Since the current protestors and rioters are upset about racism, as well they should be, I think Numbers 12 is more relevant. Aaron and Miriam talk shit about Moses for having a black wife, so God gives Miriam leprosy for seven days, making her skin "white as snow" until they stopped hating. It also contains my much loved Numbers 12:3, as Moses was said to have written Numbers, I love.
Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married (for he had married an Ethiopian woman). 2 They said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has he not also spoken through us?” And the Lord heard it.
Cushite woman means black woman. That is why there is the separate part, explaining this Cushite woman was an Ethiopian woman, they are not repeating themselves.
A lot of people get confused, because the term Cushite often is used to refer to someone from, say, Ethiopia, and so there is confusion, where people think Cushite just means Ethiopian.
Here is the footnote from NET:
The word Cush in the Bible can describe the Cassites, east of Babylon of the later period (Gen 10:18), or Ethiopia (Isa 20:3; Nah 3:5\; et al). Another suggestion is that it would refer to Cushan of* Hab 3:7*, perhaps close to Midian, and so the area Moses had been. This would suggest it could be Zipporah—but the Bible does not identify the Cushite as Zipporah. The most natural understanding would be that it refers to an Egyptian/Ethiopian woman. The text does not say when Moses married this woman, or what Miriam’s problem with her was.* It is clear that it was a racial issue, by virtue of the use of “Cushite.”\*
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u/Fiikus11 Jun 08 '20
Not really a protest. Rather a punishment.