Aaron and Miriam
In the reading God gets angry at Moses for coming up with too many excuses for why he couldn’t lead the Israelites out of Egypt. You see, Moses had a speaking problem; he stuttered. So God appoints Aaron, Moses’ brother, to speak for him. The reading doesn’t say anything about Aaron’s response to being told to speak for Moses. I’d argue that he probably wasn’t too thrilled. He now has to speak to the Pharaoh, one of the most powerful people at that time, and command him to set the Israelites free. God was with him though and he spoke the words that God told Moses and then Moses told him.
We know even less about Miriam, Moses’ sister. She was a prophetess who liked to dance and play the timbrels.
What we do know is that the three of them seem very much like any other set of siblings: they disagreed with each other and were jealous of each other’s gifts. They attacked Moses for marrying someone from another race and were angry that Moses appointed leaders without their input. They said, “Are we not prophets as well as he” and “Why then should he take all the power to himself” It seems like they felt slighted and were jealous of the gifts God gave Moses. By focusing on their own pride they forgot who gave them their gifts in the first place and that their gifts were not for their own glory but for God’s. And because they forgot, God was angry. The lesson to draw from Miriam and Aaron is to always realize who gave us our gifts, to not be jealous of the gifts God has given others, and to use our gifts for God’s glory, not our own.
Exodus 4 10-27
God appoints Aaron to speak
10 But Moses said to the Lord, ‘O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.’ 11Then the Lord said to him, ‘Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.’ 13But he said, ‘O my Lord, please send someone else.’ 14Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, ‘What of your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he can speak fluently; even now he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you his heart will be glad. 15You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do. 16He indeed shall speak for you to the people; he shall serve as a mouth for you, and you shall serve as God for him. 17Take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs.’
Moses Returns to Egypt
18 Moses went back to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, ‘Please let me go back to my kindred in Egypt and see whether they are still living.’ And Jethro said to Moses, ‘Go in peace.’ 19The Lord said to Moses in Midian, ‘Go back to Egypt; for all those who were seeking your life are dead.’ 20So Moses took his wife and his sons, put them on a donkey, and went back to the land of Egypt; and Moses carried the staff of God in his hand.
21 And the Lord said to Moses, ‘When you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. 22Then you shall say to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord: Israel is my firstborn son. 23I said to you, ‘Let my son go that he may worship me.’ But you refused to let him go; now I will kill your firstborn son.” ’
24 On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the Lord met him and tried to kill him. 25But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ feet with it, and said, ‘Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!’ 26So he let him alone. It was then she said, ‘A bridegroom of blood by circumcision.’
27 The Lord said to Aaron, ‘Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.’ So he went; and he met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. 28Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which he had sent him, and all the signs with which he had charged him. 29Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the Israelites. 30Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses, and performed the signs in the sight of the people. 31The people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had given heed to the Israelites and that he had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshipped.
exodus 15:1-21
The Song of Moses
19 When the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his chariot drivers went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them; but the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground.
The Song of Miriam
20 Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. 21And Miriam sang to them:
‘Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.’
Numbers 11.35-12.16
35From Kibroth-hattaavah the people journeyed to Hazeroth.
12While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had indeed married a Cushite woman); 2and they said, ‘Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?’ And the Lord heard it. 3Now the man Moses was very humble,* more so than anyone else on the face of the earth. 4Suddenly the Lord said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, ‘Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.’ So the three of them came out. 5Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the entrance of the tent, and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forward. 6And he said, ‘Hear my words:
When there are prophets among you,
I the Lord make myself known to them in visions;
I speak to them in dreams.
7 Not so with my servant Moses;
he is entrusted with all my house.
8 With him I speak face to face—clearly, not in riddles;
and he beholds the form of the Lord.
Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?’ 9And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed.
10 When the cloud went away from over the tent, Miriam had become leprous,* as white as snow. And Aaron turned towards Miriam and saw that she was leprous.
11Then Aaron said to Moses, ‘Oh, my lord, do not punish us* for a sin that we have so foolishly committed. 12Do not let her be like one stillborn, whose flesh is half consumed when it comes out of its mother’s womb.’ 13And Moses cried to the Lord, ‘O God, please heal her.’ 14But the Lord said to Moses, ‘If her father had but spat in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut out of the camp for seven days, and after that she may be brought in again.’ 15So Miriam was shut out of the camp for seven days; and the people did not set out on the march until Miriam had been brought in again. 16After that the people set out from Hazeroth, and camped in the wilderness of Paran.
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