Miriam and Leprosy

We are going to start learning about some of the stories in the Bible that you may never have heard before. The Bible is such an interesting book but so often we seem to teach the same stories Sunday after Sunday. Those lessons are important, but I think we all need to dig a little deeper in our relationship with Jesus. The Bible is the only book that is authored by God. We have many many books that are about God but when we really want to learn more about God we should turn to the book that He authored, the Bible

For our lesson today we are going to read Numbers 12.



Now from some of our other lessons we have learned that Miriam is Moses' older sister. She was the one in charge of watching baby Moses when the Pharaoh's daughter found him in the basket. Moses was hidden because Pharaoh wanted to kill all of the male Israelite babies. Miriam was very brave to run up to the Pharaoh's daughter and suggest that she get a Hebrew woman to take care of the baby. Miriam ran and got her mother, who was then paid to nurse Moses until he was old enough to be weaned.

This story in the Bible tells us a litle bit about the family life of Moses. This incident occurred as they were traveling from Sinai to Kadesh-barnea.

This appears to be a second wife of Moses, and Miriam is using this marriage to protest Moses' authority. I think she may be jealous of her little brother's authority. In verse 3 of Numbers 12 it says that Moses was meek. Do you think that meekness is a sign of weakness?
No, because meekness is being obedient to God and doing His will.

In verses 5-9 God has called Moses, Miriam and Aaron out to talk to them. This shows that this was a family fight and God wanted to deal with them. God tells them that He chooses the prophets and that Moses is greater than the other prophets. God dealt differently with Moses than with Abraham or Joseph. With Abraham and Joseph He appeared in dreams but with Moses it was face to face. A prophet did not necessairly predict the future. Their main purpose was to speak for God.

In verse 10 we see where God pronouced severe judgement on Miriam for how foolishly she acted in her jealousy of Moses. She became a lepor. Moses appealed to God and God healed her but she still had to be shut out of the camp for a week to make sure she did not still have leprousy. This held their voyage up for one week also while they waited to let Miriam continue on with them.

Aaron was not struck with leprosy because he was God's high priest. If Aaron had become a leper Israel would have had no intercessor to stand between them and God. Aaron was not really a leader, he was a follower. He was very weak and willing to let other people lead him wrongly. Aaron was also the one that made the golden calf for people to worship when they were waiting on Moses to come down with the Ten Commandments.

We can learn from this lesson that jealousy is wrong and that God will deal with us on our jealousy issues. Jealousy can cause so many problems in our life. It can cause us to turn against our friends and family and can make us become very bitter. Jealousy will control us if we don't turn it over to God. So many times we think we have "turned" things over to God but in reality we are holding onto every little thing. We want to get our revenge from when we think we were wronged but God wants us to turn it over to Him and trust in Him.

We need to learn to recognize when we are jealous of someone and then turn to God. First we need to admit it to God (Proverbs 28:13) If we think we are jealous and we try to hide it from God that will only make us go deeper in our sin. God already knows we are jealous, so why try to hide it from Him? We need to learn to be content with what God gives to us. Contentment comes when we learn to trust God completely.


Follow up questions:

Who was Miriam?
(Moses' older sister)

What led up to God making Miriam have leprousy?
(Her jealousy)

How did God communicate with Moses?
(Face to face)

How did God communicate with Abraham and Joseph?
(In dreams)