I gotta have my orange juice.

Numbers 12 is a recapitulation of the fall in the garden in Genesis 3:

1. A man and a woman grasp at something beyond what God has given to them
2. The lie they believe is a lie about God’s character, that he is a father who gives stones in place of bread
3. God seeks them, calls them, stands with them at the sanctuary. Interestingly, the text in Numbers suggests that God was not accustomed to walk with Miriam and Aaron as he was with Adam and Eve.
4. The sin is dealt with by giving a new covering and by banishment from the sanctuary

Incidentally, I find it interesting that Moses, Miriam, and Aaron were all over 80 years old at this time.

If this identification is true, we should look for the pattern of a triplicate fall in Numbers. Miriam and Aaron commit their sin in the sanctuary place against the Father. Then, in Numbers 16, we see the brother-sin of Cain and Abel repeated when the sons of Kohath attack their brother Aaron. As with Cain and Abel, one brother’s offering is accepted by God, and the other’s is rejected. This connection, I think, instructs us to read this passage with the understanding that there is something murderous growing in the hearts of the sons of Kohath. Then, finally, in Numbers 25 we see the sin against the Spirit, the intermarriage of the sons of God with the daughters of men, repeated as Israel commits harlotry with the Midianite women.

If the pattern holds, we should next expect to see God making a new creation by a passage through water that preserves God’s people. Although this does not happen in the book of Numbers, it is exactly what happens when Israel crosses the Jordan.