I love the Book of Numbers! There are so many good stories
that are not super well known. After reading through it and teaching them, I
made a goal to help my kids understand a lot of the lesser-known good stories
from the Bible. Numbers 12 stuck out to me this time around. It’s a short
story, and we don’t have all the details, but I bet it was pretty similar to
things that are happening to the Church and the prophet today.
Numbers 12 opens up by explaining that Miriam and Aaron, two
of the top leaders in Israel, complained against Moses. Since it is always
Miriam who is speaking in behalf of the women of the camp, I would guess that
she held a position similar to General Relief Society President. And Aaron was
the High Priest and president of the Levitical priesthood at the time. Why were they
complaining? Because Moses married a Cushite/Ethiopian woman. Some people think
this verse was just talking about Zipporah, but I don’t think so. She isn’t
mentioned in the Bible after Exodus 18, so it must have been a second wife.
At first I had the same complaint. How could the prophet
marry outside of Israel when he taught the rest of camp not to do so? As I has
studied that question, though, I realized that my understanding of the
commandment was wrong. All of the verses that talk about marriage only say that
they can’t marry Canaanites (Gen 24:3; Deut 7:3-4). Maybe because Canaanites
worshiped Baal and Ashterah and had really immoral worship practices? I don’t
know why that group is singled out from other groups, but there a few examples
of people marrying non-Israelites from other nations. Also, I don’t think God
ever cared about race and nation when it came to marriage. It all had to do
with covenant keeping. I’m sure there were lots of different nations in the
camp of almost 2,000,000 people, and I’m sure many of them made covenants to
worship Jehovah and keep the law.
So why was Miriam’s complaint so serious? Because in verse 2
when she said, “Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses?” she was telling the
people publicly that Moses wasn’t the only one who could receive revelation for
the whole church. She was telling the people that Moses was wrong. And that all
the people could speak to others in behalf of the Lord. In effect, she was
telling the people that he was a fallen prophet.
It’s interesting that God got so angry with her. It’s one of
the only stories I can think of where God personally came down to set it all
straight. And I love His answer: “If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord
will make myself known unto him in a vision,
and will speak unto him in a dream.
With him will I speak mouth to mouth,
even apparently, and not in dark speeches.” Translation: “I’m not going to tell
the prophet weird things secretly. I’m not going to deal with him under the
table. If I want him to do things for me and for the church, I’m going to tell
him face to face. What he has done was specific instructions straight from my
mouth.”
This story all came together for me when I noticed that
there is another place in the scriptures where someone asked the SAME question
as Miriam, but he did it in a much different way. In D&C 132 we see an
answer to a 12-year question that Joseph Smith had. He questions is found in
verse 1: “God, how can you justify that all of the major prophets from the
Bible, including Moses, had plural wives?” Verse 3 shows that Joseph was ready
for the answer, and that God wants us to be “prepared” when He gives us answers
to hard questions. It truly would be hard to be in Joseph’s position. He had
this question for years, and all the Lord told him was that “I commanded them
to.”
Here’s the point I learned: God doesn’t get angry with us
when we have questions. But there is a right way to ask a question and a wrong
way. When these two had a question of why the prophet married a Cushite woman,
one person went humbly to the Lord and the other publicly criticized the prophet.
This chapter is totally what we are dealing with right now!
Miriam’s complain is almost word-for-word some of the current criticisms: “Is
the prophet the only one who can receive work from God? Are we even sure this
comes from God in the first place? Has the prophet EVER spoken to God?” God’s
response echoes true today just as it did in Moses’ time. “I will speak to him
mouth to mouth.”
