to shriek · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
LORD
יְהוָ֖הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
saying
לֵאמֹ֑רle.Mor
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
Heal
רְפָ֥אre.Fa'
H7495
properly · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular
God
אֵ֕ל'el
H410
strength · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Luke 6:28 Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.
Romans 12:21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
James 5:15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
Exodus 32:10-14 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
Numbers 14:2 And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had di…
Numbers 14:13-20 And Moses said unto the LORD, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, (for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;)
Numbers 16:41 But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people…
Numbers 16:46-50 And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation,…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Numbers 12:10–end
Here is, I. God's judgment upon Miriam (Num 12:10): The cloud departed from off that part of the tabernacle, in token of God's displeasure, and presently Miriam became leprous; when God goes, evil comes; expect no good when God departs. The leprosy was a disease often inflicted by the immediate hand of God as the punishment of some particular sin, as on Gehazi for lying, on Uzziah for invading the priest's office, and here on Miriam for scolding and making mischief among relations. The plague of the leprosy, it is likely, appeared in her face, so that it appeared to all that saw her that she was struck with it, with the worst of it, she was leprous as snow; not only so white, but so soft, th…
On the humble and penitential submission of Aaron, Moses interceded for both the offenders, especially for Miriam, who was restored; not, however, till she had been made, by her exclusion, a public example [Num 12:14-15].
John Gill on Numbers 12:13
And Moses cried unto the Lord,.... With a loud voice, and with great earnestness and importunity, being heartily affected with the miserable condition Miriam was in:
saying, heal her now, O God, I beseech thee; in the original text it is, "O God now, heal her now"; for the same particle is used at the close as at the beginning of the petition; and the repetition of it shows his earnestness and importunity that she might be healed directly, immediately, without any delay; and Moses uses the word "El", which signifies the strong and mighty God, as expressive of his faith in the power of God, that he was able to heal her; and at the same time suggests that none but he could do it; and so Aben…
Numbers 12:1-16
1. And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.
1. Et loquuta est Maria et Aharon contra Mosen propter uxorem AEthiopissam quam acceperat: uxorem enim AEthiopissam acceperat.
2. And they said, Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the Lord heard it.
2. Et dixerunt, Nunquid solummodo per Mosen loquutus est Jehova? nonne etiam per nos loquutus est? Et audivit Jehova.
3. (Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.)
3. Vir autem ille Moses mansuetissimus fuit prae cunctis hominibus qui erant super faci…
The Church Fathers
Miriam and her company spake evil of Moses, and he immediately begged them off from their punishment; nay, would not so much as let it be known that his cause was avenged. But not so we: on the contrary, this is what we most desire; to have all men know that they have not passed unpunished.
"And Moses cried out to the Lord, saying: God, I pray you, heal her." And whom did it behoove to pray to the Lord for the healing of that people except Moses? Moses prays for them; and perhaps this was what he was conversing about with the Lord Jesus Christ, when he was transformed on the mountain, asking of him that, when the fullness of the Gentiles had entered in, then all Israel might be saved. "And the Lord said to Moses: if her father had spat in her face, would she not be ashamed for seven days? Let her be separated for seven days outside the camp, and after this she shall enter in." What is it, "if her father had spat in her face, she would be ashamed for seven days"? We placed Miriam in the place of the synagogue; upon her, her father spat in the face. It is a sign of repudiation to be spat upon in the face. Indeed, it is written in the law, where it is commanded that a neighbor should marry the widow left by his neighbor, that if the neighbor should wish to repudiate the marriage, he should, unshod, be spat upon in the face, and this was given as a sign of repudiation. Hence therefore Miriam, that is, that people, when she is repudiated by God, is said to be spat upon in the face. We have also in another place the signification of spittle, when Isaiah says: "all the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are reckoned as spittle." It is shown therefore in this that that people too, like the other nations which are reckoned as spittle, has been cast off. And truly, if you consider that former honor, when the pontifical order flourished among them, when there were the insignia of priests, when the Levitical ministries, when the majesty of the temple, when the prophetic splendor, and when they enjoyed fellowships with the heavenly ones upon the earth — what an honor that was, what glory! And again, if you now look at how they bristle with such great disgrace, without temple, without altar, without sacrifice, without prophet, without priesthood, without any heavenly visitation, scattered through all the earth and living as fugitives: who would not evidently recognize that their father spat in their face and drenched their countenance with ignominy? Seven days, therefore, she is separated outside the camp. We have already said in the earlier passages too that these seven days designate the week of this world; for in the week of days the substances of…
Dictionary and topics
Aaron — The eldest son of Amram and Jochebed, a daughter of Levi (Ex. 6:20). Some explain the name as meaning mountaineer, others mountain of strength, illuminator. He was born in Egypt three years before…
Hazeroth — Fenced enclosures consisting of “a low wall of stones in which thick bundles of thorny acacia are inserted, the tangled branches and long needle-like spikes forming a perfectly impenetrable hedge…
Leprosy — (Heb. tsara’ath, a “smiting,” a “stroke,” because the disease was regarded as a direct providential infliction). This name is from the Greek lepra, by which the Greek physicians designated the…
Miriam — Their rebellion. (1.) The sister of Moses and Aaron (Ex. 2:4-10; 1 Chr. 6:3). Her name is prominent in the history of the Exodus. She is called “the prophetess” (Ex. 15:20). She took the lead in the…
Prayer — Is converse with God; the intercourse of the soul with God, not in contemplation or meditation, but in direct address to him. Prayer may be oral or mental, occasional or constant, ejaculatory or…
Forgiveness · .Moses forgives the Israelites — .Moses forgives the Israelites
Judgments · Miriam — Miriam
Leprosy · .Miriam — .Miriam
Prayer, Intercessory · Should be offered up for: Those who envy us — Should be offered up for: Those who envy us
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Moses, with his mildness, took compassion upon his sister, upon whom this punishment had fallen, and cried to the Lord, "O God, I beseech Thee, heal her." The connection of the particle נא with אל is certainly unusual, but yet it is analogous to the construction with such exclamations as אוי (Jer 4:31; Jer 45:3) and הנּה (Gen 12:11; Gen 16:2, etc.); since אל in the vocative is to be regarded as equivalent to an exclamation; whereas the alteration into אל, as proposed by J. D. Michaelis and Knobel, does not even give a fitting sense, apart altogether from the fact, that the repetition of נא after the verb, with נא אל before it, would be altogether unexampled.
Tyndale Open Study Notes on Numbers 12:9-16
Miriam bore the brunt of God’s wrath (see study note on 12:1-2). Once Aaron saw what had happened to her, he admitted his error and sought Moses’ intercession (cp. 11:2). Both Moses and the Lord accepted Aaron’s confession.
Rashi on Numbers 12:13
אל נא רפא נא לה HEAL HER NOW, O GOD, I BESEECH THEE — Scripture intends to teach you by this form of prayer the correct attitude in social life — that if one is asking a favour of his fellow man he should first say two or three words of supplication and then solicit the favour (Sifrei Bamidbar 105).
לאמר SAYING (more lit., to say, i.e. that he should say) — What is the force of this word? It means “to say” i.e. that God should say, viz., he (Moses) said to Him, “Answer me whether you are going to heal her or not”, — until at length He replied: “If her father had but spit in her face etc.” Rabbi Eleazer, the son of Azariah, said: In four instances Moses asked the Holy One, blessed be He, to…
