How the Powerful Play their Bible Game (Numbers 12)

Yani Yoo1

I. Introduction and Methodology

In Numbers 12 Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the latter's Cushite wife. They also challenged his leadership. God was mad about the two and defended Moses' prominent status. But only Miriam was punished; Aaron was spared. While this story has stimulated various interpretations, most of them tend to stay within the ideology of the biblical narrator.2 This essay is an ideological reading of the text from a Korean woman's viewpoint. It attempts to show how the biblical narrator, traditional commentators, and contemporary church leaders play their power game around the Bible through their writing, interpreting, and preaching. In other words, this essay aims to reveal the ideology of the writer and readers of Numbers 12.

Here are some strategies of the ideological reading.3 A text does not just happen; it happens for a reason: to conceal or resolve some conflict, or to promote certain values or behaviors. It is mute about other things that will be opposed to it. The ideology critic pays attention to what the text does not say – silence, gaps and absences – for ideology lies in what is not spoken. The critic exposes the ideology and searches for repressed voices. To do this, the critic scrutinizes rhetorical tools used in the text to persuade readers to accept a particular ideology: characterization, plot, repetition, point of view, symbolism, irony, foreshadowing, framing, etc. Through investigation of the textual rhetoric, we will find the ideology of Numbers 12 and the repressed voices in the text. This will lead us to discern how similar games are played by the writers’ followers, especially scholars and preachers.

II. The Biblical Narrator's Power Game

The narrator recognizes a conflict in the community: a challenge to Moses' leadership. His job then is to defend and emphasize Moses’ leadership and status par excellence. None other than Moses’ siblings, Miriam and Aaron, are the instigators. Thus, the narrator can effectively declare that not even Moses' own siblings would be tolerated. The narrator utilizes several tactics to achieve his goals.

A. By Employing a Special Character, God

God, one of the characters the narrator employs in his story, is an effective character for the religious audience then and now. Out of several characters in the text God is the most emotional, acting most actively (coming down, standing and calling in v. 5), and speaking long speeches (vv. 6-8, 14). First, God appears in an authoritative way, in a pillar of cloud and at the door of the Tent, giving even more power to God's upcoming acts and speeches. Cloud is an ambiguous symbol for while it symbolizes God's supernatural and mysterious power, it also blocks human eyes. There were only three human beings and God on the scene so what really happened behind the curtain of cloud is not verifiable. Cloud is a convenient device so that only Moses and his supporters, like the narrator, can claim that God said this and did that.4

Second, God's speeches are most problematic to sensitive readers. God's first speech (vv. 6-8) emphasizes Moses' special relationship with God. God speaks to Moses face to face (literally, "mouth to mouth") and Moses can "behold the form of the Lord", whereas God speaks to other prophets in visions and dreams. In other biblical texts (e.g. Ex. 33:17-23), Moses is not allowed to see God's face, but only God's back, for “no one shall see me and live" (Ex. 33:20). If the Exodus tradition is correct, the text in Numbers must be exaggerating about Moses' unique relationship with God.

The cloud disappears and Miriam is left with a skin disease. Even after hearing Moses' plea to heal Miriam, God's second speech (v. 14) still reflects divine anger, "If her father had but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut out of the camp for seven days, and after that she may be brought in again." A law about a father spitting in his daughter's face is not attested elsewhere in the Bible, but it is clearly about public shame. God is likened to a father who publicly puts a daughter to shame, and acts and speaks harshly.

The narrator lets God speak what he (the narrator) wants his audience to hear. When his words are in the mouth of the character God, readers easily accept the ideology of the text.5 In presenting a God of judgment, taking sides with Moses and not believing in shared leadership, the narrator dares to distort the image of God to achieve his goal. Despite the narrator's effort in employing an angry God, we can find the opposite idea in God's emotional and drastic response to Miriam's challenge. The degree to which God was mad about Miriam ironically attests to her strong leadership among the people. The narrative target was Miriam, not Aaron, because she was the real threat to Moses.

B. By Getting Men's Cooperation

The narrator utilizes a human character, Aaron, to mediate between Miriam and Moses. Once an instigator, Aaron now plays collaborator, calling Moses "my lord", thus acknowledging him as his superior. He describes Miriam and his claim for equal leadership as sinful and foolish. By putting this judgment in the challenger’s mouth, the narrator effectively persuades his audience that any challenge to Moses' leadership is a "sin so foolishly committed." Although Aaron cooperates only after Miriam's punishment, it seems that he is spared because he will cooperate. From this example, men in the community will learn that by cooperation they can get advantages.

C. By Protecting Moses' Honor

One of the narrator's tasks is to make Moses look good.6 Although Moses should have been upset by the challenge, he is described as calm and generous. Presenting Moses as a very generous man has been the narrator's strategy. In Numbers 11, after the 70 elders finished prophesying, two other young men also prophesied. When Joshua wanted Moses to stop them, the latter responded, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!" (11:29, NRSV). Big Moses should not become a small man just with a challenge from his siblings. Instead, God takes the role of being upset and punishing them. Thus, while the theme of chapters 11 and 12 on the surface is ‘sharing leadership’, reading between the lines shows a different picture: ‘absolute leadership should belong to Moses only’.

Right after Miriam and Aaron's speech of challenging Moses' leadership, the narrator teaches his audience about Moses' personality: "Now the man Moses was very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth" (v. 3). This indirect discourse prepares for God's direct discourse in verses 6-8, a strong defense of Moses' leadership. Moses' speech in verse 13 is his only direct speech. He makes a plea to God to heal Miriam. He uses "please" twice. He looks even greater especially when he speaks on behalf of the very person who challenged himself.

D. By Silencing Miriam

The narrator carefully deals with the character Miriam to his own benefit. Two elements in the story are most puzzling. In verse 1, the name Miriam comes first ("Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses . . . ,") and the verb is the third person feminine singular. Both Miriam and Aaron challenged Moses, but only Miriam is punished. For historical critics, these two elements are signs of the combination of different sources that used to belong to Miriam and Aaron separately.7 But we see them as intentional arrangements. The order of the names and the feminine verb foreshadow the destiny of Miriam and prepare the readers to accept her punishment.

Readers hear Miriam's voice when she and Aaron said, "Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?" (v. 2). But after Miriam is punished with a dreadful skin disease, she is silent or the narrator makes no comment on her response. Why Miriam and a woman? From bits and pieces we learn Miriam was an influential leader in the wilderness community.8 Miriam is called a prophetess (Ex. 15:20) and listed as one of the three Exodus leaders along with Aaron and Moses (Micah 6:4). Miriam's sole punishment indicates that her leadership was the real threat to Moses. Her voice is the narrator's primary target to repress. So the narrator does not give her voice.

Miriam is not the only one who needs to be suppressed. Women and their leadership in the community also seem to be the narrator's target. The repetition of the phrase, "the Cushite woman" (v. 1), the mother image (v. 12), and the daughter image (v. 14) are clues. By repeating the phrase and setting Miriam against her, the narrator sets women against women. The narrator uses the conqueror's strategy, "divide and conquer," dividing women. There is a Korean saying, "When three women get together, a plate breaks." Behind this saying there is fear of women's power and cooperation.

The image of a mother who sadly gives birth to a still-born presents an image of a weak woman. It is contrasted to the image of a powerful father who puts his daughter to shame by spitting in her face (v.14). It is notable that the child being disciplined here is not a son, but a daughter. Images of the weak mother and the punished daughter are far from the strong leadership Miriam is claiming.

A public shaming for a private confrontation helps to make Miriam a public example. Deuteronomy 24:9 recalls Miriam: "Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the way as you came forth out of Egypt." As Trible describes, Miriam is "a marked woman, a warning for generations to come," a woman so important "that detractors tabooed her to death, seeking to bury her forever in disgrace."9 Shame belongs to the area of community. So two kinds of people in the community should learn a lesson from her case. The women who aspire to be like men and the men who want Moses-like leadership such as that of the prophesying elders and two young men (ch. 11).

While silence indicates passivity, it can indicate Miriam's dignity. Unlike her partner Aaron, she does not admit that her claim to equal leadership is illegitimate or "sinful." She does not apologize for her action, neither does she beg for healing. Thus, her silence speaks loudly of her pride and protest.

III. The Exegetes' Power Game

Exegetes are not in a vacuum when they write their commentaries. Whether conscious or not, they work around the ideology of the biblical narrator. David J. A. Clines points out that exegetes and readers are overwhelmed by the ideology of the ancient text with authority, accept it as their own, and regard it as natural common sense.10 The way traditional commentaries work - analysis according to words, phrases, and sentences – may result in following the logic of the narrator and accepting his ideology and by doing so scholars reinforce it and continue to promote it.

Taking the biblical text at its face value ends up viewing Miriam as a problem, being envious of her sister-in-law for an unknown reason and his brother for his preeminent status.11 Instead of asking why the narrator sets women against women and trying to figure out the answer, the traditional commentaries often try to answer wrong questions: Who is the Cushite woman? Is racism at issue here? Who is the lead culprit between Miriam and Aaron?12 These questions assume Miriam as a small-minded woman and as guilty and thus deserving the punishment.

Considering Miriam as the problem is also shown in titles of the text in commentaries and Bible translations. The story is titled as "Aaron and Miriam jealous of Moses,"13 "the rebellions of Miriam and Aaron against Moses,"14 "Miriam and Aaron pick a fight with Moses"15 and so son. The titles reflect that the authors take sides with the narrator's logic. It is exactly what the biblical narrator intended for his readers.

Seeing Miriam as the problem is closely connected to considering her deserving of punishment. Some scholars even use the expression, "poetic justice" for Miriam's punishment: Miriam accused a black woman and she became white due to a dreadful skin disease. They assume that the Cushite woman was black.17 Especially because of the sentence, "the skin of Miriam became as white as snow," they go on to see the text's "setting white against black." But Cain Hope Felder argues that racial prejudice against African people is more a modern European prejudice and ought not to be read into the biblical text here.18 Taking racism as an issue in the text is a pitfall that the text dug for the readers.

IV. The Preachers' Power Game

Exegetes are not the only ones who promote the ideology of the biblical narrator. Preachers also contribute to its consolidation. Last December 2003, the Rev. Tae Deuk Yim, president of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Korea19 said, "Women's ordination? No way! How dare you women wearing diapers!" He said it at a chapel service of the Theology Department of Chongshin University, the church's main denominational seminary, where about 60 students (5%) are women.

I also heard from a lay member of the Myung Sung (Presbyterian) Church about her minister's view on laity and women. The church is famous for its early morning services and draws thousands of people each morning. The head minister, the Rev. Sam Hwan Kim said that ministers and laity have "different blood." That is, ordained ministers are specially called by God and are holy and consecrated. It consequently follows that women and men also have different blood, and that is why women's ordination is unthinkable.

Although the full manuscripts of the two ministers' sermons are unavailable, it is obvious that they use the Bible for their arguments. These are a few examples of how contemporary preachers conspire and reinforce the ideology of the patriarchal biblical narrator. They just cannot see women and laity men to be like them – in equal leadership.

Korean women are taking actions against the former case. The case has drawn many protesters from both men and women because the minister used an obviously offensive and "raw" expression against women's ordination. But other cases, like the latter, are more deliberate in oppressing women and thus it is hard to fight against.

V. Conclusion

Biblical narrators, traditional commentators, and contemporary church leaders have played their power game around the Bible through their literary composition, exegesis, and preaching. They have successfully repressed and controlled women. So it is not difficult for women in male-centered cultures to find in Miriam's case a resonance with their own experience of injustice.

But the game of the powerful has not been completely successful. As we pointed out above, God's drastic response ironically indicates that Miriam was an influential leader in the community and thus posed a real threat to Moses. By the same token, Miriam's silence was not simple silence: her silence attests to her firm and loud protest.

NOTES:

1 Dr. Yani (Yeon Hee) Yoo is a lecturer in Old Testament in South Korea and consultant to Women’s Division of the United Methodist Women.
2 The term ideology here indicates the intended meaning or theology of the text. For various definitions of ideology, see David J. A. Clines, Interested Parties: The Ideology of the Readers and Writers of the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1995), ch. 1.
3 Cf. Clines, Interested Parties; Gale A. Yee, “Ideological Criticism: Judges 17-21 and the Dismembered Body,” in Judges & Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995).
4 Cf. The inheritance law related to Zelophehad’s five daughters passes fully in the presence of the whole community in Numbers 27. But some strings are attached to it in the presence of a small number of men later in Number 36.
5 Cf. God’s speech in 2 Sam. 21:1 acknowledging the Saulites’ killings of the Gibeonites. David persecutes Saul’s remaining sons on the basis of the divine speech. Walter Brueggemann notes that the oracle is private for the king and Saul’s alleged bloodguilt is without evidence. See his “First and Second Samuel,” Interpretation (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990), 336.
6 Cf. David’s case - make him look good: in the so-called Succession Narratives, David does not have to remove his political opponents by himself. Let some other people do the dirty work. David’s hands are free from innocent bloodshed.
7 M. Noth, Numbers, 92-6; Philip J. Budd, “Numbers,“ Word Bible Commentary 5 (Waco: Word Books, 1984), 133.
8 Trible, “Bringing Miriam out of the Shadows,” Bible Review 5 (1989): 14-25, 34.
9 Ibid. 23.
10 Clines, Interested Parties, ch. 1.
11 Renita J. Weems, Just a Sister Away: A Womanist Vision of Women’s Relationships in the Bible (California: San Diego, 1988), 71-83, esp. 80; Bernard P. Robinson, “The Jealousy of Miriam: A Note on Numbers 12,” Zeitschrift fur die Altentestamentum Wissenschaft, 1989, 432; Ronald Kenneth Harrison, Numbers, Wycliffe Exegetical Commentary (Chicago: Moody bible Institute, 1990), 105; Timothy R. Ashley, The Book of Numbers, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 224.
12 Catholic Study Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) reads, “Aaron merely followed his sister in her rebellion; hence she alone was punished.”
13 New Revised Standard Version (New York: American Bible Society, 1989).
14 Eryl W. Davies, Numbers, The New Century Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 113; Dennis T. Olson, Numbers (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1996), 69.
15 Korean Common Translation, Seoul: Korean Bible Society, 1977.
16 Trible, “Bringing Miriam out of the Shadows,” 22; Ashley, The Book of Numbers, 227; Mukti Barton, “The Skin of Miriam Became as White as Snow: The Bible, Western Feminism and Colour Politics,” Feminist Theology 27 (2001): 68-80.
17 Trible, “Bringing Miriam out of the Shadows,” 22.
18 Cain Hope Felder, Troubling Biblical Waters: Race, Class and Family (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), ch. 1.
19 The denomination is one of the three largest in Korea. It still does not ordain women.