Text: Numbers 27:1-11
Friends, can we all admit that this is a very big book and that 99.9% of us don’t know its stories from cover to cover?
We understand the overall arc of scripture… from creation, through the time in Egypt, the exodus and claiming of the promised land.
We know the big picture story of how the tribes of Israel became a nation with a king and then fell apart and were carted off into exile.
And we know about how they returned and how Jesus came to continue the story of God’s redemption and form us into God’s people, sending the Holy Spirit as God’s message exploded across the world.
But every story? Every name?
We fail to dig deep into the nitty gritty of the text and skim over some of the most interesting… but maybe also most disturbing… parts of our past.
What we miss when we do so are the bold and untold stories of ordinary folks who have great lessons to teach us.
We can’t all preach like Peter or pray like Paul or lead like Solomon… but God can use our voices and our actions to make a difference in this world.
Over the next five weeks as we wrap up summer, we will be diving into the details of scripture as these little known people come alive for us.
We start today with the daughters of Zelophehad: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah.
Their names are so unfamiliar to our tongues today that I find myself stumbling over pronunciation.
And yet, as Wil Gafney notes in her book, Womanist Midrash: a Reintroduction to the women of the Torah and the Throne, “their story is so important that they are mentioned in five different places… Only the prophets Miriam and Moses are mentioned in more books in the Hebrew Bible.” (page 156)
The story of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah is a story about land and inheritance and patriarchy.
We are introduced to them in the middle of a census that is being taken amongst the Israelites to determine who is available to go to war with Midian as they seek to enter the promised land.
They come from the line of Jospeh, through his son Manasseh, and their father Zelophehad had no sons. (Numbers 26: 29-34)
As Gafney notes, Numbers chapter 26 connects the military census with the distribution of land to come. We are told that the first generation of those who left Egypt will not make it out of the wilderness… only their children and grandchildren will.
But how will this new land that they will take be divided?
The census lists the names of those second-generation families… well, the second-generation families headed by men, who were eligible to go to war.
Gaffney writes: “only males were entitled to inherit the inhabited Canaanite land that God had promised the Israelites under this schema… only patriarchal households counted…” (p. 158)
It was an exclusionary practice that was uncommon among other surrounding cultures, but also meant that men who died during the war and left women as the head of their households would be left out of the allocation.
As soon as this detailed census and explanation was read to the people, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah step forward.
This is described as taking place right outside of the meeting tent – where the ark of the covenant was contained.
In front of Moses, Eleazar the priest, all of the chiefs… the entire community… they challenge the distribution and demand to be given land as well.
They had no rights.
They had no power.
They had no authority.
But they stand up and make their voices heard.
These five women are of the second generation.
Their father, Zelophehad, was among those who left Egypt, but he has died along their journey.
No mention is made of their mother, but Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah have no brothers.
AND, as the narrative will tell us later, they are unmarried.
As they heard the census and the names of all of their cousins and other second generation families that would inherit the promised land, they recognized that the lineage of their father was being excluded.
As Lauren Wright Pittman writes, “The text says the women came forward; they stood, they spoke, they questioned, and they even demanded. Any one of these actions alone is difficult for the unseen and the unheard. All they wanted was the receive the inheritance of their father and to keep his name from fading. I’m sure the pain of their father’s death was potent, but they needed to be recognized, valued, and seen as human beings in order to survive.” (Faces of our Faith Study Journal)
They demanded that their family be given a share, just as their father’s brothers would be given.
Now, this is in direct contradiction to the instructions that God had just handed down to Moses in chapter 26.
They were not just challenging their leaders, but the very word of God.
The entire community had just experienced a devastating plague that was blamed on the men of Israel disobeying God by marrying Moabite and Midianite women, which often led to idolatry and the worship of the gods of these other cultures.
When an Israelite brought a Midianite wife into the camp, the son of the priest Eleazar, Phineas, killed them both and the plague stopped.
But, you know, killing the daughter of a leader of neighboring people has consequences and the war with Midian was a direct result of the initial disobedience and then later death.
So… maybe this wasn’t exactly the time to challenge what God has said…
To his credit, Moses does not immediately dismiss their complaint out of hand.
It would have been completely understandable for him to say, “This is the word of the Lord.”
Or, “I’m sorry, but this is the law.”
Instead, he listened.
And instead of rendering judgment himself, Moses took their case to God.
The Lord replies, “Zelophehad’s daughters are right in what they are saying. By all means, give them property as an inheritance among their father’s brothers.”
And then, God goes on to change the law so that if a man dies without a son, his daughter would receive the inheritance.
When we look deeper into the text and the language here, what we find is surprising.
Wil Gaffney notes that God doesn’t just say they were right. He declares that they are righteous in “a powerful affirmation, without peer in the canon for women or men.” (159)
And if you look at the Hebrew, the words God speaks do not imply a passive response by which these women would now have land.
It demands corrective action on the part of those who would have denied them their inheritance.
As Pittman writes in her artist statement of her piece, “They Stood,”:
God heard the voices of these women. “They are right,” God said. The old law was no longer suitable, so God made a way for change. Though the laws were probably carved into stone, God shows us in this text that the law is living, breathing, adaptable, and changing. This text invites us to come forward, to stand, to speak, to question, and to demand change when we experience injustice.
A couple of things to note here.
First, when we believe we are experiencing an injustice or are troubled by a law or a command that we find within scripture, the example of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah tells us that it is a good thing to speak up.
Even if our voice trembles.
Even if we are unsure if anyone will listen.
Even if we have no authority or power.
Second, this scripture is one of many places where God makes a way for change.
From the Lord’s declaration after the flood that there would never again be a complete destruction of the earth in Genesis…
to the new vision of the clean and the unclean that comes to Peter in Acts…
and this text…
we find examples of how the cries of people and changing circumstances in the world lead God to act and respond in new ways.
Our God is not distant from us, handing down decrees that are unchanging.
God is with us, listens to us, walks with us, hears our cries, experiences our pain, and knows our hope.
God desires abundant life and chooses to act in new ways to demonstrate love and mercy and to create and recreate possibilities within our midst.
God is in relationship with us… and a relationship is a two-way street.
But the third lesson here is that it is not our job to declare something is right or wrong, unjust or fair.
We also learn from the example of Moses, who took it to the Lord.
So part of our responsibility, either as someone who is experiencing injustice or as someone who is in a position to act, is to notice the places that trouble our souls.
Our job is to listen and to explore and understand the problem.
And part of our responsibility is to pray and search the scriptures and to listen for God.
If the ways of God, the laws of God, the commands of God can change in response to human need and action, then we need to be prepared.
As the Lord cries out in Isaiah 43:19: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”
Our job is to look, to listen, to pay attention and be ready to see where and how God is acting in this world.
And then… to figure out how to get on board.
I mentioned that the five daughters of Zelophehad show up not once or twice, but five times in the scriptures of the Hebrew Bible.
And part of this reason for their continued presence in the life of the people was that this new command of God was not immediately followed.
God commands a new law for Moses to implement among the people – that women without brothers shall inherit the land of their father.
Yet when we get to chapter 36 in Numbers, the war with Midian is over and they are preparing to enter Canaan and as the allocated land is being discussed, the daughters come up again.
Only this time, they are not the active participants in their own story.
Their cousins stand up and speak out and are concerned about the distribution of land to these unmarried women, because when they marry, the land will no longer be a part of the tribe of Manasseh.
Moses… without consulting the Lord… modifies what God says in chapter 27 to declare that they are only allowed an inheritance if they marry within their father’s tribe.
Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah act according to these new conditions and marry kin within the tribe of Manasseh.
More time goes on.
The people cross the Jordan River and enter the land of Canaan.
Moses, who we are told disobeyed the Lord but not about what specifically, dies before he is able to enter the promised land and the leadership falls to Joshua.
Here is where the rubber meets the road, as the people now are in possession of the land and parcels are being handed out for each tribe.
When we get to Joshua chapter 17, the land for the tribe of Manasseh is being determined and the text tells us that “an allotment took place for the rest of the clans of Manasseh – for the people of Abiezer, Helek, Asriel, Shechem, Hepher, and Shemida. These were the sons of Manasseh the son of Jospeh, the male descendants by their clans.” (17:2)
Did you hear it?
There is no mention of the daughters of Zelophehad.
And once again, Mahlan, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah stand up and speak out.
Once again, they approach Eleazar the priest, Joshua the leader, and the other clan chiefs.
Once again, they fight for their inheritance.
“The Lord commanded Moses to give us a legacy along with our male relatives,” they declare.
Gaffney notes, “They do not say, ‘Moshe failed to obey God and died.’ There is no need. The implication is clear.” (p. 163).
Joshua acts where Moses did not.
The tribe of Manasseh is granted ten parcels of land, one of which would belong to the daughters of Zelophehad.
And these daughters are later accounted for in the listing of the family lines in the book of Chronicles.
But that was only possible because of their courage.
Their persistence.
Their willingness to stand up and speak out.
In our lives today, we might not always have power or authority.
But we do have a voice.
And when we see something that is unjust or wrong, we too can stand up, stand together, and speak out.
We can let the community know about what is going on so that we can seek God’s direction and act.
And if we do have power and authority, we can choose to listen, to pray, and to respond.
May the bold and too often untold legacy of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah guide us for the future. Amen.
