Women in the Bible

Miriam leads a long and active life in Scripture. We first meet her as a young girl in Exodus 2:1-10. In that story, she aids her mother, Jochebed, in subverting the will of the mighty Pharaoh; they do not comply with his genocidal order to kill the Hebrew baby boys. Instead, Jochebed makes a sturdy basket for her son, Moses, and floats him down the Nile River. Miriam watches over the basket and, when an Egyptian princess finds the baby, Miriam cleverly suggests Jochebed as a nursemaid. Mother and child are secretly reunited, thanks to Miriam’s ingenuity. 

While Moses was raised among royalty, Miriam was not. She grows up among her people and reappears in the narrative at the crossing of the Red Sea. The little brother she helped deliver from death returns, and now it’s Moses who delivers the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, with the help of his other sibling, Aaron. When the Israelites escape into the wilderness through the parted Red Sea, Miriam picks up a hand-drum and leads the women in singing and dancing. 

Moses, Aaron, and Miriam lead the Israelites in the wilderness. In one wilderness narrative, Miriam and Aaron speak against Moses. As punishment, Miriam is afflicted with a skin condition and is shut out of the Israelite camp for seven days. However, “the people did not set out on the march until Miriam had been brought in again” (Num 12:15). Perhaps the people remembered the young and clever girl who suffered in Egypt with them and refused to leave without her.

Miriam’s legacy looms large in the canon. The importance of her participation in the escape from Egypt can’t be overstated. The exodus event is the single “most celebrated event in the entire Hebrew Bible, and the event that is most important for the later identity of Israel and Judaism” (John Collins). Micah 6:8 explicitly invokes Miriam’s memory as proof of God’s devotion to Israel. In the New Testament, Miriam is everywhere; “Mary” is the Hellenized form of “Miriam.”