April 29, 2009

Jealous Much?

Today I was reading Numbers 12-14. Now I know most bibles have headings for certain sections or maybe we should call them mini-titles. The mini-title for Chapter 12 in my bible is "The Complaints of Miriam and Aaron"

I actually had to read this chapter a couple of times and even in a different translation because after the first verse I got a little confused on the subject matter. It starts out with Miriam and Aaron, who are Moses' siblings, complaining to someone not sure if it was just each other or just in general, but in verse 1 it states, "...Miriam and Moses criticized Moses because he married a Cushite woman." But what they were saying had nothing to do with this woman. In verse 2 they said, "Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? hasn't he spoken through us too?" Verse 3 "But the Lord heard them." So that statement right there makes me think they obvioulsy weren't out in the open shouting that they didn't approve of this woman. They thought if they could just talk amongst themselves God would not hear them, but we know better. (By the way they don't mention the Cushite again)

My question to Miriam and Aaron is are you mad because Moses married the Cushite woman or the fact that God seemed to have favor on Moses and not them. Now in verses 4 thru 8 when the Lord spoke to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam he explains why he talks to everybody differently which you would think would be fine but noooooo the Lord has to go a step further to prove his point and he turns Miriam ashen white with Leprosy, which naturally freaked Miriam and Aaron out and they begged for Moses to talk to God to heal her.

Now for some reason at this point another story came to mind and that is of the prodigal son. In the beginning Miriam and Aaron were the brother who had stayed behind with the dad and was jealous when he saw what a big deal his father made of the prodigal's return but in the end they became the prodigal himself and repented of their foolish ways and came running back after dealing with the uncleanliness of the leprosy, much like how the prodigal came to his senses after he was eating with the pigs.

Ok this totally didn't go how I had it in my head but hopefully you can get something out of it at least go grab your bible and read it yourself, lol.

Oh yeah one last thing if I was the Israelites I would have been mad at Miriam because of her jealousy the whole tribe had to wait for seven days while she became clean again in the site of the Lord because of the leprosy. That is a whole seven more days that they didn't get to the Promise Land which yes I know in the whole grand scheme of things that really shouldn't matter because they still didn't enter the land of Canaan but they didn't know that at the time. So imagine getting to go to Hawaii but you have to wait because someone in your group screwed up, not sure about you but I think it might put a damper on the rest of the trip.