But a true woman can always show kindness to everyone whom she does not scorn, so though she blushed deeply at the sight of the man whose kiss she had returned, she received him cordially, and with sympathetic questions.

Meanwhile, however, she addressed him by his former name Hosea, and when he perceived it was intentional, he asked if she had forgotten that it was she herself who, as the confidante of the Most High, had commanded him henceforward to call himself “Joshua.”

Her features grew sharper with anxiety as she replied that her memory was good but he reminded her of a time which she would prefer to forget.  He had himself forfeited the name the Lord had given him by preferring the favor of the Egyptians to the help which God had promised.  Faithful to the old custom, she would continue to call him “Hosea.”

The honest-hearted soldier had not expected such hostility, but he maintained a tolerable degree of composure and answered quietly that he would rarely afford her an opportunity to address him by this or any other name.  Those who were his friends readily adopted that of Joshua.

Miriam replied that she, too, would be ready to do so if her husband approved and he himself insisted upon it; for the name was only a garment.  Of course offices and honors were another matter.

When Joshua then declared that he still believed God Himself had summoned him, through the lips of His prophetess, to command the Hebrew soldiers and that he would admit the right of no one save Moses to deprive him of his claim to this office, Hur assented and held out his hand to him.

Then Miriam dropped the restraint she had hitherto imposed on herself and, with defiant eagerness, continued: 

“There I am of a different opinion.  You did not obey the summons of the Most High.  Can you deny this?  And when the Omnipresent One found you at the feet of Pharaoh, instead of at the head of His people, He deprived you of the office with which He had entrusted you.  He, the mightiest of generals, summoned the tempest and the waves, and they swallowed up the foe.  So perished those who were your friends till their heavy fetters made you realize their true disposition toward you and your race.  But I, meanwhile, was extolling the mercy of the Most High, and the people joined in my hymn of praise.  On that very day the Lord summoned another to command the fighting-men in your stead, and that other, as you know, is my husband.  If Hur has never learned the art of war, God will surely guide his arm, and it is He and none other who bestows victory.

“My husband—­hear it again—­is the sole commander of the hosts and if, in the abundance of his generosity, he has forgotten it, he will retain his office when he remembers whose hand chose him, and when I, his wife, raise my voice and recall it to his memory.”

Joshua turned to go, in order to end the painful discussion, but Hur detained him, protesting that he was deeply incensed by his wife’s unseemly interference in the affairs of men, and that he insisted on his promise.  “A woman’s disapproving words were blown away by the wind.  It would be Moses’ duty to declare whom Jehovah had chosen to be commander.”