Tradition and source criticism both see two ark traditions in the biblical text: The Ark of the Covenant and the Ark of the Testimony. The former accompanies Israelite troops into battle; it appears in Numbers 10 (וַיְהִי בִּנְסֹעַ הָאָרֹן) and in the stories of battles against the Philistines and Ammonites in Samuel. The latter remains in the Tabernacle, serving as a seat for YHWH’s glory and revelation.

The Israelite men are commanded to separate from their wives before the revelation at Sinai. The rabbis learn from this that Moses permanently separated from his wife (Num 12), to be available to speak with God at all times. Joseph ibn Kaspi (14th c.), however, claims that this distorts the plain meaning of the text and that celibacy is an affront to Jewish values.

As a historical commemoration, Passover is tied to a specific date. Nevertheless, the Torah gives a make-up date for bringing the offering a month later. Gerim, non-Israelites living among Israelites as equals, are also allowed to bring this offering, even though it wasn’t their ancestors who were freed. How do we make sense of these anomalies?  

Fishbone remains discovered in eight different excavations in Jerusalem, from the Iron age to the early Islamic period, give us a sense of what fish the locals ate, and from where they were imported.

Upon purifying the Temple in his first year as king, Hezekiah delays the celebration of Passover until the 14^th of Iyar, the date of the Torah’s Pesach Sheni, “Second Passover.” A close examination of the story (2 Chr 29–30) demonstrates that this wasn’t a simple application of the Pesach Sheni law, but that Hezekiah was innovating in order to create unity between the northern Israelites and southern Judahites.

Exodus 16 and Numbers 11 each describe God miraculously bringing quail to the hungry Israelites in the wilderness. What is the relationship between these two accounts?

In biblical tradition, Miriam is known as Moses’ sister. Critical analysis reveals more about this ancient and once independent leader. 

“There is nothing at all, nothing but this manna” (Num 11:6): How the manna tradition overtook the suffering in the wilderness tradition.

The Midianite Origin of YHWH and Aniconism

A Successful Challenge to Moses’ Control Over Prophecy 

An Exploration of the Views of Sa’adia Gaon, Judah Halevi, Ibn Ezra, and Maimonides

The biblical portrait of Miriam can leave the feminist reader with a lingering bitterness but a literary rereading may help highlight her prophetic leadership role.

Cementing political alliances in the Ancient Near East through common genealogy.

Ancient interpreters debated the identify of Moses’ Kushite wife and the nature of Miriam and Aaron’s complaint. Philo allegorizes her as an eye’s perfect focus, reflecting Moses’ direct perception of God. Reading this together with Philo’s allegorical understanding of Zipporah as a “bird” with direct access to heaven highlights the greatness of Moses’ wife as the fourth matriarch of Israel.^[1]

Ancient interpreters contemplated the substance of manna, a food that traverses the chasm between divine and mundane realms, falling from heaven to be consumed on earth. In kabbalistic thought, the Zohar presents manna as granting the desert generation an embodied experience of knowledge of God; such an opportunity is available to mystics in everyday eating and through birkat ha-mazon (Grace after Meals).