Numbers 12:12

12 Don't let Miriam be like a baby that was born dead. Don't let her look like a dead baby whose body is half eaten away."

Numbers 12:12 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 12:12

Let her not be as one dead
As she was in a ceremonial sense, being to be shut up and excluded from the society of people, and as defiling by touching as a dead carcase; and, in a natural sense, her flesh, by the disease upon her, was become as dead flesh, putrid and rotten, and unless miraculously cured it would issue in her death:

of whom the flesh is half consumed, when he cometh out of his mother's
womb;
like an abortive, or one stillborn, that has been dead some time in its mother's womb; and therefore when brought forth its flesh is almost wasted away, or at least half consumed: and in such a plight and condition was Miriam already, or quickly would be, through the force of her disease.

Numbers 12:12 In-Context

10 When the cloud went up from above the tent, there stood Miriam. She had a disease that made her skin as white as snow. Aaron turned toward her. He saw that she had a skin disease.

11 So he said to Moses, "We have committed a very foolish sin. Please don't hold it against us.

12 Don't let Miriam be like a baby that was born dead. Don't let her look like a dead baby whose body is half eaten away."

13 So Moses cried out to the Lord. He said, "God, please heal her!"

14 The LORD answered Moses. He said, "Suppose her father had spit in her face. Then she would have been put to shame for seven days. So keep her outside the camp for seven days. After that, you can bring her back."