Numbers 20:1-29 - The Abiding In Kadesh And The Death Of Miriam

2 . The death of Miriam. There is a certain fitness in following up the regulations of Numbers 19:1-22 with a record of death and burial. Death had dogged these Israelites all through their wanderings. There was perhaps no halting-place but what might have had this sentence joined with it: "Such a one died there and was buried there." Why then is the death of Miriam singled out for special mention? In the first place, she was a person of distinction by her office as prophetess, particularly as she was not only a prophetess, but sister to the two chief men in Israel. Then, being so, it is very noticeable that none of the three, so eminent in their life, were allowed to enter the promised land. There is mystery in their calling, mystery in the services they are called to render, and mystery in the seeming thwarting of all their hopes. One feels the hand of God is in all this. Man proposes, and reckons with something like certainty, but God disposes in a very different fashion. Miriam had sinned a great sin ( Numbers 12:1-16 ), but was it not a long while ago? She has lived on through all these wanderings, having seen many younger than herself falling on every hand. May she not then hope to live a little longer, and see the promised land before she dies? Perhaps such thoughts were in the aged woman's mind, perhaps many a time she had wept bitterly over her pride and envy in the past; but God's determinations cannot be set aside, and even when the earthly Canaan is again coming in sight, that sight is not for her. There was no way for Miriam, any more than the rest of us, to escape that suffering and loss in this world which so often come from wrong-doing. As to her possible part in the better country, there is necessary silence here. It is Christ who brought life and immortality to light. The great thing to be noticed is that Miriam died in Kadesh, was buried there, and consequently failed of entrance into the earthly Canaan.—Y.