Beware of Jealousy
Don’t let jealousy ever touch a sister’s soul, as it so often does, because her brother gets more honor or more means. Even Miriam, the heroine of the text, was struck by that evil passion of jealousy. She had possessed unlimited influence over Moses, and now he marries, and not only so but marries a black woman from Ethiopia, and Miriam is so disgusted and outraged at Moses, first because he had married at all, and next, because he had practised miscegenation, that she is drawn into a frenzy, and then begins to turn white, and gets white as a corpse, and then whiter than a corpse. Her complexion is like chalk; the fact is, she has the Egyptian leprosy. And now the brother whom she had defended on the Nile comes to her rescue in a prayer that brings her restoration.
Let there be no room in all your house for jealousy, either to sit or stand. It is a leprous abomination. Your brother’s success, O sisters! is your success. His victories will be your victories; for, while Moses the brother led the vocal music after the crossing of the Red Sea, Miriam, the sister, with two glittering sheets of brass uplifted and glittering in the sun, led the instrumental music, clapping the cymbals till the last frightened neigh of pursuing cavalry horse was smothered in the wave, and the last Egyptian helmet went under.