Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Miriam, on account of her murmuring against Moses, is struck with leprosy and expelled from the camp; but, at the prayer of Moses on her behalf, after seven days she is healed and recalled.
Vulgate Text: Numbers 12:1-15
1. And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of his Ethiopian wife, 2. and they said: Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has He not likewise spoken to us also? When the Lord had heard this 3. (for Moses was the meekest man of all who dwelt upon the earth), 4. He immediately spoke to him and to Aaron and Miriam: Go out, you three only, to the tabernacle of the covenant. And when they had gone out, 5. the Lord came down in the pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tabernacle, calling Aaron and Miriam. When they had come forward, 6. He said to them: Hear My words: If there be among you a prophet of the Lord, I will appear to him in a vision or speak to him in a dream. 7. But not so My servant Moses, who is most faithful in all My house: 8. for I speak to him mouth to mouth and openly, and not through enigmas and figures does he see the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant Moses? 9. And being angry against them, He departed; 10. the cloud also withdrew which had been above the tabernacle; and behold, Miriam appeared white with leprosy as snow. And when Aaron looked upon her and saw her covered with leprosy, 11. he said to Moses: I beseech you, my lord, do not lay upon us this sin which we have foolishly committed, 12. let her not be as one dead, and as an abortion that is cast forth from the womb of its mother: behold, already half of her flesh is consumed by leprosy. 13. And Moses cried to the Lord, saying: O God, I beseech You, heal her. 14. And the Lord answered him: If her father had spit in her face, ought she not to have been covered with shame for at least seven days? Let her be separated for seven days outside the camp, and afterward she shall be recalled. 15. So Miriam was shut out from the camp for seven days; and the people did not move from that place until Miriam was recalled.
Verse 1: Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses
Note: In this murmuring Miriam sinned the most, being a woman jealous of Zipporah, and she seems to have stirred up Aaron against Zipporah and Moses; whence she alone was punished with leprosy, not Aaron.
Who was the Ethiopian wife?
1. AND MIRIAM AND AARON SPOKE AGAINST MOSES, BECAUSE OF HIS ETHIOPIAN WIFE. -- You ask, who was this Ethiopian woman? Josephus, book II Antiquities x, and after him Eusebius, Isidore, and others relate that Moses, while he was still living in the household of Pharaoh's father, waged war for the Egyptians against the Ethiopians, and subjugated them through the betrayal of Tharbis, the daughter of the king of the Ethiopians, whom Moses consequently married, and that this was the Ethiopian woman.
But Scripture makes no mention of this war and victory, nor of this wife of Moses, but only of Zipporah. I say therefore that Zipporah is here called an Ethiopian, because she was a Midianite. For the Midianites are called Ethiopians in Scripture, as is clear from Habakkuk chapter III, verse 7, and II Chronicles xiv, 10, 12. For there is a twofold Ethiopia in Scripture, namely one Western, beyond Egypt, that is Abyssinia, where Prester John now reigns, which alone is now called Ethiopia; the other Eastern, which is Arabia, in which dwelt the Ishmaelites, Amalekites, Midianites, etc.: these therefore are called Ethiopians. So St. Augustine here, Question XX, Theodoret, Question XXII, Rabanus, Rupertus, Lyranus, Abulensis, Eugubinus, Vatablus, and Oleaster.
The allegorical marriage of Christ with the Church
In this marriage of Moses with the Ethiopian woman, there was allegorically prefigured the marriage of Christ with the Church of the Gentiles; tropologically, the marriage of the Word with the sinful soul, says St. Bernard, sermon 39 on the Canticle.
Why Miriam and Aaron rose up against Moses
You ask secondly, why Miriam and Aaron rose up against Moses on account of Zipporah? It is likely, as Abulensis says, that Zipporah, in womanly fashion (for this sex, being of weak intellect and judgment, is ambitious and zealous for its own honor), wished to set herself above Miriam, because she was the wife of Moses, and had extolled her Moses with words as the leader of the people, and placed him above Miriam and Aaron: by which matter Miriam was first provoked, then Aaron, and they began to exalt themselves, wishing to make themselves equal not only to Zipporah but also to Moses, boasting that they were as noble prophets as Moses was. That it was so is gathered both from the following verse and from verse 6, where God points out and cuts off this cause of the murmuring, and teaches them that they are mistaken in their ambition, because Moses is the most excellent, most faithful, and most intimate Prophet of God, with whom no other can be compared.
Why Aaron was not struck with leprosy
Abulensis adds that Aaron was not struck with leprosy because he was the high priest, in whom the greatest cleanliness, authority, and reverence were required. For it would have been a grave disgrace in the worship of God if His high priest Aaron had ever been leprous. Let Princes and Prelates learn from this to ward off all disgrace from their officials and pastors, and not to promote and set over the people those who were at some time tainted by infamy, even if they have now reformed: for the people will despise such persons on account of their past infamy, and indeed will ridicule them.
Allegorical interpretation of St. Ambrose
Allegorically, St. Ambrose, book X, epistle 82: "This murmuring of Miriam," he says, "pertains to the type of the Synagogue, which, being ignorant of the mystery of the Ethiopian woman, that is, the Church to be gathered from the Gentiles, murmurs with daily reproach, and envies that people by whose faith it too will be stripped of the leprosy of its own faithlessness, at the end of the age." So also St. Prosper, part II On Predictions, chapter IX, Rupertus, and St. Jerome to Fabiola, at the 14th Stopping Place. Where note from St. Jerome that this murmuring occurred, and that this leprosy was inflicted on Miriam at the fourteenth stopping place, namely at Hazeroth, as is clear from the preceding chapter, last verse.
Verse 3: Moses was the meekest man
3. FOR MOSES WAS A VERY MEEK MAN, ABOVE ALL MEN WHO DWELT UPON THE EARTH. -- That is, because Moses was the meekest of men of that age, he did not respond to Miriam and Aaron when they disparaged and quarreled with him, and therefore God undertook to defend him and responded on his behalf.
Note: Moses, praying and interceding for his slanderous sister at Aaron's request, was the meekest in the Old Testament; but in the New, St. Stephen was meeker than he, says Abulensis, who prayed even for those who stoned him and for Saul, with no one asking him to do so; whence he obtained Paul for the Church and transformed Saul into Paul. Moreover, by this meekness Moses merited a nearly continuous conversation and familiarity with God. Hear St. Dionysius, epistle 8 to Demophilus: "The history of the Hebrews relates that Moses was deemed worthy of divine friendship and familiarity on account of his extraordinary meekness; and if at any time it records that he fell from the divine vision, it was not that this happened to him before he had fallen from meekness. For he was, he says, very meek, and therefore he is called the servant of God, and worthier than all the Prophets, to whom God would bestow the grace of His vision."
The virtue of meekness
See what meekness obtains from God, see how great a virtue it is, see how magnanimous it is. Seneca rightly says of the wise man: "The feeling of pain," he says, "is stirred by lowliness of spirit that shrinks from a dishonorable deed or word; but the wise man is despised by no one, and knows his own greatness. The fruit of insult lies in the indignation and the perception of the one who suffers it;" and in his book On Anger: "Everything weak by nature is querulous; nor is anything great unless it is at the same time calm."
Examples of meekness from the saints and pagans
Certainly this equanimity and meekness in bearing injuries is the mark of a Christian and truly wise and great soul. Hear Seneca again, in his book On Anger: "Someone struck Marcus Cato in the bath unintentionally; afterwards, when the man apologized, Cato said: I do not remember being struck; he thought it better not to recognize the offense than to forgive it. It is the mark of a great soul to despise injuries: it is the mark of a petty and wretched man to snap back at one who bites, like mice and ants, which if you put your hand near them, turn their mouths toward it: the weak think they are injured if they are touched." And in his Consolation to Helvia: "Aristides was being led to execution at Athens; everyone who met him groaned, not as if it were being done to a just man, but as if it were being done to justice itself; yet someone was found who spat in his face; but he wiped his face and said with a smile to the magistrate who accompanied him: Warn that fellow not to yawn so rudely in the future." Of Julius Caesar, Cicero said "that he was accustomed to forget nothing except injuries," as St. Augustine reports, epistle 5 to Marcellinus. Hear St. Basil, in his homily On Reading Pagan Books: "A certain man in the forum was heaping every insult upon Pericles; but Pericles, appearing to take no notice, endured it the whole day: then in the evening he accompanied the departing man home with a light. Again, a certain man swore he would kill Euclid: but Euclid in turn swore that he would patiently endure it, and would win over even this hostile man. A certain man struck Socrates' face with a violent blow; Socrates, not at all disturbed, did nothing else than inscribe on his own forehead: So-and-so did this; just as the name of the artist is inscribed on a statue." Aristotle, as Aelian reports, gave counsel to Alexander the Great, who was by nature irascible, that considering himself superior to all, he should despise insults. These things the pagans did; what will Christians do? But far more sublime, purer, stronger, and more constant than all of these was the meekness of Moses, who tolerated such a rebellious people for 40 years. I shall presently add some examples of the faithful.
Moses wrote this praise of himself as the pen of the Holy Spirit impelling him to write this: just as St. John wrote of himself that he was the disciple whom Jesus loved. Secondly, and more truly, these words seem to have been added and interwoven after Moses by some other sacred writer who compiled his journals, as I said in the introduction to Genesis.
Origen on the family of the meek
Morally, Origen says: There is, he says, a certain family of the meek, over which Moses presides; a certain family of the patient, over which Job presides; a certain family of the continent, over which Daniel presides; and each person at death will be gathered to his own family -- the meek with the meek, the virgin with virgins, the wrathful with the wrathful, the lustful with the lustful, according to what is said in Leviticus xxv, 10: "Each one shall return to his former family, because it is the jubilee." Again, the proper virtue of the Saints is meekness: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth." Hear the Wise Man, Ecclesiasticus III, 19: "My son, accomplish your works in meekness, and you will be loved above the glory of men." Hear Christ: "Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest."
Examples from the Desert Fathers
That holy elder in Cassian, being harassed by the unbelieving Alexandrians and asked what wonderful things Christ had done beyond nature, said: "This: that I, provoked by your insults and injuries, am not moved to indignation."
Another elder in the Lives of the Fathers prescribed this discipline and path to perfection for his disciple: first, that for three whole years he should bear the burdens of others; secondly, that for another three years he should pay wages to those who assailed him with insults and abuse. The disciple did as he was commanded; then the elder said: Come now, let me test what progress you have made. Led to Athens, when he was assailed with insults at the gate, the young man began to laugh. The other, amazed, said: What is this, that you laugh when I mock and jeer at you? Should I not laugh? said the disciple; for three years I paid wages to those who heaped curses on me; today I endure the same from you for free. The astonished Athenian said: Enter the city; you are worthy of the company of the wise.
A third said: Teach me, Father, some one thing that I may keep, so that I may attain heaven. "Can you," said the elder, "endure insults?" -- as though the key to salvation consisted in the meek tolerance of contempt and scorn, and rightly so, since Christ says: "In your patience you will possess your souls."
Fourth, St. Amma in a convent of virgins, treated as though she were foolish, exposed to the laughter and mockery of all, bearing it meekly and cheerfully, was declared by St. Pitirio, by divine inspiration, to be the wisest and holiest of the entire monastery, as Palladius reports in the Lausiac History, chapter XLII.
Fifth, Abbot Pimenius in the Lives of the Fathers, book VII, chapter xxxvii: "To bear injury," he says, "and not to reply in kind, is to lay down one's soul for one's neighbor."
Sixth, Abbot Macarius, in the same place: "It is the fault," he says, "of a monk, if, when injured by his brethren, he does not hasten first with a heart purified by charity. For just as the Shunammite received Elisha, because she had a quarrel with no one, so a quiet soul receives the Holy Spirit, if it maintains no quarrel or offense with anyone."
Seventh, Abbot John, in the same work, book VI, chapter iv, no. 12: "The gate of heaven," he says, "is the endurance of injuries, and our fathers entered through it rejoicing amid many injuries."
Verse 6: The five species of prophecy
6. IF THERE BE AMONG YOU A PROPHET OF THE LORD, I WILL APPEAR TO HIM IN A VISION, OR BY A DREAM. -- "In a vision," that is, in an imaginary or intellectual representation and rapture. Here God tacitly indicates that Miriam and Aaron were Prophets, and that they had received some visions and revelations from God, but not so many, nor of such a kind, as Moses was receiving day by day.
Eugubinus notes that five species of prophecy are distinguished here: the first is that which occurs bemaree, that is, in a vision; the second, by a dream; the third, in an enigma, when one thing is seen and another is implied, as when Jeremiah, chapter I, saw a boiling pot, when Ezekiel ate a book, chapter II, 8, and St. John, Revelation x, 10; the fourth, through figures, when we behold images of things, armies, choruses, processions, and certain most illustrious sights: these four occur through abstraction from the senses, whereby it happens that we neither hear nor touch, but the whole mind is carried away into these visions; the fifth is when, with the sense and state of the body unchanged, a divine address is made to a person: in this manner God addresses the angels, and addressed Moses and a few others.
How Moses surpassed the other Prophets
In this, then, Moses is said here to have surpassed the Prophets of his time, in that he openly and mouth to mouth, present with the present one, conversed everywhere and familiarly with God, and, as appears from this passage, even saw God (that is, the angel representing God) in a corporeal form, especially after he saw His glory on Sinai, Exodus xxxiv, 6; but to the other Prophets God spoke more rarely, and not familiarly, nor by Himself, but through other forms and figures, which He presented to the Prophets.
The Jewish creed on Moses' prophetic preeminence
The Jews, in their creed which Genebrardus published at the end of his Chronology, last edition, assert that Moses excelled the other Prophets in these four respects: first, that God spoke to Moses by Himself, but to others through an angel; second, that He spoke to others at night, but to Moses during the day; third, that all the others, when hearing the angel, were shaken with horror and trembling, so that they nearly fainted, as happened to Daniel, chapter x, verse 8: Moses suffered nothing of the sort; fourth, that Moses prophesied whenever he wished, but the others only at the time when they were inspired by the Spirit of God: whence they often ceased for many months and years, because they were not being taught by the Spirit. But these claims are partly false, partly trifling and Judaizing: some truths, however, are mixed in as usual.
Moses did not see the divine essence
From what has been said it is clear that no argument can be gathered from this passage for the opinion of those who claim that Moses here saw the divine essence. For nothing new is said here about Moses, nor is any new vision of his brought forward here, but his customary conversation with God (which is described in Exodus xxxiv, 6, and often elsewhere) is here repeated; see what was said on Exodus XXXIII and XXXIV.
Verse 7: Most faithful in all My house
7. WHO IS MOST FAITHFUL IN ALL MY HOUSE. -- That is, in My whole Church, that is, in the whole assembly of Israel, no one is more faithful than Moses; in Hebrew it is: faithful he himself, where the word 'himself' has emphasis, as if to say: He is the Faithful One par excellence.
Verse 8: He sees the Lord through figures
8. AND HE SEES THE LORD THROUGH FIGURES. -- These words in the Hebrew are separated by more recent scholars with a distinguishing accent from the preceding, and they translate: and he sees the likeness of the Lord, that is, Moses sees the corporeal form of God, in which God presents Himself to be seen by him. So also the Chaldean and the Septuagint, who translate: and he saw the glory of the Lord, namely at Exodus xxxiv, 6. But the Hebrew does not have the past tense, but the future, which here, as often elsewhere, is taken for the present. The sense of all the versions, though differing in words, amounts to the same thing.
Verse 10: The cloud withdrew
10. THE CLOUD ALSO WITHDREW, -- not by moving forward and going ahead: for that would have been the signal that the camp was to move; but by ascending above the tabernacle: for that was the sign of God being angry and departing from Miriam and Aaron.
Miriam white with leprosy like snow
AND BEHOLD, MIRIAM APPEARED WHITE WITH LEPROSY LIKE SNOW. -- See here that leprosy is the punishment of those who rebel and murmur against their Prelates, as I said at the beginning of Leviticus XIII. Moreover, this is a fitting punishment for murmuring; for murmuring, like leprosy, creeps forward and infects the whole body, that is, the whole congregation and assembly. Hence, just as lepers are commanded in Leviticus XIII to be expelled from the camp and to dwell separately outside the camp, so here Miriam the murmurer is expelled from the camp, lest she infect others with her murmuring and her leprosy.
On the vice of detraction
Hear St. Ephrem speaking about the disease of the tongue: "From the most foul leprosy of Miriam the prophetess," he says, "we learn how grave and detestable a vice is detraction. The body, which was seen to be infected with leprosy, was as it were a mirror of the soul, which could not be seen, whose stain it revealed. From that corruption of the flesh it was made clear how the mind of a detractor is corrupted; for just as she had fallen away from her brother, so also her own body fell away from her, that she might learn charity from her own experience." See Origen here, homily 7, likewise St. Chrysostom, homily on Psalm 100, where among other things he says: "Detraction is a grave evil, a turbulent demon, never rendering a person peaceful. From it hatreds sprout, quarrels are kindled, dissensions arise, evil suspicions are bred: without any cause it makes an enemy of one who was shortly before a friend; it overturns entire households, and stirs peaceful cities to war; it dissolves the bonds of fair peace, and breaks the knot of great charity. He who devotes himself to detraction serves the devil: inasmuch as he carries out the work of calumny. Therefore a detractor must be driven away as a liar and a thief."
St. Jerome to Rusticus: "Never," he says, "detract from anyone at all, nor seek to appear praiseworthy through the censure of others; and learn rather to set your own life in order than to find fault with another's."
St. Augustine, as Possidonius testifies in his Life, chapter xxii, against the plague of human custom, inscribed this couplet on his table:
Whoever loves to gnaw at the life of the absent by his words, Let him know that this table is forbidden to him.
"Whence also he sometimes rebuked certain fellow bishops very dear to him, who forgot that inscription and spoke contrary to it, so sharply that he would say either those verses must be erased from the table, or he would rise from the middle of the meal to his own chamber: which I and others who were present at that table have experienced." So Possidonius. See the same St. Augustine against detractors, epistle 137, and on Psalms LIV and XCII.
St. John the Almsgiver, Patriarch of Alexandria, forbade even public sinners to be censured: "For it is possible," he said, "that they have blotted out their sin by repentance. But it is unjust for a person to petulantly reproach what God has mercifully pardoned."
Truly the Wise Man compares the slanderous tongue to a serpent: "If the serpent bites in silence," he says, "he who secretly detracts is no better," Ecclesiasticus x.
"The detractor and the willing listener, each carries the devil on his tongue," says St. Bernard in a sermon. "This is the office of the demon, who is therefore called the devil, that is, the calumniator."
The same author: "The tongue of the detractor," he says, "is a most fierce viper; it is a lance that pierces three with a single blow:" for it kills the soul, first, of the speaker; second, of the listener; third, the reputation of the one detracted from. Hear him, in the sermon On the Threefold Guard, of Hand, Tongue, and Heart: "Is not this tongue a viper?" he says. "Most fierce indeed, since it so lethally infects three with a single breath. Is not this tongue a lance? Surely a most sharp one, which pierces three with a single blow. Their tongue, he says, is a sharp sword. Indeed the tongue of the detractor is a two-edged sword, nay three-edged: nay worse, he says, than the blade by which the Lord's side was pierced. A word is indeed a light thing, because it flies lightly, but it wounds gravely; it passes lightly, but burns gravely; it penetrates the mind lightly, but does not exit lightly."
Hear the pagans as well. Cicero in On Duties: "To detract from another," he says, "and to increase one's own advantage at the expense of another's disadvantage, is more contrary to nature than death, than pain, than the other things that can befall the body or external goods. For they destroy the fellowship and society of men."
Horace in the Satires:
He who gnaws at an absent friend, Who can fabricate things not seen, who cannot keep silent about things entrusted to him; This man is black; beware of him, Roman.
Verse 11: Do not lay this sin upon us
11. DO NOT LAY THIS SIN UPON US, -- do not impute to us the sin which we have committed, do not be offended at us, nor punish, nor permit or consent that we be punished by God; but spare, and have mercy and forgive, and pray that Miriam be healed of leprosy, and that her leprosy not invade and seize me, as a participant in her murmuring.
Verse 12: Let her not be as one dead
12. LET HER NOT BE AS ONE DEAD. -- Both because the creeping leprosy, eating away at Miriam, was gradually making her resemble one dead or a mutilated and deformed abortion; and because leprosy was a kind of civil death: for it separated a person from the dwelling and company of others.
Verse 14: If her father had spit in her face
14. IF HER FATHER HAD SPIT IN HER FACE, etc., that is, If the father of Miriam your sister, being angry, had spit in her face, she out of shame and reverence for her father would not dare approach her father for seven days; how much more is it fitting that she herself now, since she has been marked by Me with leprosy on account of her sin, should be confounded and kept from the camp, and not approach Me in the tabernacle for seven days?
Separated seven days outside the camp
LET HER BE SEPARATED FOR SEVEN DAYS OUTSIDE THE CAMP, AND AFTERWARDS SHE SHALL BE RECALLED. -- And so in fact for seven days Miriam was excluded from the camp as if leprous: when those days had elapsed she was healed by God and recalled. Note that in her recall, the ceremonies and purifications prescribed for lepers in Leviticus chapter xiv were not observed. For God's miraculous healing and recall of Miriam was itself a sufficient purification and expiation for her, so that she did not need another legal one. So Abulensis.
The just punishment of arrogance
See here the just punishment of arrogance. Miriam had proudly exalted herself above her brother Moses, the leader of the camp, and had despised him: therefore justly here she is humiliated, so that as one infamous and unworthy, she is separated from the camp not only from the sight of her brother, but also of the people.
A similar example, and one much more admirable, is related by our Rader from the Praticum of the Greeks, treatise On Simplicity, chapter v, concerning the Stylite of Edessa, who because he had judged his own brother, who despised gold, to be simple-minded, and had looked down on him, on the grounds that he himself had prudently (as it seemed to him) distributed the same gold to Religious men and the poor, was rebuked by an angel and separated from his own brother for his entire life, and commanded to stand on a pillar for 49 years; after so long and hard a penance, he finally merited pardon in the fiftieth year, that is, the jubilee: for then an angel appearing to him announced that his sin was forgiven and that he was restored to the grace of God, and moreover overwhelmed him with wonderful consolation and a new blessing from God.