to be one huge disappointment."95
God's gracious provision of meat was a mixed blessing. He gave them what they requested but kept them where they were for a month (v. 20) and allowed them to get sick from the meat (v. 33; Ps. 106:15). This punishment was not vindictive but disciplinary and designed to teach the people to accept what God sent them as best for them. God permitted their trials in the wilderness to prepare them for the hardships they would face when they entered the land.
"The people were to be broken by the experience because they had despised the gift of God, glorified their stay in Egypt, and characterized their redemption from slavery as a meaningless event."96
God's promise to provide meat stretched Moses' faith to its limit (vv. 21-22). God reminded him that His power was limitless. Even Moses had temporarily forgotten the miracles in Egypt.
Evidently the elders' prophesying was a singular occurrence; it happened only on this one occasion (v. 25). This incident indicates that God's bestowal of the Holy Spirit at this time was temporary. The Spirit had not previously been on these elders. Furthermore it was selective. The Spirit was not on all the Israelites as He was on these elders. Contrast our day when the Spirit indwells all believers permanently (John 14:16-17; 16:7, 13; Acts 2).
"Though the Old Testament does not contain a fully developed theology of the Holy Spirit, it does reveal enough to show that the Spirit was a manifestation of God Himself and not merely a way of referring to some divine attribute (see, for example, Gen. 1:2; 6:3; Exod. 31:3; Num. 24:2; Judg. 3:10; 1 Sam. 10:6, 10; Isa. 11:2; 42:1; 61:1)."97
We have no reason to believe that God withdrew the Spirit from the elders. Evidently only their ability to prophesy ceased (v. 25).98This ability was a divine sign to the people that dampened their rebellious spirits.
Joshua's jealousy for Moses' honor in the nation (v. 28) is understandable (cf. Mark 9:38-39), but he had greater concern for Moses' honor than for the good of the people. Moses realized that Israel would be better off if God had given all the people His Spirit and the gift of prophecy. He has given all Christians His Spirit but not all of us this gift. God may have included this incident involving Joshua in the narrative because of his later role as Israel's leader. He also may have done so to emphasize the value of the gift of the Holy Spirit that God graciously gave the people even in their rebellious condition.
"Behind these words [in v. 29] lay a world of faith. We see that Moses understood that the issue was not for him to decide but for God. If necessary God would act on his servant's behalf."99
The Spirit (Heb. ruah) of Yahweh settled the leadership problem (v. 29), and now the wind (Heb. ruah) from Yahweh would solve the food problem (v. 31). The wind was from the southeast (Ps. 78:26) and apparently blew these quails from the Gulf of Aqabah (vv. 31-34). Normally quails migrated to the northeast, from central Africa, so the direction from which these quails came was an abnormal provision of the Lord.100The NASB interpreted verse 31 as meaning the quails lay three feet deep on the ground, but the NIV translators understood that they flew about three feet above the ground. The latter interpretation seems more probable to me.
The sickness of the people was a judgment for their greed. They wanted something for themselves that God had not chosen for them.101
"The central purpose of the narrative appears to be to show the failure of Moses' office as mediator for the people [v. 14]. . . . The ideal leadership of God's people is shown in the example of the seventy elders. . . . In other words, this narrative shows that Moses longed for a much different type of community than the one formed under the Law at Sinai. He longed for a community led not by a person like himself but a community guided by God's Spirit [v. 29; cf. Deut. 30:6].
"The view expressed by Moses in this narrative is precisely that of the later Israelite prophets in their description of the new covenant [cf. Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 11:20; 36:22-27; Joel 2:28]."102
After their month at Kibroth-hattaavah the people journeyed on to Hazeroth (lit. "enclosures") where the events recorded in the next chapter took place (cf. 12:16).
Perhaps it was God's exaltation of Moses by bestowing the gift of prophecy on the elders that provoked the envy of Miriam and Aaron. God reminded the people of Moses' special endowment with the Spirit when He blessed the elders with the Spirit.
12:1-3 Miriam was the outspoken leader in this incident. The priority of her name over Aaron's and the feminine gender of the verb in the Hebrew text translated "spoke"indicate this (v. 1).
The Cushite woman Moses had married was probably not Zipporah (Exod. 2:21). Zipporah was from Midian that was in Arabia. At this time Cush was a name for Upper Egypt (Ethiopia).
". . . the Septuagint and the Vulgate translate Cushite' in Numbers 12:1 as Ethiopian,' the word used by the Greeks and Romans to refer to the region south of Egypt inhabited by people with black skin."103
It seems unlikely that Miriam would have objected at this time to Moses' marrying Zipporah. He had married her years before this incident. The repetition of the phrase "for he had married a Cushite woman"(v. 1) seems to imply a recent marriage. This would explain Miriam's objection at this time better. We may assume, therefore, that Zipporah had died and that Moses had remarried. There is no reason to believe that Moses was married to two women at the same time, though this is possible. Marriage to a Cushite was within the will of God. God had only forbidden the Israelites from marrying Canaanites (Exod. 34:16).
Evidently Miriam and Aaron felt their leading roles in Israel as prophetess (Exod. 15:20) and high priest were losing distinctiveness as God gave 70 elders the privilege of mediating His word. Perhaps Miriam saw in Moses' new wife a threat to her role as the leading female in Israel.
The statement of Moses' humility (v. 3) was not a boastful claim by the writer but an inspired statement of fact. We need not conclude that another writer added it later since it is essential to the argument of this passage. That another writer added it later is a distinct possibility, however.104
12:4-9 God's common method of communicating with His prophets was by giving them visions and dreams (v. 6).105Moses was a specially privileged prophet, however, with whom God spoke directly without any special mediation or reserve. He spoke with Moses as friends converse (v. 8; cf. Exod. 33:11).106
12:10-15 The Lord punished Miriam for her dissatisfaction with her divinely appointed role in the nation. He punished her with leprosy, the disease that specially symbolized sin (Lev. 13-14).107All the Israelites probably identified her self-assertion as sin. Perhaps God did not smite Aaron because his involvement was not as great.
"In the present narrative, the sign of Moses' leadership was Miriam's leprosy, which was white as snow' (Nu 12:10). Similarly, one of the first signs given to vindicate God's election of Moses as leader of his people was the sign of leprosy, white as snow' (Ex 4:6). In the initial narratives dealing with the work of Moses, Moses himself doubted his calling and consequently became a leper. Here, however, it is Miriam who doubts and thus becomes a leper. We should also note that the other sign given to vindicate the role of Moses in the earlier narrative was the serpent that came from Moses' rod (Ex 4:3). So also here, when Moses' authority is further questioned by the people at the end of their time in the wilderness (Nu 21:5), God responds by sending serpents against them (21:6)."108
Moses interceded for Miriam at Aaron's pleading. Ironically Aaron had wanted to be like Moses, but instead of being able to intercede directly with God as Moses did, Aaron had to appeal to Moses who interceded with God.109God again showed mercy. He removed her leprosy but punished her with exclusion from the camp for seven days (Lev. 14:8). Spitting in the face (v. 14) was an act of contempt for one who had done something despicable (cf. Deut. 25:9; Job 17:6; 30:10). The people suffered too as a result of Miriam and Aaron's rebellion. God halted their progress toward the Promised Land again (v. 15; cf. 11:20).
"Aaron, on seeing the judgment of leprosy come upon his sister, beseeches Moses for mercy. There is surely in his prayer an implicit recognition of the different kind of authority that Moses had. Indeed, he is acknowledging that Moses possessed a power in intercession with God that he himself could not exercise, hence his appeal to his brother."110
"The purpose of this chapter, then, is to vindicate Moses' divinely given leadership and to brush aside any further suggestion that, because of the establishment of other forms of authority, the type of leadership epitomized in Moses was no longer valid."111
12:16 From Hazeroth Israel moved on to the wilderness of Paran and Kadesh on the border of Canaan.
These three failures to be content with God's provisions and plans at Taberah, Kibroth-hattaavah, and Hazeroth prepared the Israelites for an even more serious failure at Kadesh.
