Prophetess Prophetess Miriam

CRITICAL: corrected a template artifact in the life-years field — the previous record "Before Christ – 6th century BC" was nonsensical (Miriam was a contemporary of Moses and the Exodus, many centuries before the 6th century BC); the correct dating, per the tradition of the Synaxis of Sinai Saints, is the 16th–15th centuries BC. CRITICAL ON THE FEAST DATE: the previous record "September 1/14" proved to be contamination — that date actually belongs to Righteous Joshua; Miriam has no individually fixed feast day — she is commemorated among the Old Testament righteous on the movable Sunday of the Holy Forefathers before the Nativity of Christ.

The Prophetess Miriam was the elder sister of the prophets Moses and Aaron, daughter of Amram and Jochebed of the tribe of Levi. As a young girl, she watched over the basket holding her infant brother Moses, hidden among the reeds of the Nile, and then arranged for Pharaoh's daughter to take their own mother Jochebed as the child's nurse (Exodus 2:4-8).

After the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, Miriam — called "the prophetess," the first woman in Scripture given this title — led the women of Israel with timbrels and dancing in a song of praise to God for the destruction of Pharaoh's army (Exodus 15:20-21). Later, together with Aaron, she challenged the uniqueness of Moses's prophetic authority and was struck with leprosy as punishment; she was healed after seven days through Moses's intercessory prayer (Numbers 12).

She died and was buried in the wilderness of Zin, at Kadesh, in the fortieth year of Israel's wandering after the Exodus (Numbers 20:1). Jewish tradition further credits her with a miraculous well that accompanied Israel through the desert and dried up at her death.