Miriam's Death

Hint: The story follows the red heifer ritual, i.e., the laws of corpse contamination, and the death of their sister Miriam.

If the people are thirsty for lack of water, why complain to Moses that they “have no grain or pomegranates”? Together with other textual anomalies, this narrative discontinuity suggests that interwoven into the water-at-Merivah story is a fragment from a different story: the missing opening verses of the non-Priestly account of the spies.

“I settled the Israelite people in booths,” כִּי בַסֻּכּוֹת הוֹשַׁבְתִּי אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל – Leviticus 23:43