The introduction of a color-laden concept into Miriam’s punishment at the end of this pericope suggests another reason for the emphasis on the Cushite wife. There is a strange irony to the story of a woman who complains against a woman identified as Cushite, implicitly dark-skinned, whose skin is then transformed, as a result of YHWH’s punishment, to be void of color.74 The author of the Hebrew text exploited the obvious contrast between the Cushite woman’s skin and Miriam’s leprous skin. But instead