Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. – Numbers 12:1

Today's Scripture Reading (December 6, 2021): Numbers 12

Racial slurs abound in our culture, but if you are outside of the slurred culture, you might just miss them. I know that I do. During the closing statements of the defense attorney in the case of the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, one of the defense lawyers commented on Arbery's dirty toenails. I have to admit that when she made the comment, I was more than a little confused. What did Arbery's toenails have to do with his murder? Arbery was wearing shoes at the time of his murder (he was out jogging, and you don't do that in bare feet), so how would his attackers even know what condition his toenails were in? It wasn't until much later that I realized that the comment was intended as more of a racial slur than a comment about Arbery's toenails. The statement was designed to dehumanize Arbery and make convicting his attacker of murder a little harder. But I had completely missed that aspect of the comment and just considered the attorney's words as more than a little strange.

A friend contacted me a few days ago with a comment that he had broken the Bible. His point was that if he could, at any point, show that the Bible was wrong or contradictory, then we could throw the whole thing out. I have heard the argument before but have never been convinced of its veracity. For one thing, I believe that there are passages that are hard to understand because of where we stand in history, and others might even seem contradictory. And I freely admit that some are in error, although I do not believe that the mistake disqualifies the whole text.

One of the seemingly contradictory comments concerns Moses's wife, Zipporah. Here we discover that Miriam and Aaron rebel against Moses because he married a "Cushite" wife. Cush was a geological area just south of Egypt, in the region of modern-day Sudan and Ethiopia. The problem with the comment is that Exodus says that Zipporah was the daughter of Jethro, the priest of Midian. Midian was East of Egypt, just south of modern-day Jordan. Zipporah can't be both from Midian and from Cush.

There are several solutions to the problem. Jethro, or Reuel, might have emigrated from Cush to Midian. It is possible. Another possibility is that Miriam and Aaron are not talking about Zipporah; they are talking about either a second wife that Moses had married in addition to Zipporah, which seems unlikely, or that Zipporah had died and Moses had remarried. The latter seems possible because Moses lived a long life (120 years), and he was over eighty at the time of this incident.

But maybe even more likely is that Miriam and Aaron were making a racial slur against Zipporah. Zipporah, the Midianite, might have had dark skin, and therefore they called her a Cushite. It was intended as a racial slur. Miriam would take the brunt of the punishment, indicating that she might have been the instigator of the insult. Because of the complaint, Miriam became leprous, and Aaron begged Moses to pray for her recovery.

God's response to Moses might support the idea that Miriam meant her comment as a racial slur. The Lord replied to Moses, "If her father had spit in her face, would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Confine her outside the camp for seven days; after that she can be brought back" (Numbers 12:14).

God could have used any example, but he chose a father spitting in the face of his child, which would have been intended as an insult. She had spit in Zipporah's and Moses's face, and she would pay the price for the comment. It was immature behavior, and God expected more from his leaders.  

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Numbers 13