It was so hot and dry you could taste the dust in your mouth. Miriam was standing in her tent watch the
children playing outside in the heat.
She was sticky and hot and irritated today. This Cushite wife of Moses wasn’t as far as
Miriam was concerned a proper wife for an important person like Moses. There were so many beautiful white women in
their camp that he could have taken any one of them to be his wife. But can you believe her brother decided on
marring a black woman. Walking around her tent with her mind mulling over the
situation she stopped a moment and then walked over to Aaron. Aaron was sitting in the doorway of the tent
relaxing as he had done most of his duties earlier in the morning. Looking up at his sister walking towards him
with her black curly hair tied up. As
she came closer she sat down next to him on the mat in the doorway of the tent.
‘You know Aaron, I really don’t understand Moses.’ Miriam
said as she looked up at Aaron. Turning
his face towards Miriam he smiled and asked her ‘what are you on about Miriam?’ Aaron’s long beard was curly and you could
see patches of grey in the beard.
‘I wonder do you think God can only speak through Moses.’ She said as she sat on that mat and stared
out the tent. Children were running up
and down in front of their tent.
‘I don’t know Miriam, hasn’t God also spoken through us?’ Aaron looked at his sister sitting in the
doorway.
With the two of them discussing Moses they never thought
that the Lord God was omnipresent and was actually listening to their
discussion. Really getting angry with
the two of them the Lord God called Moses, Aaron and Miriam to the Tent of
Meeting.
Moses was a very humble man; in fact he was the most humble
man on the face of the earth.
Moses walked with Aaron and Miriam towards the tent and they
got talking. ‘I wonder why the Lord God has called us together.’ Aaron stated as they walked to the Tent of
Meeting.
The Lord God came down in a pillar of cloud; He stood at the
entrance of the Tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam.
Aaron and Miriam stepped forward and the Lord God said:
“Listen to my words:
When a prophet of the LORD is among you, I reveal myself to him in
visions, I speak to him in dreams. But
this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in my entire house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and
not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD.
Whey then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”
The anger of the Lord burned against them and he left them.
When the cloud lifted from about the Tent, there stood
Miriam – leprous, like snow.
Aaron turned towards his sister Miriam and saw that she had
leprosy, and he pleaded with Moses
‘Please, my lord, do not hold against us the
sin we have so foolishly committed. Do
not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother’s womb with its
flesh half eaten away.’
Moses looked at the both of them and he cried out to the
LORD, “O, God, please heal her!”
The LORD said 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.”
Miriam left the camp and was outside of the camp for seven
days, the Israelites did not move on till she was brought back.
A reminder don’t speak out against your Pastor or the Priest
in your community, remember that when doing that you are speaking out against the
Lord our God.
