Numbers 12:10 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

From off the tabernacle Probably not the whole tabernacle, but from that part to which it had come, to that part which was directly over the mercy-seat, where it constantly abode. Or, perhaps, it quite disappeared, or stood at a great distance till Miriam was removed from the tabernacle, and carried out of the camp. Miriam became leprous The original expresses the fact here recorded with much more spirit and force. The cloud departed and behold, Miriam became leprous She, and not Aaron, either because she was chief in the transgression, or because God would not have his worship interrupted or dishonoured, which it must have been if Aaron had been leprous. White This kind of leprosy was the most virulent and incurable of all. It is true, when the leprosy began in a particular part, and thence spread itself over all the flesh by degrees, and at last made it all white, that was an evidence of the cure of the leprosy, (Leviticus 13:12-13,) but it was otherwise when one was suddenly smitten with this universal whiteness.