Beha’alotcha “when you ascend”
It is customary for religiously practicing Jews to read from an annual cycle of weekly Old Testament readings called Torah Portions. This is said to be the same reading schedule that was taught every Sabbath in the Synagogues during the times of Jesus in the first century.
As Christians exploring the Torah portion cycle we must maintain a balance of including the Old Testament, the prophets, and the gospels in our weekly bible study.
Torah Portion Name and Readings-
Beha’alotcha is the Hebrew words for “when you ascend” (or when you mount) and is the name for the weekly Torah Portion reading for the Book of Numbers starting in chapter 8 verse 1 and going through chapter 12 verse 16.
Prophets and New Testament-
It is also important to point out that along with the Torah portion readings and teachings, there are what are called Haftarah portions which are readings from the Bible in the books of the prophets. This week’s haftarah readings come from the book of Zechariah in chapter 2 verse 10 through chapter 4 verse 7.
The gospel readings incorporated with the weekly Torah portion readings come from the book of Matthew in chapter 14 with verses 14 through 21.
Torah Portion Overview-
In this Torah portion we have an interesting event take place. After Moses appoints seventy elders they are filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to prophecy (Numbers 11:25-26). However, the Spirit did not fall on Aaron or Miriam, the High Priest and prophetess! Aaron as High Priest had an elevated status and his sister had a place of honor as a prophetess. It is possible then that Aaron and Miriam saw the appointment of 70 elders under Moses as a shift in power and honor and grew jealous, we do not know for certain. Whatever the case, they began to attack Moses and spoke against his marriage to a Cushite woman.
Numbers 12:1-2 (ESV)
“Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. And they said, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it.”
This is the part that is puzzling, why did they get upset about Moses marrying a Cushite? Some have tried to link this Cushite woman to his wife Zipporah, however, he had married her forty years earlier (Exodus 2:21). It doesn’t make sense for Moses’ sister to attack him forty years after an event. It seems clear from the context that the Cushite woman was a second wife. This leaves us with three questions; why did Moses take a second wife, who was she, and why did it anger Miriam?
Why did Moses take a second wife? Was this prophetic? Did his first wife Zipporah die? Did Moses divorce her? We do not know but we do know that he took another wife.
Who was his second wife? The second wife of Moses was a Cushite or Nubian as we have already said. The Nubian empire was a nation to the south of Egypt, The Lexham Bible Dictionary explains,
“Kush occupied the land of Upper Nubia, known today as Sudan. In ancient times, this land was located on the southern part of the Nile between the second and sixth cataracts…by 1800 bc, the Egyptian Pharaoh Sesostris III speaks of a growing power called Kush located in Upper Nubia who posed a threat.”
In other words Cush/Nubia was an empire that sometimes rivaled Egypt! They were often at war with Egypt.
The late date for the Exodus is estimated to be around 1265 B.C. (19th Dynasty) whereas the early date presented by Egyptologist David Rohl in his New Chronology is around 1447 B.C. (Thirteenth Dynasty). Most scholars and Egyptologists that I have seen support the late date for the Exodus, but it is not our intent to get into this debate here (or anywhere). We will continue using the late date (although I have a lot of respect for David Rohl and his work). As L. Michael Morales notes in his commentary on Numbers (ApOT):
“Hays notes that during the time of the exodus (which he takes as eighteenth or nineteenth dynasties), Cushites arrived in Egypt in great numbers, and were found at every level of Egyptian society, many of which were likely included in the ‘mixed multitude’ that joined Israel in departing out of Egypt (Exod. 12:38), the validation of which he sees not only in Moses’ Cushite wife but also in the name of Moses’ great-nephew and priest ‘Phinehas’, which means ‘the Nubian’, a reference to Cush (2003: 68, 81–82).”
It is interesting that Moses nephew Phinehas means “the southerner” which was a term for Nubians. Did his father Eleazar also marry a “Cushite” or Nubian wife? We don’t know, but it is interesting.
Although some were slaves it is probable then that the Nubians were considered of a higher class or status than the Israelites. Was Moses’ Nubian wife an ex slave that was a part of the mixed multitude that left with the Israelites (Exodus 12:38)? We don’t know for sure. However a Nubian of higher status would explain the reaction of Miriam and Aaron (Numbers 12:2).
“Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” (ESV)
Perhaps we see here a mixture of the shame that Miriam and Aaron were not included with the prophets who prophesied (Numbers 11:25-26) and the fact that he had been elevated to a higher status through his marriage to the Nubian woman.
Only a few months before (sometime after the 15th day of the second month, Exodus 16:1) Jethro had brought back Moses wife.
Exodus 18:2, 6-7 (ESV)
“Now Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, had taken Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her home… And when he sent word to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons with her,” Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him. And they asked each other of their welfare and went into the tent.”
Moses takes his wife Zipporah back and later Jethro returns home (Exodus 18:27). A few months later Moses takes his second wife (sometime after the 1st month of the second year, Numbers 9:1, Numbers 12:1).
It is possible that Moses had sent her away, to divorce her, but even if this is true he takes her back at the word of his father in law. I do not see this as a satisfactory answer. It is also not probable that Zipporah has died, since Jethro had just left a few months before and the Torah doesn’t mention her death. What then, was his marriage to the Nubian woman a prophetic event?
It is important to remember that the Nubians, even if they traveled with Israel, would have been considered foreigners and outsiders. Moses was in effect taking a “gentile” wife again. Why not marry an Israelite?
All this is interesting to think about, but what can we learn from it? How does it apply to our lives today?
When Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses, the Lord appeared and defended Moses personally.
Numbers 12:5-8 (ESV)
“And the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward. And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”
I think we all have been the subject of gossip or slander at one point or another. Perhaps if we’re honest we have even gossiped or stood by silently while another gossipped. But when was the last time you heard gossip and God appeared to everyone doing it? When was the last time an insult led to leprosy? It doesn’t. Why? Because none of us are as close to God as Moses was! That kind of personal close relationship is rare. We say we want a relationship with God, but when was the last time we spent 40 days with Him? How about 40 hours? How about 40 minutes of prayer time? You get the picture. It’s sad, but we are all guilty of becoming too busy. We tend to focus on our life instead of our LIFE, Yeshua (John 1:4). I’m guilty of this too! Honestly, I think this will be the biggest regret of our life in the Kingdom to come…that while we could have been knowing God we all too often chose to watch a movie, play a board game, read a book, watch a sports team, etc. I’m not saying we shouldn’t do those things! But how often do we let them crowd our life until there’s no room for God? We can learn from Moses, because he did put God first. He spent time with the Lord constantly.
The good news is that we don’t even have to travel! Moses had to go up the mountain, but our mountain is our heart, the temple of God! We can take time anywhere, doing anything, to fellowship with him. Let us not feel condemnation or guilt, but instead let us take joy in pursuing Him. Let us take more time to spend time with Him!
Torah Portion Scriptural Highlights-
Numbers 8:1 The commands for the seven lamps
Numbers 8:5 The Levites are cleaned and start service
Numbers 8:23 The service age of the Levites
Numbers 9:1 Passover is celebrated again
Numbers 9:6 The second month Passover
Numbers 9:15 The cloud and fire over the Tabernacle
Numbers 10:1 The signal trumpets
Numbers 10:11 Departure from Sinai
Numbers 11:1 The people complain twice
Numbers 11:16 70 elders are appointed
Numbers 11:31 God gives quail and punishes complaining
Numbers 12:1 Miriam and Aaron are jealous and speak against Moses
Haftarah (Prophets) Scriptural Highlights-
Zechariah 2:10 The Lord will chooses Judah and Gentiles join to the Lord
Zechariah 3:1 Prophesy over Joshua (the High Priest)
Zechariah 3:8 Prophesy of The Branch and Stone
Zechariah 4:1 The seven lamps and two olive trees
Brit (Gospel) Scriptural Highlights-
Matthew 14:14 5,000 are fed
Bibliography
L. Michael Morales, Numbers 1–19, ed. David W. Baker and Beth M. Stovell, vol. 4a of Apollos Old Testament Commentary (London: Apollos, 2024), 291–298.
E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 59–60.
James Hastings et al., Dictionary of the Bible (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909), 171.
Robert Houston Smith, “Ethiopia (Place),” The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992) 665–666.
Avraham Negev, “ETHIOPIA; CUSH,” The Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land (New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1990).
John R. Spencer, “Phinehas (Person),” The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992) 346–347.
David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible - From Myth to History (London: Century Ltd, 1995), 346.
Gretchen Ellis and T. Michael W. Halcomb, “Kush,” The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
Further Reading
The Practice of the Presence of God by brother Lawrence
Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray
The Book of Numbers “Bamidbar” which means “in the wilderness.”
The Old Testament is commonly referred to as the Torah. It is considered the most sacred of all of Israel’s Scriptures. Most of our modern Bibles include the Old Testament “Torah” as the first five books in the Bible. The name for the forth book of the Bible, Numbers, is called Bamidbar in the Hebrew. The name “Bamidbar ” comes from the opening phrases in the book of Numbers which means “in the wilderness.”
Numbers flows directly out of the stories in the previous books of Exodus and Leviticus and recounts their journey in the wilderness as they leave Mount Sinai.
As Christians, we find the book of Numbers and the stories therein, as a historical account of Israel as they journeyed through the wilderness which helps to inform us on how we should face adversity, hardship, trials, and tribulations, as well as judgment, with faith, courage, and obedience.
To Watch an overview of this week’s Torah Portion CLICK HERE