Why Do Miriam and Aaron Criticize Moses for Marrying a Kushite Woman?

Were they racists?

Prof.

David Goldenberg

Prof.

David Goldenberg

Categories:

Beha’alotcha

Why Do Miriam and Aaron Criticize Moses for Marrying a Kushite Woman?

Racism against black-skinned Africans developed long after the Bible. Nevertheless, it has been read back into several biblical passages.^[1] One example is the story of how Miriam and Aaron complain about Moses marrying a Kushite woman:

^{במדבר יב:א} וַתְּדַבֵּר מִרְיָם וְאַהֲרֹן בְּמֹשֶׁה עַל אֹדוֹת הָאִשָּׁה הַכֻּשִׁית אֲשֶׁר לָקָח כִּי אִשָּׁה כֻשִׁית לָקָח.

^{Num 12:1} Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Kushite woman whom he had married: “He married a Kushite woman.”^[2]

Interpreters have long understood Kush to be a reference to Nubia, and the complaint to be about her ethnicity or her color.^[3] R. Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089–1167) mentions both possibilities:

יש אומרים: כי משה מלך על כוש ולקח אשה כושית.... והישר בעיני: שזו הכושית היא צפורה, כי היא מדינית, ומדינים הם ישמעאלים, והם דרים באהליהם.... ובעבור חום השמש אין בהם לבן כלל, וצפורה היתה שחורה דומה לכושית.

Some say that Moses became the king of Kush and married a Kushite woman… But what seems correct to me is that the Kushite woman is Zipporah, for she is a Midianite, and Midianites are Ishmaelites (=Arabs), and they dwell in tents…^[4] And because of the sun’s heat, their skin isn’t light at all, and Zipporah was black like a Nubian.^[5]

Edward Ullendorff, a scholar of Ethiopic languages and literature, delivered a lecture in 1967 in which he argued that the criticism of Moses’ siblings was not only to the woman’s ethnicity or color, but to her being a slave:

Jewish commentators, since the days of the Targum, have been embarrassed by the obvious interpretation that Moses had married an Ethiopian slave-girl. Some have argued (and so have some modern exegetes) that ‘Ethiopian, Cushite’ is a blanket term that might well have applied to Zipporah, the Midianite (i.e. North Arabian), but it seems very unlikely that this explanation would satisfactorily account for the indignation expressed by Miriam and Aaron.^[6]

To Ullendorf, Miriam and Aaron’s complaint makes most sense if the woman were clearly inferior to Moses, in status and race. This reading goes back to an 1898 encyclopedia entry in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, written by David Samuel Margoliouth (1858–1940) of Oxford University. After discussing the possibility that the Kushite woman is Zipporah, Margoliouth writes:

But besides the improbability of this usage being found in the Bible, the text implies (though it does not expressly assert) that the marriage was of recent occurrence. It is therefore more likely that a black slave-girl is meant, and that the fault found by Miriam and Aaron was with the indignity of such a union; and this accords with the statement (v.3) that Moses was the 'meekest' of mankind. The employment of Nubians as slaves dates back to the early dynasties of Egypt.^[7]

The last point should not be understood to mean that the Egyptians held only Nubian slaves: The Egyptians, like all kingdoms at the time, took slaves from whatever peoples they fought, including Levantines,^[8] and even Israelites.^[9]

Moreover, for part of the biblical period, Kush was not only a powerful kingdom, but for almost a century they ruled over Egypt itself (the 25^th dynasty, ca. 744–656 B.C.E.). In fact, the Kushite king Taharqa (ca. 690–633 B.C.E.) frightens off the Assyrian army during Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem during the reign of Hezekiah:

^{מלכים ב יט:ט [=ישעיה לז:ט]} וַיִּשְׁמַע אֶל תִּרְהָקָה מֶלֶך כּוּשׁ לֵאמֹר הִנֵּה יָצָא לְהִלָּחֵם אִתָּךְ...

^{2Kgs 19:9 [=Isa 37:9]} But [the king of Assyria] learned that Tirhakah, King of Kush had come out to fight him…

Thus, the knee-jerk connection between Nubian and slave would not have existed in the biblical period. Instead, Margoliouth, Ullendorf, and all who read the beginning of Numbers 12 this way are projecting latter-day assumptions onto the past.

This interpretation of Margoliouth and Ullendorf contrasts sharply with some late Second Temple period interpretations, in which Hellenistic Jewish interpreters imagined Moses’ Nubian wife here not as a slave but as a princess. Thus, Josephus (37–ca.100 C.E.) writes:

^{Ant 2:252} Tharbis was the daughter of the king of the Ethiopians. Observing Moses leading his army near the walls and fighting courageously… she fell madly in love with him. When passion got the better of her, she sent to him the most trustworthy of her servants to enter into discussion about marriage. ^2:253 When he accepted the proposal on condition of her surrendering the city and gave pledges on oath, indeed, that he would take her as a wife…^[10]

This story is not supported by the biblical text, but it highlights how authors from different times project onto the text realities that are familiar to them. Josephus imagines an Ethiopian kingdom while 19^th—and even 20^th!—century scholars imagine slaves. As for the Bible itself, we don’t find that Kushites are cast in a negative light in any of the many passages that mention them.^[11]

The Contrast with Snow

One argument that has been marshalled to show that color is a factor in the story is the punishment of leprosy God inflicts on Miriam for speaking against Moses:

‏^{במדבר יב:ט} וַיִּחַר אַף יְ־הוָה בָּם וַיֵּלַךְ. ^יב:י וְהֶעָנָן סָר מֵעַל הָאֹהֶל וְהִנֵּה מִרְיָם מְצֹרַעַת כַּשָּׁלֶג וַיִּפֶן אַהֲרֹן אֶל מִרְיָם וְהִנֵּה מְצֹרָעַת.

^{Num 12:9} And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed. ^12:10 When the cloud went away from over the tent, Miriam had become leprous, as white as snow. And Aaron turned towards Miriam and saw that she was leprous.

The snow-white description of the leprosy given above is that of NRSV and is found in almost all Bible translations including that of the NJPS, and it is seen as an apt response to a racist slur about a black African.^[12] This is a common interpretation of Miriam’s affliction, which is found in writings by both Blacks and non-Blacks, whether theologically or scholarly based, over many years.^[13]

Snow naturally suggests color. Indeed, in the Bible snow is used a few times to illustrate the color white (Isa 1:18, Ps 51:9, Dan 7:9; see also Lam 4:7). However, the Hebrew text here simply reads “like snow.” The adjective “white” in the translations is not in the Hebrew text. Nor is it in the Qumran fragments^[14] or the ancient translation of the Septuagint (LXX) or the Old Latin translation, the Vetus Latina.

It appears for the first time in the Vulgate “white as snow with a leprosy” (candens lepra quasi nix) at the end of the 4th century.^[15] Similarly, Targum Onkelos translates חורא כתלגא “white as snow,”^[16] and the Sifrei and Sifrei Zuta also assume a white color.^[17]

Even if the term were to be understood as “snow-white,” it is not clear why a punishment of tzaraʿat would be meant as a response to a slur against people with black skin. In the Bible, the disease is found as God’s punishment for various and sundry sins, none of which have anything to do with skin color:

Joab and his descendants are cursed with it for the crime of murder (2 Sam 3:29);
Gehazi is afflicted with it for acting deceitfully (2 Kgs 5:27);
King Azariah, for not removing the high places (2 Kgs 15:5);
King Uzziah, for improperly offering incense in the Temple (2 Chr 26:16–21).

Instead, I suggest that it may not be the whiteness of the snow that the Torah is calling our attention to, but to its texture. Much depends on how we understand tzaraʿat, what NRSV translates as “leprous.”

What Is Tzaraʿat?

Biblicists generally agree that the Hebrew term tzaraʿat used to describe the punishment of Moses’ sister is not leprosy, nor is it a category of skin diseases that includes leprosy.^[18] It is doubtful that leprosy even existed in the ancient Near East at the time of the Hebrew Bible.

Rather, tzaraʿat seems to be a group of skin diseases that exhibit a flaking or exfoliation of the skin (e.g., psoriasis, eczema, seborrhea). For this reason, many Bible translations have discarded “leprosy” and replaced it with “scales” or “diseased” or something similar.^[19]

Moreover, the description of Miriam’s appearance in Aaron’s entreaty to Moses implies that her skin is not white:

^{במדבר יב:יב} אַל נָא תְהִי כַּמֵּת אֲשֶׁר בְּצֵאתוֹ מֵרֶחֶם אִמּוֹ וַיֵּאָכֵל חֲצִי בְשָׂרוֹ.

^{Num 12:12} Do not let her be like one stillborn, whose flesh is half consumed when it comes out of its mother’s womb.

The color of a fetus that has died in the womb is reddish, which turns brown-gray after a few days out of the womb. Thus, the biblical description of the disease in our passage and in others (Exod 4:6, 2 Kgs 5:27) as “like snow” does not refer to the color of the disease but to its characteristic flakiness, which is typical of the stillborn fetus, which sheds its skin in large sheets.^[20]

In sum, the punishment of Miriam makes no reference to her having white skin, and cannot be used to support understanding her complaint as related to the woman’s black skin. What, then, was Miriam and Aaron’s issue with Moses marrying a Kushite woman?

Marrying a Non-Israelite

The point of Miriam and Aaron’s complaint seems to be that Moses had taken a non-Israelite wife. As R. Joseph Bekhor Shor (12^th cent.) wrote:

לפי הפשט: שהיו אומרים: וכי לא מצא משה אשה מבנות ישראל שיקח לו לאשה, שהלך לקחת לו מבנות הכושים שהם ערלים. וכי בשביל שהקב״ה מדבר עמו מתגאה, שאינו רוצה לישא אשה מבנות ישראל שבקש אשה במרחק.

According to the simple meaning, they said: “Was Moses unable to find a woman from the daughters of Israel to marry that he went and married the daughters of the uncircumcised Kushites? Is it because the Holy One, blessed be He speaks with him that he has become proud, and he doesn’t want to marry an Israelite woman that he had to go marry a woman from far away?!^[21]

The complaint against Moses by Miriam and Aaron, then, has nothing to do with the Kushite’s skin color. The point, rather, is that the woman is not an Israelite.^[22] In having God punish Miriam for arguing against the marriage, this text implicitly acknowledges the acceptability of foreign marriage.^[23]

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Published

June 17, 2022

Last Updated

November 17, 2024

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Footnotes

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Published

June 17, 2022

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November 17, 2024

[1] See lengthy discussion in David M. Goldenberg, Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), part 3. Editor’s note: See also, Meylekh Viswanath, “Black People in Jewish Tradition: Eliminating Racism Requires Honesty,” TheTorah (2020).

[2] For the purposes of this article, I am following here the translation suggested by by R. Abraham ibn Ezra that this final phrase is reported speech: זה הדבור שדברה מרים “this is what Miriam said.” See discussion of כי as reported speech in BDB s.v. “כי” 1b. Other commentators, such as R. Joseph Bekhor Shor, see it as a parenthetical, with the narrator affirming that Moses did indeed marry a Kushite woman.

[3] Kush sometimes refers to other regions, and it is unclear that the verse really means to say Nubian. See my discussion in “Moses’ Kushite Wife Was Zipporah the Midianite,” TheTorah (2022), where I argue that the term may be a synonym for Midianite. For the purposes of this piece, however, I will work with the interpretation that the verse means she was Nubian or dark-skinned, since that is the more typical understanding of the Kushite.

[4] Ibn Ezra here cites Habakkuk 3:7, which I argue (in my “Moses’ Kushite Wife Was Zipporah the Midianite”) proves that Midian was also known as Kush, and that Midianite is actually the meaning of the term Kushite here. Nevertheless, Ibn Ezra seems to understand the term Kushan in that verse not as an ethnonym or toponym, but as a nickname for the people, “Nubians,” because of their dark skin.

[5] Rashi (Rabbi Solomon Yitzhaki, ca. 1040–1105), in his commentary ad loc., also believes the woman to be Zipporah the Midianite, and offers more than one reason why she may have been called “the Nubian” even though she was not (see Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, pp. 58-59). Notably, both Rashi and ibn Ezra follow the classical Jewish interpretation that Miriam and Aaron objected to Moses having discontinued marital relations with his wife. For some discussion of this reading, see Elad Filler, “Moses and the Kushite Woman: Classic Interpretations and Philo’s Allegory,” TheTorah (2018).

[6] Edward Ullendorff, Ethiopia and the Bible: The Schweich Lectures 1967 (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 8.

[7] David Samuel Margoliouth, “Ethiopian Woman” in A Dictionary of the Bible, Dealing with Its Language, Literature and Contents, Including the Biblical Theology, ed. James Hastings (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1898), 1:790–791 [p. 791].

[8] Editor’s note: For more on Egyptian slavery, see Mark Janzen, “What We Know About Slavery in Egypt,” TheTorah (2016). For more on the Egyptian attitude towards foreigners, see Flora Brooke Anthony, “Egypt’s Attitude Towards Foreigners,” TheTorah (2016); eadem, “Levantines in 15th and 14th Century Egyptian Art,” TheTorah (2019).

[9] This is certainly the thrust of the biblical story as we have it now. From a source critical perspective, it is possible that this account of the complaint against Moses’ wife derives from a source that saw the Egyptian experience as oppression but not slavery. See Gili Kugler, “Egypt without Slavery—Tracing the Tradition of Israel’s Residence in Egypt,” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 35.1 (2021): 111–125; Tzemah Yoreh, “Behind the Iron Curtain in Egypt: Oppressed but not Enslaved,” TheTorah (2021); David Frankel, “Israelites in Egypt: Slaves or Sojourners?” TheTorah (2022).

[10] An echo of the story is heard in the paraphrase of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Numbers 12:1. See further Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 55–56.

[11] See Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 29–40, where I survey all biblical references to Kushites.

[12] A different reason for the aptness of whiteness here is suggested in Sifrei Zuṭa 12:10 (p. 276):

מפני שהיו מלבינים ומאדימים לפי כך נטמאו בבהרת עזה ולבנה.

Because they were making [Moses] turn white and red (i.e., humiliating him), for this reason, they (=Miriam and Aaron) became impure with a strong and white bright spot.

Notably, the punishment here is not because they referred to her black skin, but because they whitened Moses’ skin by gossiping about him.

[13] For examples, see Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 227; and add Sidnie White Crawford, “Moses’ Black-Skinned Wife: What Does the Torah Think of Her?,” TheTorah (2021).

[14] For the Qumran fragments, see especially the edition of 4QNumb by Nathan Jastram, The Book of Numbers from Qumrân, Cave IV (4QNum^b), Doctoral Dissertation (Harvard University, 1990). Septuagint: Vetus Testamentum Graecum (Göttingen, 1931). Vetus Latina: Pierre Sabatier ed., Bibliorum sacrorum latinae versions antiquae seu vetis italica et ceterae quaecunque in codicibus manuscriptis et antiquorum libris reperiri potuerunt (1739–49), ad loc., 1:288 in the three-volume Turnhout, 1976 reprint.

[15] Jerome (d. 420), the translator of the Vulgate, translated the biblical text directly from Hebrew to Latin. Just as his addition in Numbers 12:10 can be attributed to an attempt at explanatory elaboration, so too is that the case in the Vulgate translation of Ps 68:14/15, where the Hebrew “it snowed in Salmon” became nive dealbatur Selmon (see Goldenberg, “Racism, Color Symbolism, and Color Prejudice,” in The Origins of Racism in the West, ed. Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Benjamin Isaac, and Joseph Ziegler [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009], Appendix). Jerome similarly added whiteness in his Contra Ioannem Hierosolymitanum 33 when quoting Exod 4:6, as does Augustine, Sermon 6.6. An interesting modern-day case is the translation of Origen’s Homilies to Numbers in the Sources Chretiennes series. Origen’s text has leprosa sicut nix but the translation reads: “lépreuse, blanche comme neige” (Homélies sur les Nombres; texte Latin de W.A. Baehrens; nouvelle édition par Louis Doutreleau d’aprés l’édition d’Andre Méhat et les notes de Marcel Borret, Paris, 1996, SC 415, pp. 172–173, 176–177 bis, 178–179).

[16] Onkelos translates this way in Exodus 4:6 as well, as does Targum Pseudo-Jonathan מחוורא היא כתלגא “white like snow.”

[17] The Sifrei writes:

והנה מרים מצרעת כשל[ג]—מלמד שנצטרעה בעזה.

“And Miriam was afflicted with tzaraʿat like snow”—this teaches that she had bright tzaraʿat.

For the text of the Sifrei and discussion, see Menachem Kahana, ספרי במדבר: מהדורה מבוארת [Sifre on Numbers: An Annotated Edition] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2011), 1.259. As Kahana explains in his commentary (ibid., 3.679), this opaque gloss is based on how the Rabbis categorized forms of tzaraʿat (m. Negaim 1:1):

מַרְאוֹת נְגָעִים שְׁנַיִם שֶׁהֵן אַרְבָּעָה. בַּהֶרֶת עַזָּה כַשֶּׁלֶג, שְׁנִיָּה לָהּ כְּסִיד הַהֵיכָל. וְהַשְּׂאֵת כִּקְרוּם בֵּיצָה, שְׁנִיָּה לָהּ כְּצֶמֶר לָבָן, דִּבְרֵי רַבִּי מֵאִיר. וַחֲכָמִים אוֹמְרִים, הַשְּׂאֵת כְּצֶמֶר לָבָן, שְׁנִיָּה לָהּ כִּקְרוּם בֵּיצָה.

The appearances of diseased skin are two which are four: Baheret is bright like snow, its subsidiary is like the lime of the Temple. Se'et is like the membrane of an egg, its subsidiary is like white wool; the words of Rabbi Meir. The Sages say, Se'et is like white wool, its subsidiary is like the membrane of an egg.

This understanding of baheret as bright white is supported in the rabbinic reading of the laws of tzaraʿat in Leviticus 13:4 found in Sifra (Tazria, Negaim 2:2):

בהרת לבנה אין לי אלא בהרת לבנה, מנין לרבות את השאת תלמוד לומר למטן שאת לבנה, ומנין לרבות שאר המראות תלמוד לומר ואם בהרת. יכול כשם שהוא שלישי לכתוב כך תהא שלישי למראות תלמוד לומר לבנה לבנה היא לבנה (היא) ואין למעלה הימינה, וכמה תהא לבנוניתה כשלג שנאמר והנה מרים מצורעת כשלג.

“White baheret”—I only know that baheret is white, whence do we know this of seʾet? The text teaches below (v. 10) “white seʾet.” Whence do we know this about other appearances? The text teaches “and if baheret.” Perhaps just as it is the third to be listed in the Torah it is also the third level of appearance? The text teaches “white” it is white and there is no [appearance] higher than it. How white must it be? Like snow, for it says (Num 12:10): “And Miriam was afflicted with tzaraʿat like snow.”

As for the Sifrei Zuta, see the text and my discussion in n. 12 above.

[18] Editor’s note: For some discussion of what this may be, see Yitzhaq Feder, “Tzaraat in Light of Its Mesopotamian Parallels,” TheTorah (2017); Chaim Trachtman, “Tzaraat as Cancer,” TheTorah (2016).

[19] “Scales” in NJPS (revised ed., 1992), the New American Bible (revised ed., 2010), and “diseased” in the NRSVue. For “disease” I count 16 different English translations listed on biblegateway.com.

[20] This description of tzaraʿat, its relationship to leprosy, and the position of biblical scholars on the issue is taken from David P. Wright and Richard N. Jones, Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman et al., (New York, 1992), 4:277–280, s.v. “Leprosy.” See also Elinor Lieber, “Old Testament ‘Leprosy,’ Contagion and Sin,” Contagion: Perspectives from Pre-Modern Societies, ed. Lawrence Conrad and Dominik Wujastyk (Aldershot: Taylor & Francis, 2000), 99–136. On “like snow” being a reference not to color but to the flaky texture of the snow, see also Athalya Brenner, Colour Terms in the Old Testament (Sheffield UK: Bloomsbury, 1982), 82. Further on the color of tzaraʿat (green, red, or reddish-white as well as white) see Leviticus 13:13, 42, 49.

[21] Bekhor Shor continues by explaining that they were not bothered by the marriage to Zipporah, a Midianite, since Moses was in exile at the time and had no other choice.

[22] Several biblical texts seem to argue for or against the acceptability of intermarriage. In early texts, only certain local enemies were forbidden (e.g., Moabites Ammonites in Deuteronomy 23:4, and Canaanites in Deuteronomy 7:3), but the issue became especially acute in Second Temple period polemics, where we begin to see blanket prohibitions against exogamy. For some discussion, see David Glatt-Gilad, “The Prohibition of Joining the Assembly of the Lord,” TheTorah (2015); Jacob L. Wright and Tamara Cohn Eskanazi, “Contrasting Pictures of Intermarriage in Ruth and Nehemiah,” TheTorah (2015); Naomi Graetz, “The Dinah Story: A Missed Opportunity for Intermarriage and Conversion,” TheTorah (2014).

[23] For bibliography on this point, see Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 229–230, n. 17; and Karen Strand Winslow, “Framing Zipporah: Early Jewish and Christian Memories of Moses’ Wife” (PhD diss. Univ of Washington, 2003), 104–105. Colin Kidd, The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 41, mentions two early works, one of which dates from 1694, that objected to the notion that it was the Kushite’s blackness, not her foreignness, that was disturbing to Miriam and Aaron. Another author who made the argument was the Karaite, Aaron ben Joseph (d. ca. 1320) in his Sefer ha-Mivḥar we-Ṭuv ha-Misḥar (Gozlow, 1835), ad loc., Numbers, p. 11a.

[6] Edward Ullendorff, Ethiopia and the Bible: The Schweich Lectures 1967 (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 8.

[10] An echo of the story is heard in the paraphrase of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Numbers 12:1. See further Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 55–56.

[11] See Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 29–40, where I survey all biblical references to Kushites.

[12] A different reason for the aptness of whiteness here is suggested in Sifrei Zuṭa 12:10 (p. 276):

מפני שהיו מלבינים ומאדימים לפי כך נטמאו בבהרת עזה ולבנה.

Because they were making [Moses] turn white and red (i.e., humiliating him), for this reason, they (=Miriam and Aaron) became impure with a strong and white bright spot.

Notably, the punishment here is not because they referred to her black skin, but because they whitened Moses’ skin by gossiping about him.

[13] For examples, see Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 227; and add Sidnie White Crawford, “Moses’ Black-Skinned Wife: What Does the Torah Think of Her?,” TheTorah (2021).

[16] Onkelos translates this way in Exodus 4:6 as well, as does Targum Pseudo-Jonathan מחוורא היא כתלגא “white like snow.”

[17] The Sifrei writes:

והנה מרים מצרעת כשל[ג]—מלמד שנצטרעה בעזה.

“And Miriam was afflicted with tzaraʿat like snow”—this teaches that she had bright tzaraʿat.

מַרְאוֹת נְגָעִים שְׁנַיִם שֶׁהֵן אַרְבָּעָה. בַּהֶרֶת עַזָּה כַשֶּׁלֶג, שְׁנִיָּה לָהּ כְּסִיד הַהֵיכָל. וְהַשְּׂאֵת כִּקְרוּם בֵּיצָה, שְׁנִיָּה לָהּ כְּצֶמֶר לָבָן, דִּבְרֵי רַבִּי מֵאִיר. וַחֲכָמִים אוֹמְרִים, הַשְּׂאֵת כְּצֶמֶר לָבָן, שְׁנִיָּה לָהּ כִּקְרוּם בֵּיצָה.

The appearances of diseased skin are two which are four: Baheret is bright like snow, its subsidiary is like the lime of the Temple. Se'et is like the membrane of an egg, its subsidiary is like white wool; the words of Rabbi Meir. The Sages say, Se'et is like white wool, its subsidiary is like the membrane of an egg.

This understanding of baheret as bright white is supported in the rabbinic reading of the laws of tzaraʿat in Leviticus 13:4 found in Sifra (Tazria, Negaim 2:2):

בהרת לבנה אין לי אלא בהרת לבנה, מנין לרבות את השאת תלמוד לומר למטן שאת לבנה, ומנין לרבות שאר המראות תלמוד לומר ואם בהרת. יכול כשם שהוא שלישי לכתוב כך תהא שלישי למראות תלמוד לומר לבנה לבנה היא לבנה (היא) ואין למעלה הימינה, וכמה תהא לבנוניתה כשלג שנאמר והנה מרים מצורעת כשלג.

“White baheret”—I only know that baheret is white, whence do we know this of seʾet? The text teaches below (v. 10) “white seʾet.” Whence do we know this about other appearances? The text teaches “and if baheret.” Perhaps just as it is the third to be listed in the Torah it is also the third level of appearance? The text teaches “white” it is white and there is no [appearance] higher than it. How white must it be? Like snow, for it says (Num 12:10): “And Miriam was afflicted with tzaraʿat like snow.”

As for the Sifrei Zuta, see the text and my discussion in n. 12 above.

[21] Bekhor Shor continues by explaining that they were not bothered by the marriage to Zipporah, a Midianite, since Moses was in exile at the time and had no other choice.

Prof. David M. Goldenberg (retired) taught Bible and Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Cape Town, and Dropsie College, where he served as Dean and President in the 1980s. He served as the Editor of The Jewish Quarterly Review from 1982 to 2003. He holds a Ph.D. from Dropsie College in Post-Biblical Literature, with a dissertation titled, Halakhah in Josephus and in Tannaitic Literature: A Comparative Study. Goldenberg is the author of The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton, 2003) and Black and Slave: The Origins and History of the Curse of Ham (De Gruyter, 2017).

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