"Family Matters, a Multidimensional Reading of Miriam's Humiliation and Healing," Numbers 12,

Biblical Research, vol. XLVI, 1991 (sic) 2, 55-61

ABSTRACT

Feminist interpretations generally condemn Numbers 12 as unfair to Miriam who is struck with white scales as punishment for her part, along with Aaron, in speaking out against Moses.¹ This discussion, part of a larger work, offers a view which re-frames how we read the text. Here we take into consideration the identity and the historical context of the narrator and her audience. For the purpose of this reading, the divinely inspired narrator is identified as Tamar, the daughter of King David. My reasons for proposing this possibility are spelled out elsewhere. For this essay we will assume that from traditional sources, family stories and life experience in the courts of her father and her half-brother Solomon, Tamar composed what we read as the great narratives of the Bible (the so called J and E narratives designated by the Documentary Hypothesis) through the Court History. If you permit yourself imaginatively to adopt the premise that Tamar wrote these narratives, your vision will expand to include a variety of influences which bring insight to a particular episode in the great saga.

The Narrator

You will recall that after David took Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, she reported she was pregnant. David made efforts to cover the pregnancy by summoning her husband home from battle. When efforts failed, the king arranged the death of her husband. Through the prophet Nathan, the Eternal condemned David’s actions and pronounced as punishment devastation within his family.

Sometime later, Prince Amnon, David’s first born son, desired his beautiful half-sister, Tamar. Amnon feigned illness, and the king sent Tamar, who wore a "coat of many colors,"² to perform a healing ceremony at her brother’s house.³ Amnon raped Tamar, and threw her out. This violation fueled calamities that followed. Depressed, David did nothing to punish Amnon. Absalom, Tamar’s full brother, arranged the assassination of Amnon and years later aimed to overthrow his father as king of Judah and Israel. This rebellion resulted in his own death and unleashed David’s grief. Tamar’s grief, I suggest, generated her passion to understand what happened to her in relation to her family and deity, YHWH, whom she had served as a healer in the royal house. No longer a virgin-princess-healer, she might well have the incentive to turn her spiritual gifts to ferret out from oral and written traditions–along with family, court and servants’ gossip– what happened from the beginning of humankind on earth to her own time. Through storytelling, performing, and writing for audiences in the houses of David and Solomon, she composed an inspired body of writings: tales of her royal ancestors and the story of her people.

Miriam in the Wilderness

In Numbers 12, sister, brothers, mother and father all come to play in an intense family drama with the Eternal acting as parent. By placing ourselves in the milieu of the narrator and her audience, our appreciation of Tamar's life experience transforms the resolution of the tension into an extraordinarily healing moment for siblings in the house of Judah/Israel.

The following translation is based on TaNaKH, the New Jewish Publication Translation, italics indicate my literal translation and bold is for my emphasis. For names of the Deity: Eternal = Lord, YHWH, and Divine = God, Elohîm.

Suspend how you normally read. Imagine a storytelling performance for the court of King Solomon by a woman in ancient garb. Hear Tamar’s voice narrating and assuming the voice of each character. Visualize her gestures dramatizing what we designate Numbers 12.

When they were in Hazeroth, ¹Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses concerning the Cushite woman that he had taken, because: "He took a Cushite woman!"

² And they said, "Has the Eternal spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us as well!" The Eternal heard it. ³Now Moses was a very humble man, more so than any other human (~d"êa'h'() on the humus (hm'(d"a]h'). ⁴Suddenly the Eternal called to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, "Come out, you three, to the Tent of Meeting." So the three of them went out. ⁵The Eternal came down in a pillar of cloud, stopped at the entrance of the Tent, and called out, "Aaron and Miriam!" The two of them came forward; ⁶and He said, "Hear please these my words: ^a-When a prophet of the Eternal arises among you, I^-a make Myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream. ⁷Not so with My servant Moses; he is trusted throughout My household. ⁸With him I speak mouth to mouth, plainly and not in riddles, and he beholds the likeness of the Eternal. How then did you not shrink from speaking against My servant Moses!" ⁹ Still incensed with them, the Eternal departed.

¹⁰As the cloud withdrew from the Tent, there was Miriam stricken with snow-white scales!^b When Aaron turned toward Miriam, he saw that she was stricken with scales. ¹¹And Aaron said to Moses, "O my lord, account not to us the sin which we committed in our folly. ¹²Let her not be as one dead, who emerges from his mother’s womb with half his flesh eaten away." ¹³So Moses cried out to the Eternal, saying "O Divine, please, please heal her!"

¹⁴But the Eternal said to Moses, "If her father spat, spat in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut out of the camp for seven days, and then let her be readmitted." ¹⁵So Miriam was shut out of camp seven days; and the people did not march on until Miriam was readmitted. ¹⁶After that the people set out from Hazeroth and encamped in the wilderness of Paran.

Modern concern about the skin color of the Cushite woman Moses "took" misses the concern of the narrator in her time. In Hebrew Scriptures a man "taking" a woman can mean he married, bought, or raped her. One of the themes in the Tamar narratives has to do with men abusing power by taking women, an act which the Divine does not condone. For example, before the Flood in Genesis 6:2, "the big shots (b’nei elohîm, sons of rulers or judges, see for example Ex 22:7, 8, 27, rather than "gods") saw how beautiful the daughters of ordinary humankind (ha-adam) were and took women from any they chose (something like Gilgamesh, a hero of old who was presented as a son of a goddess and mortal, or David, or Amnon, or in our day a president or congressman)."⁵

Part of the genius of this narrator was her ability to capture through word and gesture the point of view of each character. Whoever the Cushite woman was, whatever Moses did, Miriam and Aaron were offended by what they judged an inappropriate act by their younger brother. The Divine, however, did not condemn Moses for his behavior with the woman, which leads me to suspect Tamar recorded this irritable comment as siblings warming up to express a deep-seated complaint.

"Has the Eternal spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us as well!" There’s the rub, and to that remark the Eternal responds.

An omniscient narrator, Tamar points out that Moses was humble, an ordinary man of the earth, not a big shot type who abused power. "You three, get out here!" commands the Eternal. "Suddenly," like an angry parent, the Eternal intervened demanding all three siblings appear. Two had ganged up against one. The voice from the cloud then singled out the two bullies and set them straight about the peculiar gift of Moses, "Hear please these my words: When a prophet of the Eternal arises among you, I make Myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream. ⁷Not so with My servant Moses; he is trusted throughout My household. ⁸With him I speak mouth to mouth, plainly and not in riddles, and he beholds the likeness of the Eternal. How then did you not shrink from speaking against My servant Moses!" Ironically, this is the one time the Eternal spoke directly, not through Moses, not in a dream, vision or riddle, but directly to Aaron and Miriam. The Divine exits in a huff, literally with nostrils flaring. This intense spiritual revelation has consequences for the flesh.

Miriam, the outspoken oldest, is covered with snow-white scales. Tamar informs the audience of Miriam’s condition before a character takes note, focusing our attention on how each sibling responds. We do not hear Miriam. For the narrator, a woman humiliated by a brother, the brothers’ reactions to Miriam’s mortification are significant.

Aaron turns and sees his sister. Spontaneously he cries to Moses, "O my lord, account not to us the sin which we committed in our folly. ¹²Let her not be as one dead, who emerges from his mother’s womb with half his flesh eaten away." What is remarkable to me is that Aaron fully understood, integrated and internalized the reprimand by the Eternal. In that excruciating moment, he addressed his younger brother as "my lord," acknowledging Moses as his spiritual superior. Aaron admitted they had been foolish. He accentuated the horror of their sister’s condition. He drew attention to what all three shared, their mother’s womb.

This was Aaron’s finest moment. Here he is not a talking head who repeats what Moses tells him. He is not a waffling leader fearful as he was of the people when they demanded an image of a god they could see. At this moment, Aaron knows who he is in this family of leaders. He feels deeply, and he accurately assesses the situation. He cries out for the welfare of their sister.

Immediately, Moses pleads with the Divine to heal her. These two brothers are united in concern for their sister. Contrast this to Amnon who raped Tamar. And contrast this to Absalom, who looking past his sister’s anguish at his own dishonor, shushes her, "For the present, sister, keep quiet about it; he is your brother. Don’t brood over the matter." (2 Sam. 13:20) How could Tamar not, literally, "take it to heart?" Absalom brooded, killed his brother and attempted to overthrow his father. I suggest Tamar transformed her own trauma through telling both her own story and, in this particular way, this episode about the three siblings in the wilderness narrative.

The Divine returns to the scene, responsive to the pleading of the most trusted servant, Moses. Invoking the image of a father, the Divine completes the family circle. As if her father, perhaps in a fit of rage over a petty matter, defiled her by spitting in her face, wouldn’t she bear her shame for seven days, outside the camp surrounding the Tabernacle, to purify herself, then return to the community? "Where shall I carry my shame?" Tamar, struggling against rape, urged her brother Amnon to consider. No answer is heard explicitly in the biblical text.

However, in Numbers 12, Miriam is provided a way of bearing her shame. We are not told that the Divine healed her. With ambiguity so skillfully employed by Tamar the "master" storyteller (former healer), we know Miriam was healed as Moses prayed the Eternal perform because we are told she returned to the community. Divine healing was a response to the spontaneous, constructive actions of her brothers and affirmed by communal support. "The people did not march on until Miriam was readmitted." Beyond the family, the entire people are united in honoring one of their leaders. Through storytelling, performance and writing, Tamar returned to her community.

Why was Miriam, not Aaron, stricken with white scales? We need to remember that Aaron was the High Priest. If he were blemished, he could no longer be a priest. Practically speaking, the Divine needed Aaron. Miriam was a "prophetess," not a priestess. The burden fell on her. She was defiled but could be purified and readmitted to the congregation as one of three leaders.

Proof that Miriam’s humiliation was short lived is clear from later writings. Drawing upon the tradition history written by Tamar, the prophet Micah spoke for the Divine during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, c. 742-687 BCE. All three leaders in the wilderness are remembered as an obvious, wonderful gift, proof of the Eternal’s good will.

"My people! What wrong have I done you?

What hardship have I caused you?

Testify against Me.

In fact, I brought you up from the land of Egypt,

I redeemed you from the house of bondage,

And I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam." Micah 6:3-4

Even the late priestly chronicler, who eliminated mother Jochebed from the list of begots and brought the High Priest forward, includes Miriam with her brothers: "The children of Amram: Aaron, Moses and Miriam." 1 Ch 5:29 The tradition of all three leaders was well-established in the sacred texts.

Other reverberations from Tamar’s life experience and writings are heard in Numbers 12. Moses as the most humble "human (~d"êa'h'() on the humus (hm'(d"a]h')" calls to mind the first human drawn from the earth. Reconciliation of siblings concludes the rift between Joseph (who also wore the coat of many colors) and his brothers.

As a parent, the Eternal in Numbers 12 is angry at the siblings’ attack. The Eternal takes action and offers a resolution. Divine anger reverses the behavior of Tamar’s father: David was depressed, anger turned inward. Through reflection on her own relationship with the Divine and her father, Tamar came to understand that her father’s inaction regarding the brutality committed by Amnon was moral paralysis from admission of his own wrongdoing. The focus of the Court History is on the punishment of David’s sins unfolding through the actions of his children. Viewing 2 Samuel from this perspective accounts for the narrator’s extraordinary honesty about the royal family, disasters rather than recounting King David’s accomplishments and an orderly succession of Solomon to the throne as 1 Chronicles would have us remember. The Court History in 2 Samuel was not written, as sometimes characterized, by "an apologetic" historian.

The "Court Historian" was, I suggest, a favored daughter who was deeply disappointed by her father whom she loved. The prophet Nathan touched on the relationship of David and Tamar when he reported the case about the rich man who took the poor man’s one ewe lamb that "used to share his morsel of bread, drink from his cup, and nestle in his bosom; it was like a daughter to him." (2 Sam 12:3) As Tamar recounted the episode, Nathan elicited David’s feelings for his daughter in order to drive home the loss to the poor man in Nathan’s fictional case aimed to awaken in David recognition of the enormity of his offenses. Tamar, the narrator, knew the power of story.

As mentioned above, the end of 1 Chronicles preserves a cleaned up version of the succession of Solomon to David’s throne, eliminating David’s heinous acts, repentance, and suffering in the royal household. It is Tamar’s vision, her understanding of her own and her father’s place in the history of her people that touches us deeply and accounts for both the display of culpability, the capacity of David to admit he was wrong, and the affection one experiences in reading about the complicated character of David. I suggest we imagine her vision, spelled out over a lifetime of presentations to audiences during the latter part of her father’s reign and throughout the reign of her half-brother Solomon, which, in part, accounts for the genius of the "master" storyteller of the Bible. A short episode in the life of her people, the humiliation of Miriam, her healing, and her restoration to the community may be understood as an expression of the narrator’s making peace with her own place in history.

© Adrien J. Bledstein, Chicago, IL October 19, 2001 773-324-6956 abledstein@sbcglobal.net

Revised: August 17, 2002, October 28, 2011 changed footnotes to endnotes.

Endnotes

1. See for example K. D. Sakenfield’s discussion in The Woman’s Bible Commentary, eds. C. A. Newsom and S. H. Ringe (London: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992) 47-48.

2 A. J. Bledstein, "Tamar and the `Coat of Many Colors’" A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings, (Second Series), ed. A. Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000) vol. 7: 65-83.

3. Bledstein, "Was Habbiryâ a Healing Ritual Performed by a Woman in King David’s House?" Biblical Research 37 (1992): 15-31.

4. Bledstein, "Was Eve Cursed? (Or Did a Woman Write Genesis?)" Bible Review 9:1 (February 1993): 42-45; Bledstein, "The Genesis of Humans: the Garden of Eden Revisited," Judaism 26:2 (1977): 187-200.

5. See also Genesis 34, Judges 19, 2 Samuel 11 and 13, all of this reading attributes to Tamar. Bledstein, "Is Judges a Woman’s Satire of Men who Play God?" A. Brenner, A Feminist Companion to Judges, (She ffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993) vol. 4:34-54.