Miriam, the sister of Moses and
Aaron, is first mentioned by name in Exod. 15:20,21:"And Miriam the
prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women
went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered them,
Sing to the LORD, for He has triumphed gloriously:the horse and his rider has
He thrown into the sea."
Here we find Miriam leading the
other women of Israel in praise to God for His deliverance of Israel from the Egyptians. What a wonderful occupation for women today—to lead other women
and children in praise and worship to God the Father and God the Son in the
home, Sunday school class, or other places where women and/or children gather.
We can use hymns and songs
written by others or we can write our own. Singing the words of Scripture is an
effective method of encouraging both children and adults to memorize it.
Setting Scripture to music would be a good way for those with musical ability
to use their talents. The LORD gave Moses a song to teach the children of Israel to trust Him and to be a witness against them when they failed to trust Him (Deut.
31:19,21,22; 32:1-44). Setting the truth of God to music helped His people to
remember it better and to pass it on to the next generation. Many of us, no
doubt, still remember songs we learned in Sunday school about specific
scriptures (such as John 3:16; Rom. 10:9 and 12:1; Isa. 44:22,23; Psa. 40:2,3;
and others) and about Bible characters (such as David, Daniel, Zacchaeus, and
others).
We need not confine ourselves to
familiar hymns and hymn books. People have been writing hymns in praise of the
Lord Jesus Christ for almost 2,000 years; all of these hymns cannot be
contained in one or two hymn books. If the tunes are unfamiliar, the metrical
notations and indexes which appear in almost every hymn book can be used to
find a tune with which we are familiar to fit words that are new to us.
The next mention of Miriam in the
Bible finds her not behaving so well:"And Miriam and Aaron spoke against
Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married:for he had married an
Ethiopian woman. And they said, Has the LORD indeed spoken only by Moses? has
he not spoken also by us? And the LORD heard it … And the anger of the LORD
was kindled against them" (Num. 12:1,2,9).
Miriam and Aaron disapproved of
Moses’ marriage to an Ethiopian woman and spoke against it and him. God,
however, did not share their disapproval and afflicted Miriam with leprosy.
From this incident we learn that our thoughts, dislikes, disapprovals, and
prejudices are not always God’s, no matter how right we may think we are. We
should never rebuke or chastise anyone unless we have a definite scripture or
scriptural principle to support our rebuke. If the only support for our rebuke
is, "I don’t like that," or "That annoys me," we should
keep silent.
Miriam provides both a positive
and a negative example to us in her life and behavior. She pleased God when she
praised Him and she angered Him when she complained. "Praise … don’t
complain" would be a good motto for us all.