Miriam

And his sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. Soon the daughter of Pharaoh went down to bathe in the Nile, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. And when she saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maidservant to retrieve it. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the little boy was crying. So she had compassion on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew children.” Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s…

A mother hides her baby in a basket on the Nile. A princess pulls him out. The deliverer grows up in the house of the oppressor.

Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her with tambourines and dancing. And Miriam sang back to them: “Sing to the LORD, for He is highly exalted; the horse and rider He has thrown into the sea.”

The first song in the Bible. Israel stands on the far shore and sings — because what just happened was too big for prose.

Then Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married, for he had taken a Cushite wife. “Does the LORD speak only through Moses?” they said. “Does He not also speak through us?” And the LORD heard this. Now Moses was a very humble man, more so than any man on the face of the earth. And suddenly the LORD said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “You three, come out to the Tent of Meeting.” So the three went out, and the LORD came down…

Moses' own siblings challenge his authority. God responds swiftly — and Moses prays for the sister who spoke against him.