Miriam

One of the individuals from the Bible to which I’ve mentally returned repeatedly over the course of the last several months is Miriam. Compared with her brothers – Moses the renowned prophet and servant of the Lord who led the Israelites out of Egypt, and Aaron the original high priest who served as Moses’ spokesman – little is known about her. Perhaps if you grew up in the church, you’ll recall her name from the story of Moses in the bulrushes in Exodus 2, when she watched Pharaoh’s daughter discover Moses in a basket in the Nile river and then offered to fetch a wet nurse for the infant, returning with her own mother. But Miriam is not actually named in that account. 

You might also recall that after the Lord led His people miraculously through the sea on dry land but drowned Pharaoh and his army in that same sea, Miriam led the women in song and dance before the Lord. In that account, found in Exodus 15, she’s also named as a prophetess, one who carried the word of the Lord to the people.

Really the only other biblical account that mentions Miriam, aside from the statement of her death, is in Numbers 12, and she’s not described nearly as positively there. In this incident, Miriam and Aaron apparently have two complaints against Moses: 1, he married a foreigner, and based on the phrasing, this is probably where the issue in began their hearts; and 2, it would seem that Moses was getting all the attention, praise, and glory as the one through whom the Lord spoke, and this was the issue on the surface. We could probably paraphrase and summarize their complaint as, “Hey, God speaks through us too, not just through him; AND he even married a foreigner! Why is everyone so gung-ho about Moses?!” The end result of this, the discontented heart and complaining, is that Miriam was left as a leper and cut off from the rest of her people for 7 days.

Really, this seems on the surface like not a big thing. She complained, she had to live separately outside the camp for a week, and then she was healed. Temporary, relatively quick, and relatively painless. I think it holds deeper insights for us though.

1, I think it demonstrates what jealousy does to our hearts. Rather than being thankful for how the Lord was leading and guiding his people, she was jealous, angry, and discontent that she wasn’t more well-known. The consequence of this, the leprosy and separation from her people, provides us a stunning picture of the devastating effect jealousy has on our hearts: it eats away at us, and causes us to distance ourselves from others. It’s not exactly a pretty picture.

2, it serves to remind us – or me, anyway – that renown here on earth is not what matters. If no one outside of my tiny circle of northeast Ohio knows my name, that needs to be ok. What matters is whether I’m serving the Lord in obedience to what he has called me to do. The praise of 10,000 humans should mean nothing compared with the knowledge of obedience to the best of my ability, the earning of “Well done, good and faithful servant”. My eyes – and my aspirations and my heart, too – need to be set on my own work, my own path, my own calling. 

The Lord knows what we need, and as Romans 15 reminds us, He knows that we need examples and instruction from those who have gone before us. Let’s take this opportunity to learn well.