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By Harry Hager, D.D.*
“And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married, for he had mar ried an Ethiopian woman. And they said, Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? Hath he not spoken also by us? And the Lord heard it” (Num. 12:12). I WANT to call your attention to Miriam and Aaron and their rebel ling and complaining against Moses and his authority. Certainly this passage of Scripture is a warning against the most common and the most cowardly of all sins, that of evil speaking, and es pecially evil speaking of those who are our spiritual leaders. We are not told exactly what position this sister of Moses held in Israel, although we know that she was an older sister. She was prob ably the one who watched over that little ark of bulrushes in the Nile River, and apparently she had great influence among the children of Israel. That a man and a woman of such im portance in the nation as Aaron and Miriam, so eminent for the services that they had already given unto God and so closely associated with Moses, their own brother, should finally have come to that point where they would be capable of speaking against the anointed of the Lord is indeed surprising and is almost unbelievable. It was not only a very wicked thing that they did, but algo a very ridiculous thing. Well did the wise man declare: “He that uttereth slander is full of folly.” The Complaint of Miriam and Aaron The occasion of the slander was the fact that Moses had married outside of Israel. Apparently he married again after the death of Zipporah, and the woman that he married was of another stock, another class, an alien and a stranger among that people. But God, you remember, had made provision in the Word of God for marriages of this kind, as in the case of Rahab, the harlot, and Ruth, the Moabitess. God wanted to in corporate Gentile stock into the fellow ship of that family. There was something pathetic about this whole situation, for Miriam made *Pa8tor of Bethany Reformed Church, Chicago, Illinois. Minister of “America% for God” Sunday night radio broadcast on WCFL, Chicago. Page Fourteen
it an occasion of great public con troversy. It did not remain a private matter within the family. It was dragged out into the open and became a public issue. Moses had a big scandal on his hands. Now, at last his enemies were quite sure that they had “ something” on Moses. They must have been watching for it for a long time. I don’t know whether Aaron influenced Miriam or Miriam Aaron, but in the breast of one of- the two at least, for a long time resentment had been smoldering re garding the tremendous amount of pow er that this man Moses wielded among the children of Israel. We read that the people honored him; in fact, they feared him as a servant of God, for they found that there was a meek spirit in him and that Moses in the end always demon strated that he was right, that he was oh the inside in the counsels of God, and that he knew what it was to speak with God face to face. And yet, by that very reason, so much of an august and majestic bearing seemed to be attached to Moses, so much of the divine life in the midst of which he held,fellowship seemed to gather as a halo about him, that they were not simply struck with awe, but those that were closest to him were inspired with envy. Many scholars have suggested that in the case of Miriam there was also a desire for authority. I do not believe that it was this. I think rather that it was some paltry family quarrel in which the wife of Moses was herself likeiy in volved. Probably there was some jealousy between Miriam and this new wife, and Miriam in her vexation turned to her brother Aaron for sympathy. They joined hand in hand, and their tongues were bonded in evil slander. And so they complained, “Hath the Lord spoken only by Moses, hath he not spoken also by us?” The Concern of the Lord We read that the Lord heard their murmurings. The Lord overheard them. What a listener He is! Oh, the startling truth presented in this passage! They themselves, I suppose, were seated in the privacy of the high priest’s tent. Did they realize that God Himself was stand ing just outside of that tent and over hearing them? How many times would people think twice and restrain them selves if only they remembered that
God overheard every idle word spoken. They thought that they were so secure in the secrecy of their engagements; and yet, while Moses did not hear it, the Lord heard it. Remember, the Lord always hears. There is not an evil word but that the Lord is able to observe, it, and the lying influence that is injected into the con versation here and there is overheard by the Lord and is written down. But why should it concern God so definitely that there was such complain ing and discontent among His own children? Since He attends definitely to all the affairs of the children of men, those complaints that are made against His servants are after all complaints against Him. This is His world. The church is His church. You recall that He dealt definitely with Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. We read: “ They strove against Moses,” and we read also that they strove against the Lord. The two atti tudes were synonymous. Then, you notice that in judging men God has declared that He will always take into account, not simply their thoughts, but also their words; not just their deeds but also that which they contrive in the secret chambers of their imagination. He takes careful account of that which people are saying among themselves. We find that the Lord took definite action in consequence of that which He had overheard. When Miriam and Aaron had finished speaking, God spoke sudden ly; He brought them face to face with the very man that they were slandering, their dear brother Moses. What a humil iating experience for Aaron it was! One would think that having had the ex perience of the golden calf, he would have learned his lesson once and for all. But here he is again; and we can see why God chose Moses for leadership, even though He made Aaron His spokes man when Moses hesitated to assume all the responsibilities of leadership of these people. You will notice that this passage of Scripture declares that God had defi nitely intended to defeat their very ends by bringing this thing out into the open. Slander is, in fact, a sort of pestilence that walketh in darkness and a destruc tion that wasteth at noonday, and God’s way of dealing with evil speaking is to uncover it according to His own peculiar plan. (Continued on Page 17) T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
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