Seder 111: Numbers 12---Moses' "Cushite Wife" and the Jealousy of Miriam and Aaron

A wise saying has been attributed to the 19th century American financier J.P. Morgan:  "There are two reasons for everything----a good reason, and the real reason."

Moses' older siblings, Miriam and Aaron, at one point "spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married" (Num 12:1).  Since the "Cushite woman" is mentioned in the Bible only in this verse, her identity has been the subject of much speculation. 

We know that Moses had a wife named Zipporah, daughter of Jethro the Midianite (Ex 2:21-22; 3:1).  When Moses returned to Egypt he did not bring his family into the dangerous situation he would be facing, but he was reunited with his family at Mt Sinai (Ex 18:2,5).  

In Hab 3:7, we read, "I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction; the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble."  This parallelism in this verse indicates that "Cushan" is another name for "Midian" or some part of Midian.  Based on this verse, one possibility is that the "Cushite wife" is Zipporah, with "Cushite" meaning "from Cushan."  Perhaps some friction had developed between Miriam and Zipporah, the two most important women in Moses' life.  

On the other hand, the adjective "Cushite" is usually a reference to Cush, the region south of Egypt in today's Sudan.  Some have speculated that Zipporah's mother was a Cushite, so that Zipporah could also be called a Cushite.  

Another possibility is that Moses had married a Cushite who was part of the "mixed multitude" that joined the Israelites on the Exodus.  Perhaps Zipporah had died, or perhaps they had had a falling out related to the "circumcision incident" recorded in Exodus 4, or perhaps this was just an additional wife.  Miriam could have been critical of this second marriage.  

There was also a body of legend surrounding the first 40 years of Moses' life, before he fled to Midian.  Stephen seems to make reference to this in Acts 7:22 when he says that Moses "was mighty in his words and deeds."  Josephus records a legend in which Moses, while acting as an Egyptian military leader, marries a Cushite princess.  Perhaps this was the Cushite wife, and Miriam  was criticizing something about this marriage.  

Some today wonder if there was a racist aspect to the criticism of the Cushite wife.  It is known that ancient Egyptians tended to harbor some prejudice against Cushites.  

Rabbinic tradition proposes an elaborate and imaginative scenario meant to portray everyone in the best possible light.  In this scenario Miriam and Aaron are saying that Zipporah is special and distinctive in the same way that a Cushite's dark skin is distinctive, and they are critical of Moses because he has become so focused on spiritual matters that he has stopped sleeping with Zipporah.  

Whatever the identity of the Cushite wife, the real reason for Miriam and Aaron's complaint is that they wanted a more prominent leadership role in Israel.  They said, "Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses?  Has he not spoken through us also?" (Num 12:2)

Moses is described here as "very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth" (v 3).  The word for "meek" could be a reference to humility, or it could be a reference to how weighed down he was by the burden of leading the Israelites.  In any case, he didn't reprimand his older sister and brother.  

But God did.  God made it clear that Moses had a special relationship with him and was to be treated with appropriate respect (vv 4-9).  And he struck Miriam with a serious skin condition.  Her skin became "like snow," perhaps a sort of poetic justice if Miriam had said something derogatory about the skin color of the "Cushite wife."  

Moses interceded for his sister.  "O God, please heal her---please" (v 13).  And God did so after a week of punishment.  In Num 11-12 God's mercy is prominently displayed, as Rob Wilson pointed out in a sermon at Church of the Messiah on Aug 6, 2022.

Seder 84: Lev 13---Ritual Impurity from a Skin Condition

 Old Testament scholar Richard Hess has pointed out that Leviticus 13 belongs to a genre not often seen in ancient sources, the Bible in particular:  an algorithm.  

The algorithm in Lev 13 is a procedure to be followed by Israel's high priest in identifying whether a person has a skin condition that would render that person ritually impure.  The procedure includes questions like:  Is the condition spreading? Is there discoloration?  Is the condition more than superficial?  Does it cover part, but not all, of the person?  Affirmative answers could lead to a decision that the person was ritually impure.  

Commentators have a number of suggestions on what kinds of skin conditions are in view in Lev 13.  Our English translations use the word "leprosy", derived from the Greek word lepra, which was used for a number of skin conditions.  The condition we now call "leprosy", Hansen's disease, was not one of them.  As far as we know, Hansen's disease did not reach that part of the world until the second century BC, and its symptoms do not seem to match the description in Lev 13.  (Thiessen has a good discussion of this in his book.)

As with other kinds of ritual impurity, there was a connection with death.  A person with this kind of condition, involving lots of flaking skin, looked a little bit like a zombie.  The key factor seems to be how the person's skin looked.  

Commentators point out that the high priest was not acting in a medical capacity in implementing this algorithm.  If the person was declared impure, that person was not being quarantined for a disease.  The conditions in view here are not highly contagious.  In fact, if the condition completely covered the person, which could be a big problem medically, the person would not be considered ritually impure (vv 12-13).  

There are three examples recorded in scripture where a person was divinely punished for a serious sin with this kind of condition:  Miriam in Num 12; Gehazi in 2 Kings 5, and King Uzziah in 2 Chron 26. 

I would argue that these special cases do not reflect the usual situation being described in Lev 13, for three reasons:

1. Leviticus 13 does not say that the condition was a punishment for sin. 
2. Other kinds of ritual impurity involve things that happen in life rather than sins.
3. There would be no need for the algorithm laid out in Lev 13 if this condition were usually a divine punishment.  In the three special cases mentioned above, the fact that they had this kind of condition was obvious to everyone.