Were Miriam and Aaron racist?

[Bree]

Also at biblestudytools, the Brown Driver Briggs dictionary says "Cush" means "black".
Kuwsh Meaning in Bible - Old Testament Hebrew Lexicon - New American Standard (biblestudytools.com)

I have a question for you, if Cush doesn't mean black, what does it mean? In the Biblical Hebrew language, there is no name or word without meaning.

According to the bible account, Cush was a grandson of Noah by his son Ham.

Gen 10: The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizʹra·im,+ Put,+ and Caʹnaan.+
7 The sons of Cush were Seʹba,+ Havʹi·lah, Sabʹtah, Raʹa·mah,+ and Sabʹte·ca.

And the evidence points to Cush being the proginator of the dark skinned races of mankind. There is a scripture at Jeremiah 13:23 "Can a Cushʹite* change his skin, or a leopard its spots?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Cush = "black"
Source: Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and Engish Lexicon

The BDB on the website is, first off, a dumbed down version of the real thing. Secondly, given that nowhere else does it appear that a BDB edition equates Cush/Cush(i)te having a definition of black, I would say that whoever put that there was adding his or her own idiosyncratic definition.

In my copy ([I]Ninth Printing - September 2005)[/I] of BDB, [SIZE=5]כּוּשׁ[/SIZE] is found on pages 468-469. The word "black" is not among the definitions offered.

 

[Teritos]

In my copy ([I]Ninth Printing - September 2005)[/I] of BDB, [SIZE=5]כּוּשׁ[/SIZE] is found on pages 468-469. The word "black" is not among the definitions offered.

I can't imagine biblestudytools.com, studylight.org, and bibletools.org spreading false information about the Brown Driver Briggs Lexicon. These three are all trustworthy sites and not unknown. Maybe you have an older version or whatever.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I can't imagine biblestudytools.com, studylight.org, and bibletools.org spreading false information about the Brown Driver Briggs Lexicon. These three are all trustworthy sites and not unknown. Maybe you have an older version or whatever.

I cannot speak to your imagination.

I gave you the information found in my copy of BDB. Perhaps you could share with us the edition used by your study tools ... or whatever.

 

[firedragon]

Numbers 12:1
Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the black woman whom he had married for he had married a black woman.

The Hebrew word in this verse for "black" is "Kushi", which refers to black skin color, see Jeremiah 13:23: "Can the Cu****e change his skin or the leopard his spots?" The Cu****es lived in what is now Sudan.

God punished Miriam for this behavior by making her white as snow.(Numbers 12:10)


Were Miriam and Aaron racist at that moment or not?

I think the term black is used due to the ancestry or the location of origin, not because they are black in skin colour. I mean the English translation.

I am no expert in Judaism. It is way too vast. Yet I think this is a misunderstanding of colour-prejudice the people who translated this held.

Nevertheless, though it may not be a matter of colour, it still seems to be a bias. IT seems to be. But is it a corresponding statement or causal statement I am not sure.