# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Miriam

Layout 2
MIRIAM.
Sister of Aaron and Moses, was daughter of Amram and Jochebad, Her name—Miriam, "the star of the sea" (according to St. Jerome. "she who brightens or enlightens")—may have been given from a precocious exhibition of the great qualities which afterwards distinguished her. That it was rightly given, her history proves. Our first view of her is when she is keeping watch over the frail basket, among the flags on the banks of the Nile, where Moses, her baby-brother, lay concealed. Miriam was then thirteen years old, but her intelligence and discretion seem mature. Then, when the time came for the redemption of Israel from the house of bondage, Moses was not alone; Aaron his brother and Miriam his sister were his coadjutors.
"It is certain," says Dr. Clarke (a learned and pious expounder of the Old Testament) "that Miriam had received a portion of the prophetic spirit; and that she was a joint leader of the people with her two brothers, is proved by the words of the prophet Micah;—'For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and I sent before thee Moses, and Aaron, and Miriam;'—which would not have been said if she had not taken a prominent post in the emigration. Probably she was the leader of the women; as we find after the miraculous passage of the Red Sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh and his army, when Moses, to celebrate the great events, sung his glorious 'Song,' the earliest recorded poetry of the world, that his sister came forward and gave her beautiful and spirit-thrilling response.
"And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and dances.
"And Miriam answered them, 'Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.'"
It is sad that we must record the fall of Miriam from the high pinnacle which her faith, energy, and genius had won. What her crime was is not fully stated, only that she and Aaron "spake against Moses" because "he had married an Ethiopian woman." Perhaps Miriam disliked her sister-in-law; though it appears she and Aaron disparaged the authority of Moses; it might be from envy of his favour with the Lord. Her sin, whatever passion prompted it, was soon exposed and punished. €rod smote her with leprosy; and only at the earnest intercession of Moses, healed her after seven days. The camp moved not while she was shut out; thus the people testified their reverence and affection for her. She lived nineteen years after this, but her name is mentioned no more till the record of her death. She died a short time before her brother Aaron, in Kadesh, when the children of Israel were within sight of the promised land. Eusebius asserts that her monument stood near the city of Petræ, and was considered a consecrated spot when he lived and wrote, in the fourth century. Her death occurred B.C. 1463, when she was about one hundred and thirty-one years old, so that her life was prolonged beyond the term of either of her brothers.
She has left a beautiful example of sisterly tenderness, and warm womaly participation in a holy cause. In genius, she was superior to all the women who preceded her; and in the inspiration of her ​spirit (she was a "prophetess" or poet,) none of her contemporaries, male or female, except Moses, was her equal. That she was too ambitious is probable, and did not willingly yield to the authority with which the Lord had invested her younger brother, who had been her nursling charge. From this portion of her history, a warning is sounded against the pride and self-sufficiency which the consciousness of great genius and great usefulness is calculated to incite. Woman should never put off her humility. It is her guard as well as ornament.