Verses 1-11
Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah
These are the names of five women; the five women were five sisters; the five sisters were daughters of a man called Zelophehad. This man had five girls, but no boys. He was a quiet man, and took no part in a certain great rebellion against the Lord, in which Korah and his company justly perished. This man Zelophehad died in his own bed; he had committed no public sins; he had only sinned in the usual way, and died in the usual way, and so far there was an end of him. One day these five women put their heads together on a family subject. There was something that disturbed them, took away their sleep, and made them grievously discontented. The result of their deliberation was that they determined to make a public speech, and a great audience they had, viz., Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and the princes, and all the congregation of Israel, and they stood by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation and made their statement. They said, with wonderful conciseness of manner, keeping themselves strictly to facts, and coming to the point with admirable brevity: Our father died in the wilderness: he was not one of those who took part in the sin of Korah; he died quietly, not tragically; he had no sons, and according to the present law of Israel the name of our father dies, and it is just as if he had never lived, though he has left five girls who bear his name and love his memory; now we ask you to look at this case; it is peculiar; see if anything can be done under such extraordinary circumstances; and give us, women though we be, give us a possession in Israel, give us property in the land, create a legal status for us amongst the brethren of our father. It was a practical speech, and, as our judges say, it started quite a novel point. It was for Moses to say what should be done, but he could not speak on the spur of the moment, so he took time to consider, and "brought their cause before the Lord." The answer from heaven was, Certainly: the women ask only for that which is right; thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass to them, and out of this particular instance there shall arise a new law of succession in Israel, "If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter, and if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren, and if he have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his father's brethren, and if his father have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his kinsman that is next to him of his family, and he shall possess it: and it shall be unto the children of Israel a statute of judgment, as the Lord commanded Moses." These are the circumstances which furnish us with our subject, and it will be for us now to discover what there is in them to instruct and comfort us.
1. The rectification of things that are wrong sometimes seems to come from man and not from God. Look at this case. It was the women themselves who began the reform. Providence did not stir first. The five women gave this reform to the economy of Israel. So it would seem on the face of the story, and many people look at the face and go no farther, and so they blunder and lie. Suggestions are from God. The very idea which we think our own is not our own, but God's. "Every good gift and every perfect gift... cometh down from the Father of lights." He inspires the prayer which he means to answer. He says, Arise, when he is prepared to meet us. An idea occurs to you, and you think it admirable, and call it your own; you will change your policy; enlarge your business; go to another town; strike out another line: you will alter the machinery, patent an invention, introduce yourself to a firm, and you think this is all your own doing. That is the fatal error. "We are fellow-workers with God." "He is Lord of all," of all good ideas, noble impulses, holy inspirations, sudden movements of the soul upward into higher life and broader liberty. This is his plan of training men. He seems to stand aside, and to take no part in some obviously good movements, and men say, "This is a human movement, a political movement, a non-religious movement," not knowing what they are talking about, forgetting that the very idea out of which it all sprang, came down from the Father of lights, that the very eloquence by which it is supported is divinely taught, that the very gold which is its sinew is his: they do not go far enough back in their investigation into the origin of things, or they would find God in movements which are often credited to human genius alone. We do not see all. The finest threadlets are hidden from us. Now and again, in a dream, we may catch a sight of the ladder connecting heaven and earth, but it is always there, the highway of angels, the path into the skies.
2. Everywhere the Bible is full of the very spirit of justice. It is the Magna Charta of the civilised world. This is the spirit that gives the Bible such a wonderful hold upon the confidence of mankind. Look at this case as an example. The applicants were women. All the precedents of Israel might have been pointed to as the answer to their appeal. Why create a special law for women? Why universalise a very exceptional case? Why not put these people down as sensational reformers? Yet, the case was heard with patience, and answered with dignity. O women, you should love the Bible! It is your friend. It has done more for you than all other books put together. Wherever it goes it claims liberty for you, justice for you, honour for you. Repay is service by noble endeavour to make it everywhere known. Not only were the applicants women, they were orphans. Their father dead, no brother to take their part, nothing left them but the memory of a man dead and gone. Yet the God of the Bible is their friend. He says, "They are right." He will not break the bruised reed. The weak are as the strong before him, and the friendless as those who are set in families. A God so just, so pitiful, so mindful of individual cases and special desires, is the God who will save the world! This God of justice is the God of love. We shall see more of him as we go from page to page of his book; one day we may see him on a Cross dying for man! Give any nation the Bible, and let that nation make the Bible its statute book, and every class in the community will have justice: masters will be just to their servants; servants will be just to their masters; family peace will be protected; social relations will be purified; common progress will be guaranteed. This spirit of justice is the social strength of the Bible. No life is to be tampered with; the small cause as well as the great is to be heard; no kid is to be seethed in its mother's milk; no fruit tree is to be cut down even in time of war; no bird's nest is to be wantonly destroyed; all men are to be honoured, helped, and saved. A book with a tone like this should be protected from the sneers of persons who have never actually studied its ennobling pages.
3. Every question should become the subject of social sympathy and matter of religious reference. These women were heard patiently. It is something to get a hearing for our grievances. Sometimes those grievances perish in the very telling; sometimes the statement of them brings unexpected help to our assistance. This case is what may be called a secular one; it is about land and name and inheritance; and even that question was made in Israel simply a religious one. It was not political. It was not an outside question. The Lord was King of Israel, and to the King the appeal must be made. Is Christianity farther from God than was Judaism? Are there some questions which we now take into our own hands? Does God take no interest in our merchandise, in our land, in our professions? Can he not still tell the physician what to do, the merchant what to buy, the mariner how to go, the lawyer how to plead? In ancient Israel, with its priestly system, men had to go to the leader and the priest first; in Christianity we can go straight to God; we have no priesthood but Christ; the way to the throne is open night and day. O wronged and suffering woman, tell thy case to the Father! O man, carrying a burden too heavy for thy declining strength, speak to God about the weight, and he will help thee with his great power.
Selected Note
In no history can there be found, save in the Bible, an equal number of charming female portraits. But the formative influence of female character as seen in the Bible must be referred to the pure and lofty religious ideas which the Biblical books in general present. If woman there appears as the companion and friend of man, if she rises above the condition of being a bearer of children to that noble position which is held by the mother of a family, she owes her elevation in the main to the religion of Moses and that of Jesus.... Bringing to bear on the domestic ties his own doctrine of immortality, our Lord made the marriage bond co-existent with the undying soul, only teaching that the connection would be refined with the refinement of our affections and our liberation from these tenements of clay in which we now dwell (Matthew 5:32 ; Matthew 19:3 , seq .; Matthew 22:23 , seq .). With views so elevated as these, and with affections of the tenderest benignity, the Saviour may well have won the warm and gentle hearts of Jewish women. Accordingly, the purest and richest human light that lies on the pages of the New Testament comes from the band of high-minded, faithful, and affectionate women who are found in connection with Christ from his cradle to his cross, his tomb, and his resurrection. These ennobling influences have operated on society with equal benefit and power. Woman, in the better portions of society, is now a new being. And yet her angelic career is only just begun. She sees what she may be, and what under the gospel she ought to be; and ere very long, we trust, a way will be found to employ in purposes of good energies of the finest nature, which now waste away from want of scope, in the ease and refinements of affluence, if not in the degradations of luxury a most precious offering made to the Moloch of fashion, but which ought to be consecrated to the service of that God who gave these endowments, and of that Saviour who has brought to light the rich capabilities, and exhibited the high and holy vocation, of the female sex.
Prayer
Almighty God, teach us that a man must first come to himself before he can come to thee. Give us a considering mind. Help each of us to lock at himself as he really is, and to spare no searching into his condition, so that he may come to know that from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot all is wrong. We are only driven to prayer by hunger; we are turned towards heaven by pain and sharpness of discipline; for wherein we tread green pastures and rich wheatfields we soon become foolish, waxing fat and kicking against God. We are arrested by poverty; we are made to think by sickness; when the pain and fear of solitude seize the soul, then we begin to grope for thee. All this has meaning in it. Thou hast many servants; thy ministry is an incalculable host; fire, and sword, and vapour, and hail, and thick cloud, and all the beasts of the field are thine, and the stars in their courses fight against evil men, and the whole creation sets itself upon thy side. Thou hast made all things to wound the evil-doer. Thy universe becomes a serpent to bite the man who thrusts himself through a hedge. This is glorious; it is security; it is a proof of eternal defence. Thy throne is set in verity and judgment, and cannot be overturned; and they who set themselves against thee shall at last be flung down in mortal defeat. No man can fight against God and conquer. Thou art the Lord of hosts, the God of battle, a man of war; and to thy thunder there is no reply. But how good thou art to those that show themselves towards thee as children! Then thy grace is higher than heaven, more beautiful than summer, more persuasive than all we have ever known of music; then all things support and comfort them, and promise them immortality and heaven. May we be found in Christ; may we be found at the Cross; may our attitude be one of adoration and expectancy; and may our souls be satisfied with the words of heaven. We bless thee for a hunger which earth cannot appease, for a thirst which can drink up the rivers, and still be mad with the sensation of fire. This is our immortality; this is the declared image and likeness of God. Pity us wherein we are weak and foolish, and vain and self-considering; and pardon us wherein we are guilty before God of the breach of the whole law, and let the ministry of the Cross avail to redeem and reinstate, and to rekindle in the heart the lamp of hope. Be merciful unto us yea, so condescending as to touch us, to sit beside us, to breathe upon us, to explain secretly the word to our attentive hearts; and may we know of a surety that the Lord is near by a burning heart, a glowing love, an irrepressible desire to ascend into heavenly places, and a deep and sacred contempt for everything that would draw us downward, and fix our vision on perishable things. Amen.
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