The LORD, the Waters, and Miriam: An Ecolonial-Sustainability Reading

The significance of the indivisibility of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG) for biblical ecological hermeneutics and sustainable living has a lot of potential but biblical scholars and theologians have yet to fully explore these possibilities (Nilsen, 2021). This dialogue is beneficial in providing theological grounding to the UNSDGs and in discerning how sustainability concerns are manifested uniquely in the biblical texts. In exploring these possibilities, I will employ the principles of ecological hermeneutics outlined in the Earth Bible Project as I focus on the character of Miriam in the Torah in relation with various bodies of water in Exod 2:1-10; 15:20-27; and Num 20:1-13. I will first present some observations using a hermeneutic of suspicion about the character of Miriam from related texts, genres, and disciplines. Then, I will identify and highlight Miriam’s dynamic relations with the divine, with her siblings and the peoples, and with the water elements as beyond-human creation connected with her in these texts. Finally, I will retrieve some alternative images of Miriam and her relationship with water and show how she can accompany contemporary women’s struggles concerning water during and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and in building back better by realizing the 2030 UNSDGs.