Hebrew Word Study – restored to fellowship – ‘asaph  עסף ayin samek pei 

Numbers 12:11,14-15: ”And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them; and he departed. (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.  (15) And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days: and the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again.

In the Book of Numbers, we have an unusual story about Miriam, the sister to Aaron and Moses. I always encourage my Hebrew students to try to understand the emotional context of a passage before attempting to translate the passage from the Hebrew.  This is a good example where we need to understand the emotions behind this story. 

Miriam with Aaron confronted their brother Moses with the complaint of his marriage to a Cushite woman. Most Bible scholars believe this was Moses’s first wife Zipporah and that calling her a Cushite was really a compliment.  The land of Cush is known today as Ethiopia which was near the land of Midian where Zipporah came from. The word Zipporah means little bird with the emphasis on being adorable, innocent, and sweet.  From these two words cush and Zipporah we can discern that Zipporah was a beautiful dark-skinned woman who was sweet, tender-hearted and adorable.  Cushite women were prized for their beauty and to call a woman a Cushite would be like calling a woman today a Scandinavian woman.  Scandinavian women have a reputation for being beautiful blond women and a beautiful blond woman who might be referred to as a Scandinavian blond even if she is not Scandinavian.  

The Midrash teaches and Scripture strongly indicates that these two women, Miriam and Zipporah were like sisters and very dear friends to each other.  So here we have this beautiful, innocent, sweet tender-hearted woman who was not only the sister-in-law to Miriam but one she loved like a sister who was sent away by her brother Moses, almost like he divorced her.  Miriam was a prophetess and should have known the mind of God.  But she was also human and let her heart get in the way of the heart of God. 

We learn in the Midrash that Moses sent Zipporah back to her father to avoid having marital relationships with her. You see every time one had marital relationships, they were rendered ceremonially impure and were required to immerse themselves in a mikveh (pool of water).  Moses was in constant communication with God and it was just impractical to have to take a bath after every encounter with his wife so he sent her back to her father, almost like a divorce.

Miriam objected to her dear friend being sent away from her and confronted Moses over this and probably told Moses what were you thinking:  “Really now, you are that spiritually minded that you can’t even have marital relationships with your own wife without it interfering with your job. Listen, Moses, like you, I am a prophetess, I hear from God and I sleep with my husband and it doesn’t interfere with my duties.” 

God now intervenes and points out to Miriam that the job Moses had was different from hers. God speaks to her and other prophets in visions and dreams but Moses’s instructions are much more intimate, face to face. So God struck her with leprosy and she was banished from the camp for seven days while Moses pleaded with God to heal her.

That sounds sort of harsh and indeed you read it in our English translations it does sound very harsh. In verse 11 the anger of the Lord was so great he had to depart.  The word anger in Hebrew, however, is ‘aneph which I have addressed many times in my studies.  Aneph is an expression of extreme emotion. It could be anger, it could be grief,  it could be a cry of agony. Only the context will reveal what emotion is being addressed.  The context seems to call for anger as Miriam was terribly punished with leprosy and banished from the camp.  

That sounds like punishment and it appeared to be a punishment to Moses. But maybe God was just disappointed, sadden by Miriam’s response to all this.  Leprosy in the Hebrew is tsaraat which is really a skin condition. It was not necessarily like leprosy we know today. It could just be a bad case of psoriasis or a bad rash. We are not sure what it was that Miriam suffered.  But was it really a punishment?

Here is the unusual thing about this “punishment.”  She was struck with leprosy or this skin condition that required her to be removed from the camp and placed in isolation.  This meant outside the protection of the cloud for seven days.  Without the protection of that cloud that hovered over Israel by night and that pillar of fire by night, the people would have succumbed to the intense heat, the poisonous snake, scorpions, and all the other hazards of the desert very quickly.  God protected them from these hazards. The word wilderness in Hebrew is medavar which comes from the root word devar with the Mem preposition from – from the words of God’s heart.  God removed Miriam to have a real Father and daughter talk for seven days of isolation during which God removed the leprosy.  

How many times I have heard testimonies from people who say that God had to put them into a hospital before He could speak to them. This is no difference, only the hospital was a desert where God cared for her, protected her from the scorpions, poisonous snakes, and intense heat.  He provided water and food for her and then they had a seven-day chat upon which she returned.

But it is verse 15 that stands out.  It says: “The people journeyed not until Miriam was brought.” The word brought is ‘asaph which means to be restored in fellowship. Miriam was beloved bv the people more than Moses or Aaron. That is demonstrated in the fact that God added that final clause that the people did not travel until Miriam was restored to fellowship. Ultimately, the people did not move until the cloud moved so they had no control over whether they moved or not, so why does Scripture say they did not journey when they could not until God moved the cloud? Because God is revealing the hearts of the people.  There would have been outright rebellion if they moved and left their beloved Miriam. It was not God’s plan to do that but God is also showing it was not the desire of the people as well. 

God doesn’t punish us as believers.  He corrects us. In fact, that is the word the Jewish Targum (Aramaic translation of the Old Testament) uses, to correct. Punishment is inflicting pain and torment to correct behavior.  God may have to resort to something a bit painful, but nothing more than we can bear, he promises that. If that is the only way to get our attention. In the end, we are better for it, just like Miriam. 

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