Numbers 12:10
The cloud also that was over the tabernacle departed: and behold Mary appeared white as snow with a leprosy. And when Aaron had looked on her, and saw her all covered with leprosy,
Open Numbers 12:10 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- nubes quoque recessit quæ erat super tabernaculum : et ecce Maria apparuit candens lepra quasi nix. Cumque respexisset eam Aaron, et vidisset perfusam lepra,
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἡ νεφέλη ἀπέστη ἀπὸ τῆς σκηνῆς, καὶ ἰδοὺ Μαριὰμ λεπρῶσα ὡσεὶ χιών. καὶ ἐπέβλεψεν Ἀαρὼν ἐπὶ Μαριάμ, καὶ ἰδοὺ λεπρῶσα.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְהֶעָנָ֗ן סָ֚ר מֵעַ֣ל הָאֹ֔הֶל וְהִנֵּ֥ה מִרְיָ֖ם מְצֹרַ֣עַת כַּשָּׁ֑לֶג וַיִּ֧פֶן אַהֲרֹ֛ן אֶל מִרְיָ֖ם וְהִנֵּ֥ה מְצֹרָֽעַת
Haydock's commentary
Departed from the door to its former place, (Calmet) as if in abhorrence of Mary's leprosy, (Hiscuni) and still more of the sin, which had brought upon her that punishment. (Calmet)
Perhaps the cloud was raised higher in the air than usual, but did not proceed forward; (Menochius) otherwise the Israelites would have decamped. They remained at Haseroth till Mary was returned into the camp, ver. 15. (Haydock)
Leprosy, of an incurable kind, like that of Gieze, 4 Kings v. 27. It covers the whole skin with a white scurf, Leviticus xiii. 10. Aaron is spared, either because he had sided with his sister only out of complaisance, without any formal malice against his brother; or because God, in consideration for his priestly character, would not render him contemptible in the eyes of all people, intending to punish him in a more secret manner: for we are not always to judge of the grievousness of a fault, by its present punishment. Perhaps Aaron obtained pardon by his speedy repentance, ver. 11. (Calmet)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Clement of Rome The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, Chapter XLIII
And what wonder is it if those in Christ who were entrusted with such a duty by God, appointed those [ministers] before mentioned, when the blessed Moses also, “a faithful servant in all his house,” noted down in the sacred books all the injunctions which were given him, and when the other prophets also followed him, bearing witness with one consent to the ordinances which he had appointed? For, when rivalry arose concerning the priesthood, and the tribes were contending among themselves as to which of them should be adorned with that glorious title, he commanded the twelve princes of the tribes to bring him their rods, each one being inscribed with the name of the tribe. And he took them and bound them [together], and sealed them with the rings of the princes of the tribes, and laid them up in the tabernacle of witness on the table of God. …
St Ambrose Epistle LXIII: To the Church at Vercellæ
57. Miriam the prophetess herself, who with her brothers had crossed the straits of the sea on foot, because, being still ignorant of the mystery of the Ethiopian woman, she had murmured against her brother Moses, broke out with leprous spots, so that she would scarcely have been freed from so great a plague, unless Moses had prayed for her. Although this murmuring refers to the type of the Synagogue, which is ignorant of the mystery of that Ethiopian woman, that is the Church gathered out of the nations, and murmurs with daily reproaches, and envies that people through whose faith itself also shall be delivered from the leprosy of its unbelief, according to what we read that: “blindness in part has happened unto Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be saved.”