NUMBERS 12
We have seen something of the searchings of God in chapter 11, and this solemn subject is continued in the chapter now before us. None of us escape these searchings, not even the most eminent or spiritual. Moses was searched in chapter 11; now Miriam and Aaron find themselves in the divine crucible. Miriam was distinguished as a prophetess who had sung the refrain to Moses’ song when they all celebrated the [p. 151] victorious power of Jehovah for them at the Red Sea. Aaron was the anointed priest of Jehovah. They were very eminent persons, for Jehovah said, “I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam” (Micah 6:4).
But each one gets just what will find him out. And when Miriam and Aaron came under divine searching it brought to light an unjudged root of evil. They “spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had taken; for he had taken a Cushite as wife” (verse 1). It has been said by an honoured servant of God that when we think we are judging others God is often really judging our own state. It was so in this case. The circumstance of Moses taking a Cushite wife became a test to Miriam and Aaron, and the test brought to light that notwithstanding all their special privileges and opportunities, they had not given Moses the place that God had given him. They considered they were entitled to put themselves quite on a level with him. “Has Jehovah indeed spoken only to Moses? has he not spoken also to us?” (verse 2).
Both of them had been honoured by God, but it had evidently turned to self-importance. And their self-consideration blinded them to the most obvious fact in the current ways of God. There was overwhelming evidence that God had assigned a place to Moses which was unique. But an unjudged working of evil in the flesh of Miriam and Aaron hindered them from perceiving this, or adjusting themselves in relation to it.
Their not giving Moses the place that was due to him arose from an inward state that had not really come into subjection to God. The same flesh that murmured against divine order, that despised the manna, and lusted for flesh, now came out as wanting a place spiritually, though in insubjection to God. This brings to light what the flesh is, even in such persons as “Miriam the prophetess”, and “Aaron the saint of Jehovah”. In speaking against Moses they were really in conflict with the sovereign rights of God. It may be thought incredible that true saints should give such place to the flesh, but here it is. There was insubordination where we might have least expected to find it. The incident shows that even eminent and greatly endowed persons in the congregation of God may need to learn by painful exposure and discipline the lesson of submission to divine sovereignty.
The place which Moses had was clearly typical of the place which Christ has as Son over God’s house, and King in Jeshurun. Nothing can be acceptable to God which does not give Him the place that is due. In Miriam and Aaron we see a rising up against it, brought about by workings of personal feeling and envy. As applied to ourselves, this would come out in speaking against those whom God may be using in a special way. The rights of God and of Christ have to be recognised now in what is divinely appointed, and this is where the test comes. Miriam and Aaron did not speak against God; they would have been afraid to do that. They spoke against one who was their brother, and therefore one whom they felt free to regard as somewhat I on a level with themselves. They were not afraid to speak against him, or to claim that they were as much favoured of God as he was.
This particular aspect of fleshly activity comes out, not directly against the Lord, but against His servants. There was the same sin at Corinth; some were “puffed up” (1 Corinthians 4:18,19), and thought of Paul “as walking according to flesh” (2 Corinthians 10:2); they were not afraid to say that his presence in the body was weak, and his speech naught! (2 Corinthians 10:10); they even accused him of making gain of the saints (2 Corinthians 12: 17, 18). But Paul had seen the Lord; he had been in the third heaven; he was Christ’s ambassador — His personal representative; his speaking was Christ’s speaking; what he wrote was a test of spirituality; it was to be recognised as the Lord’s commandment. To disregard the special place which the Lord had given him was to disregard the One who had given him that place. To speak against Moses was really to speak against Jehovah, for Moses was simply filling the place which Jehovah had given him, and acting in it as Jehovah’s faithful servant.
The word translated “servant” in Hebrews 3:5 only occurs in the New Testament in that passage; it calls attention to the exceptional dignity and honour which God had put upon Moses. “My servant” Jehovah calls him twice in Numbers 12; he was faithfully doing what Jehovah had appointed. So when Paul says, “Let a man so account of us as servants of Christ”, he uses a word which brings out the official character of his service. He was more than a bondman; he was an officially appointed servant with a definite commission.
We see in Scripture that it has pleased God to have men at different times who were in a very distinctive way His servants. Men such as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Cyrus, Ezra, Nehemiah, Zerubbabel, Peter, Paul, John, Timothy. Men who acted specially for Him, and who had His support. This has been a feature of the ways of God which is not to be over-looked; it has marked His work and testimony at all times. The principle of it is seen in the Lord’s words, “Who then is the faithful and prudent steward, whom his lord will set over his household, to give the measure of corn in season?” (Luke 12:42). Such have ability to act for God in a definite way with prudence and wise discretion, and His selection of them is justified by their moral characteristics. Meekness and fidelity will always be found with them — precious features of Christ by which fleshly pretensions can be tested.
[p. 154] Now if there is anyone of whom the Lord can speak as being in a special way His servant, and who has a distinct commission from heaven, we may be sure that Satan will seek to do what he did in Miriam and Aaron. He will stir up the flesh even in true saints to speak against him, and to assume to have God’s mind as much as he has. It is a very direct way of counter-acting whatever the Lord may be doing at the moment, and the more prominent and apparently spiritual the persons are who lend themselves to it, the better does it answer Satan’s purpose. This has been even in our own times one of the most effective forms of opposition to the testimony of God. The lesson of Numbers 12 is needed today as much as ever. To speak against one who is in a distinctive way, “My servant”, is really to challenge the rights of God and of Christ as Son over God’s house; it is much more serious than people think. It is very solemn that it should be written, “And Jehovah heard it”.
“But the man Moses was very meek, above all men that were upon the face of the earth” (verse 3). He did not retaliate; he was a remarkable vessel of the Spirit of Christ. Possibly his very meekness had been taken advantage of by those who wished to assert themselves. But he continued to be meek. Such a servant, when spoken against, will leave matters entirely in the hands of God. It was Jehovah’s matter, not his. God will most assuredly vindicate His own right to have a servant, and to give him a special place, if He is pleased to do so. He cannot allow His own rights to be impugned in His kingdom, or in His house. Miriam and Aaron had to learn that in speaking against Moses they were really in conflict with God. How solemn is such a position!
Jehovah took the matter in hand Himself. He called the three out to the tent of meeting, and [p. 155] addressed Himself directly to Aaron and Miriam. “And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I Jehovah will make myself known to him in a vision, I will speak to him in a dream. Not so my servant Moses: he is faithful in all my house. Mouth to mouth do I speak to him openly, and not in riddles; and the form of Jehovah doth he behold. Why then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?” (verses 6 - 8). Jehovah had given Moses an extraordinary and unique place; He would not have him to be put on a level with “a prophet”; his immediate nearness to Jehovah, and the intimate terms on which Jehovah was with him, were such as to make it very evident that to speak against him was simply an outbreak of the leprous will of the flesh, though clothed with the assumption of spiritual status, and professing to have godly grounds of complaint. The searchings of God brought it to light in its true character. “And behold, Miriam was leprous as snow”.
The woman alone being smitten with leprosy indicates that God was exposing the state; for the woman in types is a symbol of this. Jehovah was bringing to light the unjudged root which had led to things being said against Moses. It was fully exposed to themselves, so that, brought under divine conviction, Aaron immediately confessed their sin. “Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, lay not this sin upon us, wherein we have been foolish, and have sinned!” (verse 11). The divine searchings, in the case of true saints, while they fully expose the workings of the flesh, always bring to light what is deeper even than the flesh; that is, the work of God in His people. This becomes manifest in their ability to judge themselves, and to look for mercy. Aaron must have appreciated at this moment, as he never did before, the thought of the bullock for [p. 156] a sin-offering which was prescribed in Leviticus 4: “if the priest that is anointed sin according to the trespass of the people”. He and Miriam had, indeed, fallen from their high dignity to the level of the people, nay, even to the level of the poor unclean leper, only fit to be outside the camp. But, with Leviticus 4 and Leviticus 14 in his mind, he was encouraged to look to Moses that the sin might not be laid upon them. He looked to Moses, as fully owning now the place that God had given him. He realised how dreadful had been their sin, but he realised also that through the death of Christ as the Sin-offering their sin might be so dealt with that it would not be laid on Miriam or on himself. Oh! that precious death of Christ! What will it not meet? The sins of the vilest of the ungodly may be forgiven through it, and they may have a purged conscience. The believer, convicted of most awful working of flesh in himself, finds in it the divine way of dealing with sinful flesh, so that its full condemnation is borne by Another, and in seeing it judged there learns to abhor it as he never did before. In saying, “Let her not be as one stillborn, half of whose flesh is consumed when he comes out of his mother’s womb” (verse 12), Aaron seems to have touched some of the exercise of Psalm 11:5. The very root was reached; the divine searchings had done their work!
“And Moses cried to Jehovah, saying, O God, heal her, I beseech thee” (verse 13). As soon as the true condition is owned it becomes possible, and morally suitable, to look for divine healing. The Spirit of Christ becomes active in intercession, and God hears. But He does not immediately relieve from discipline those in whom the flesh has worked in this sorrowful way. To do so might leave the work of restoration incomplete, whereas His thought is that it shall reach maturity. Miriam has to be “shamed seven days. She [p. 157] shall be shut outside the camp seven days, and afterwards she shall be received in again” (verse 14). A working of evil may be truly judged, and owned in confession, and yet a moral work may require to be perfected in the soul. The “seven days” come in here. Time is required, not for God to forgive, but for the saint who has given place to the flesh to go through the moral exercises that are essential if one is to “be received in again” as established in the gain and deliverance which divine grace has wrought. The “seven days” deepen the conviction of what has been already admitted before God.
“And Miriam was shut outside the camp seven days; and the people did not journey till Miriam was received in again” (verse 15). The whole assembly was detained to get the gain of this exercise. The working of flesh was exposed and judged in two prominent members of the congregation, but all had to learn by it. The same flesh was in every one of them, and seeing it judged in Miriam they had an opportunity to judge it in themselves. It was a solemn “seven days” for all Israel. Had they really got the gain of it, it would have saved them from much that happened later. What comes to light in one or two may be secretly working in many. Hence every case of discipline raises an assembly exercise. Are we really clear of what has had to be judged in another! The “old leaven” has to be purged out; not merely the wicked person dealt with, but the leaven purged out so that the whole assembly may be a new lump as unleavened. If the whole assembly does not gain in holiness by a case of discipline the divine end has not been reached.
Our object is chiefly to see how these things “have been written for our admonition”, but it is also true that in Miriam and Aaron we see a picture of how the privileged Jews resented and rejected the sovereignty [p. 158] of God in Christ that would take poor sinners, and even Gentiles, into blessing, and how in consequence of this the wrath has come upon them to the uttermost, and they are at present shut up in unbelief. Yet they will, through infinite mercy and under the searchings of God, be yet led to see how sinful they have been, and will judge the pride of heart in which they have spoken against Christ, and after severe discipline and deep exercise they will be healed, and “received in again”.