Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

In my opinion, God DID seek to punish Moses -- not for marrying the Cushite woman described in this passage as such (since that had taken place before God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of their bondage in Egypt) (Exodus 2:15-22), but (since Moses -- although having been raised in Pharaoh's court -- was himself a circumcised Jew by birth) for failing to have had his elder son Gershom, whom his Midianite wife Zipporah bore to him (Exodus 2:22), circumcised as a sign of his also being under the covenant that God had made with Abraham (Genesis 17:7). 

In fact, God sought to kill Moses for this omission (Exodus 4:24-26), but Zipporah assuaged God's anger by circumcising Gershom herself, after which she angrily threw his foreskin at Moses, and called Moses "a bridegroom of blood".

Since any offense or sin that Moses may have committed in connection with this incident had already been satisfied in the eyes of God by Moses' son being circumcised, the later attempt by Aaron and Miriam to raise this issue again, and to exalt themselves in opposition to the position of leadership to which God Himself had called Moses, were what prompted God's anger at Aaron and Miriam, and his punishment of Miriam for this presumption (Numbers 12:10). (Miriam would have been the more presumptuous of the two, since God had specifically appointed Aaron and his descendants to be Israel's priests, but Miriam's only claim to prominence was in being Moses' and Aaron's sister.)

April 05 2016 • 1 response • Vote Up • Share • Report