ofo.n nffectionate disposition (cf. Levit. x. 19), sion, considered as coming from the mouth of and suffered his own punishment in witness- God. The aC't in question was, however, not in(: thnt of others. 3. He wns God's high uncommon in itself, and in significance priest, and the office would hnve shared in clearly marked (see Deut. xxv. 9). It was the disgrnce of the man. the distinctive note of public disgrace in- Ver. 11.-Aaron said unto Moses, Alas, flicted by one who had a right to inflict it. my lord, I beseech thee. Septuagint, clop.a,, In the case of a father, it meant that he was Kiip... In thus addressing his brother thoroughly ashamed of his child, and judged Anron acknowledged his superior position, it best (which would be only in extreme and tacitly nbandoned all pretension to cases) to put hls chilcl to shame before all the equality. Lay not the sin upon us. Aaron world. So public a disgrace would certainly speaks to Moses almost as if he were praying be felt in patriarchal times as a most severa to God, so completely does he recognise in calamity, and entailed hy ordinary custom his brother the representative of God (in a (as we learn here) retirement and mourning far hlgher sense than himself), who had for seven days at least. How much more, power to bind and loose in the name and when her heavenly Father had been driven power of God. What Aaron really prays for to inflict a public disgrace upon her for per- is that the sin, which he frankly confesses, verse behaviour, should the shame and the may not be imputed to them. The Lcvitical sorrow not be lightly put away, but patiently law had taught them to look upon sin as a endured for a decent period! (cf. Heh. xii. 9). burden, which in the nature of things the Ver. 15.-lliriam was shut out from the sinner must carry, but whlch by the goodness camp seven days. It does not say that of God might be got rid of, or transferred to Miriam wns healed forthwith of her leprosy, some one else (cf. Levit. iv. 4; xvi. 21 ; but the presumption is to that effect. Not John i. 29). the punishment itself, but the shame of it, Ver. 12.-As one dead. Rather, "as the was to last according to th<i answer of God. dead thlng," i. e. the still-born child, in which Her case, therefore, would not fall under the death and decay have anticipated life. Such law of eh. v. 2, or of Levit. xiii. 46, but was the frightful effect of leprosy in its last would be analogous to that treated of in etages. Levit. xiv. No doubt she had to submit to Ver. 13.-Moaes cried unto the Lord. all the rites there prescribed, humiliating as A much harder and prouder man than Moses they must have been to the prophetess and was must needs have been melted into pity at the sister of the law-giver; and these rites the sight of his sister, and the terrible sug- involved exclusion from her tent for a period gestion of Aaron. Heal her now, 0 God, I of seven days (Levit. xiv. 8). By God's beseech thee. The " now" has no place command exclusion from her tent was made here, unless it be merely to add force to the exclusion from the camp. exclamation. Moses, &I.though directly ap- Ver. 16.-In the wilderness of Paran. It pealed to himself, can only appeal to God. is somewhat strange the.t this note of place Ver. 14. -The Lord said unto Moses. should be used a second time without explan- Presumably in the tabernacle, whither Moses ation (see eh. x. 12, 33). Probably it is would have returned to supplicate God. If intended to me.rk the fe.ct tho.t they were her father had but spit in her face. The still withln the limits of Paran, although "but" is superfluous, and obscures the on the very verge of their :vromised lnnd. In sense ; the act mentioned is referred to not the list of stations given m eh. :nxiii. it is as something trifling, but as something in its said (ver. 18), "They departed from Hazeroth, way very serious. The Septungint renders and pitched in Rithmah." This is with it correctly ei o,rar,}p ... ,rrvw11 i11,,rrva111. some probability identified with the Wady The Targums have, " if her father had cor- Redemat, which opens from the mountain rected her." Probably they used this eu- mnss of the Aza.zimat into the singular ]?le.in phemism from a sense of a certain want of of Kudes, or Kadesh, the scene of the dec1Sive dignity and propriety in the orignal expres- events whlch followed,
HOMILETICS. Ch. ~i.:--The contradict-ion of sinnn:s. We have in this chapter, spiritually, the contradiction of the Jews agamst their brother after the flesh; morally the sin and punishment of jealousy and envy in high places. Consider, therefore-.: I. THAT AS MOSES IS THE TYPE 011' HIM WHO WAS THE MEDIATOR OIi' A DETTER COVENANT, WHO WAS MEEK AND LOWLY IN HEART j SO AARON AND MIRIAM, \VllEN ARRAYED AGAINST MOSES, RRPRESENT THE LEVITICAL PRIESTHOOD AT 'I'll& TIME OJ.I' oon Lonn, AN:> THE JEWISH EYNAGOGOE, IN THEIR CARNAL PRIDE .AND EXCLUSIVENESS. 134 THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. [CH. XU.