The Book of Numbers records the death of one of the outstanding figures of our Exodus history: Miriam. Miriam is somewhat of an anomaly in terms of the role established for women in the Book of Genesis. We know nothing of her own family life, with the exception of the names of her brothers. She is neither identified in the biblical text as a wife nor a mother; in Exodus 15 she is only identified as a sister and as a prophetess.
In Numbers 12, Miriam’s story takes another unusual turn as she suffers a disfiguring illness for speaking ill of Moses. This illness prompts Moses’ simple and powerful petitionary prayer: “God, please heal her.” Although Miriam is sent out of the camp for the requisite time during her illness, all of the Israelites await her return before moving the camp. This act of compassion for a leader belies the difficulty that emerges in the description of her death a few chapters later.
In Bamidbar 20:1-2 we read,
The Israelites arrived in a body at the wilderness of Zin on the first new moon and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there. The community was without water and they joined against Moses and Aaron.
The children of Israel arrive at a new destination where Miriam dies and is buried, but instead of mourning her, the people complain to her brothers about their thirst. Where are the same patient people who waited for her illness to pass? The small-mindedness of the people— their almost obsessive complaint about thirst—has colored their judgment. Why were they unable to put aside their material needs to properly mourn for Miriam? As a way to justify the minimal amount of attention given to Miriam, we might argue that death generally does not feature highly in biblical narratives. However, in the very same chapter we find that Aaron dies and is mourned collectively:
The whole community knew that Aaron had breathed his last. All the house of Israel bewailed Aaron thirty days (Bamidbar 20:29 ).
The description of Aaron’s death and of the communal grief that ensues highlights the scant information provided about Miriam’s passing. Not even her brothers are recorded as mourning her. Rabbinic literature, however, does try to fill in some of these empty spaces by adding its own account. Specifically, according to Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra, Miriam is one of six biblical figures, and the only woman, who dies with a divine kiss.
Moreover, in a medieval collection of Midrash, the Yalkut Shimoni, Moses is depicted as carrying Miriam’s head and, Aaron, her feet. Both Moses and Aaron are engaged in Miriam’s burial and grieve privately over her death. The midrash creates a portrait of a tripod that has lost one of its legs. Instead of this sibling triumvirate standing together, now two stand vertically and support the third who lies lifeless, horizontally. It is an omen of the upcoming death of the brothers. The structure of leadership is changing; the wilderness is swallowing it. Not only does Aaron die in this chapter, but Moses receives his forewarning of death after striking the rock. The tripod is losing its legs, one by one.
In another midrash in Yalkut Shimoni, Moses and Aaron are mourning for their sister when God comes to chastise them, telling them, “Servants of the community, leave here with speed. My children are dying of thirst and you are mourning over this elderly woman?” The conversation initially seems harsh until one frames it as a leadership dilemma: What takes precedence in a time of crisis: the leader’s personal suffering or communal needs? It was easier to justify mourning Aaron after God brought water out of a rock than mourning Miriam when the Israelites could think of nothing but their own possible deaths.
The most famous midrash about Miriam’s death is connected to an aphorism in Ethics of the Fathers 5:6 that claims that a miraculous well was created on the eve of the first Sabbath of creation to accompany the Israelites on their future journey in the desert. The Talmud states that this gift was given in honor of Miriam. Why did the people complain about water immediately after Miriam died? It was only then that they realized that her death brought about the loss of the miraculous well:
The well was in the merit of Miriam… for when Miriam died the well dried up because it says, “Miriam died there,” and right after that, it states, “And there was no water for the congregation” (BT Ta’anit 9a).
As is often the case, death’s profound impact and the full weight of loss are only really understood with time. When Miriam died, the children of Israel placed their immediate, urgent needs first. The midrash suggests that with time, the Israelites realized how indebted they were to Miriam, whose life was integrally connected to water. Miriam watched out for her brother on the Nile and sang for joy at Yam Suf (the Reed Sea), and so a gift of water was taken away when she died. Her name, “bitter water,” arguably symbolizes her death and hints at the one body of water she did not cross, the Jordan River.
In this brief study of Miriam’s death, one cannot help but notice the discrepancy between the biblical and midrashic accounts. In the Book of Numbers, Miriam’s death is told with a raw lack of emotion. Later rabbinic literature softens the picture, offering stories of personal loss and emotional complication.
Perhaps the relationship between the text and the Midrash mimics death itself. The actual moment of death is, for most, not a staged beautiful closure. It is a jarring, abrupt cessation of life that leaves a wide, inexplicable gap for those left behind. But life and the biblical narrative continue despite the loss, as depicted in the text. The Midrash offers death what the passage of time offers it—hindsight, reflection, and a fuller, more gentle measurement of individual worth. Helen Keller once said, “Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know, because in that other room I shall be able to see.” In our “other room” of Midrash, we are able to see Miriam’s death and the heaviness of her loss at a distance. The two portraits of death, that of the text and that of the Midrash, stand side by side. Her immediate loss is eclipsed by the urgent needs of the collective, but her death ultimately exacted a far deeper grief. The moment we lost Miriam, we also began to celebrate her life.