Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Numbers 12:1 - 12:1
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
NUMBERS CHAPTER 12
Miriam and Aaron murmur against Moses, Num_12:1-3. God commandeth him, Aaron, and Miriam to come to the tabernacle, which they did, Num_12:4,5. God rebuketh Aaron and Miriam, Num_12:6-9. Miriam becometh leprous, Num_12:10. Aaron humbling himself before Moses, Num_12:11,12; he intercedeth for him, Num_12:13. Miriam remains without the camp seven days, Num_12:14,15.
God permitted
Miriam and
Aaron to murmur against their brother, partly to exercise and discover his admirable meekness and patience for the instruction of after-ages; and partly, that by this shaking Mose’s authority might take the deeper root, and the people might be deterred from all sedition and rebellion against him by this example. Miriam seems to be first named, because she was the chief instigator or first mover of the sedition; wherefore she also is more eminently punished.
The Ethiopian woman was either 1. Zipporah, who is here called an Ethiopian, in the Hebrew a Cushite, because she was a Midianite; the word Cush being generally used in Scripture, not for Ethiopia properly so called below Egypt, but for Arabia, as some late learned men have evidently proved from 2Ki_19:9 2Ch_21:16 Eze_29:10 30:8,9 Hab 3:7, and other places. If she be meant, as it is commonly conceived, I suppose they did not quarrel with him for marrying her, because that was done long since, but for indulging her too much, and being swayed by her and her relations, by whom they might think he was persuaded to make this innovation, and to choose seventy rulers, as he had been formerly, Exo 18; by which copartnership in government they thought their authority and reputation much diminished, especially when no notice was taken nor use made of them in the choice, but all was done by the direction of Moses, and for his assistance in the government. And because they durst not accuse God, who was the chief Agent in it, they charge Moses, his instrument, as the manner of men is. Or,
2. Some other woman, though not named in Scripture, whom he married either whilst Zipporah lived, or rather because she was now dead, though that, as really other things, be not recorded. For as the quarrel seems to be about his marrying a stranger, so it is probable it was a late and fresh occasion about which they contended, and not a thing done forty years ago. And it was lawful for him as well as any other to marry an Ethiopian or Arabian woman, provided she were, as doubtless this woman was, a sincere proselyte, which were by the law of God admitted to the same privileges with the Israelites, Exo_12:48; so there might be many reasons why Moses might choose to marry such a person rather than an Israelite, or why God so ordered it by his providence, either because she was a person of eminent worth and virtue, or because God intended that the government should not be continued in the hands of Moses’s children, and therefore would have some political blemish to be upon the family, as being strangers by one parent. And this they here urge as a blemish to Moses also.