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Miriam's Leprosy Breaks out and is Healed
v. 10. And the cloud departed from off the Tabernacle, it mounted aloft, in token of the fact that the relations between God and His people were severed; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow; instead of being acknowledged by God as a leader of the people by the side of Moses, she was cursed with the plague, which would exclude her from the midst of the congregation as an unclean person, an outcast; and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous; her whole body was seized with the terrible sickness in a moment of time.
v. 11. And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, this form of humble address showing that he had learned his lesson and was ready to acknowledge the authority of Moses without question, lay not the sin upon us wherein we have done foolishly, literally, "wherewith we have played the fool," acted without decent consideration, and wherein we have sinned.
v. 12. Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother's womb, a still-born child, half rotted. The loathsome picture gives some idea of the condition in which Miriam found herself in consequence of her folly.
v. 13. And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech Thee. Far from retaining a grudge and carrying any resentment to the point where he would have refused an intercession, Moses at once pleads with the Lord to heal the repentant sinner.
v. 14. And the Lord said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? Let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again. To this humiliation Miriam had to submit, like any ordinary leper at the time of his cleansing, Leviticus 14.
v. 15. And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days, pronounced clean indeed by Jehovah Himself, but bound to observe the full ceremony of cleansing, with the prescribed sacrifice; and the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again.
v. 16. And afterward the people removed from Hazeroth, and pitched in the Wilderness of Paran, on the south border of Canaan. As Miriam was healed from her external leprosy, when she proved her change of heart, so the Lord will heal us from the leprosy of sin, if we but confess our trespasses freely. He is the Lord that heals us.