Seeking Fault

Author: Joseph

Date: November 18, 2018

Miriam and Aaron began to speak against Moses regarding the woman he married. Though Moses married her prior to the exodus from Egypt, Aaron and Miriam were now making this trivial complaint as a way to demean Moses. Their true complaint was that Moses was leading Israel with too much authority invested in himself. Moses was recently instructed by God to have seventy elders from Israel appointed to lead the people and assist in matters of governance, yet Aaron and Miriam were not named among them. Miriam and Aaron perhaps wrongly assumed that Moses was making these decisions on his own or even worse, with the direction of his Cushite wife. Aaron and Miriam said to each other, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?” (Numbers 12:2). They were jealous of what seemed in their eyes a monopoly of authority.

"The Lord, however, took notice..."

Although Miriam and Aaron spoke these demeaning words to Moses, he was humble, and did not spite his siblings nor their words. He may have even dismissed their words, knowing their wrongful thinking. The Lord, however, took notice and called the three of them to come together to the tent of meeting. A pillar of cloud came down before the tent of meeting and God spoke to Aaron and Miriam, instructing them to step forward. He rebuked them for arrogantly speaking to Moses and for not considering that it was God Himself that gave Moses his instructions. God spoke with Moses face-to-face, yet Aaron and Miriam did not consider this relationship when they chose to speak against Moses.

When Aaron and Miriam judged Moses’s character, they were also unknowingly making a judgment on God’s character. If God, who spoke to Moses face-to-face, did not condemn Moses for anything, then there was no reason for Aaron or Miriam to make a complaint about Moses or his wife. God’s anger burned not because they had insulted Moses, but because they made a judgment on His character by their words against Moses.

The pillar of cloud went up from the tent of meeting when God finished speaking to Aaron and Miriam and Miriam was suddenly covered in leprosy and appeared as a dead person.

Immediately Aaron cried out to God for Him not to hold their sin against them and Moses also spoke out to God asking Him to heal her. God then spoke back to the three of them, stating that she should be cast out of the camp for seven days and then return to the encampment of Israel. Instead of letting her perish in a leprous state, God removed the plague from her body and forced her into solitude for a brief time. God let Miriam face the shame of being outcast from Israel, for all of Israel would have learned of Miriam’s condition and feared the Lord because of it.

When we seek to find fault in others without cause, there is evil stirring in our hearts. Aaron and Miriam could have rejoiced in God blessing the elders with His Spirit and they could have praised Moses’s wife for following the God of Israel instead of the pagan gods of her land, but in both of these they sought to accuse Moses. Aaron and Miriam were blinded by their own sin that they did not consider the leading of God in what all Moses was doing and that his decisions were not made on his own. Aaron and Miriam wrongly saw their situation with fleshly eyes, denying God His power and primary involvement in the events of both Moses’s life, their own lives, and with al of Israel.

Do not make accusations without cause. A false accusation or unwarranted complaint does no good for you or the person the accusation is against – it only brings strife and hatred. When you look at the life of someone near to you, do not seek to find a fault, this comes from an evil heart and evil intentions. Reject evil intentions and cleanse yourself before you shame yourself in trying to demean someone else.

Bible Passage: Numbers 12:1-16

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB). www.lockman.org