Chapter 36

So today finishes my survey of Numbers.

Fittingly, the book ends with an incident that will be quite difficult to find a real-life application for. Somehow I should have expected that.

We meet up with Zelophehad’s daughters again (see chapter 27). And again the question that is being asked is about their inheritance rights.

The question that is being asked seems downright ridiculous to people from our society – so what if they marry out of their tribe? It’s not their problem if any land they inherit leaves their tribe. Why is this such an issue?

It’s doubly significant to us that the upshot of this is to force them to marry cousins (although the word “cousin” doesn’t necessarily imply the relational closeness to them that it would in our world – it could be second, third, fourth or fifth cousins). To us this just seems gross, and we wonder why this was necessary!

Yet Moses is being commanded by God (v5) when he gives the response, which is that they must stay within their tribes. So logically God must have some reason for this.

I’ll admit that this passage mystified me enough that I decided to look up some other commentaries and see what their writers had to say. Most of them seem to plonk the entire chapter right into the “too hard” basket, and this even includes one or two shrill American ultra-conservative Pentecostal all-King-James commentaries. Darby (my first port of call, as a good Brethren boy) has little to say, and even Wesley simply explains one or two of the difficult words.

The only really useful one of the old classic commentaries, Matthew Henry, says that

“it is probable that this was not a bare surmise, or supposition, but that they knew, at this time, great court was made to them by some young gentlemen of other tribes, because they were heiresses, that they might get footing in this tribe, and so enlarge their own inheritance[1].”

This isn’t scripture, of course, but some shrewd thinking there. Probably this question wasn’t asked just for curiosity – they needed a ruling! To translate Henry’s comment from Early Modern English to today’s talk, it’s quite likely that some young man had noticed that the daughters were quite wealthy.

Of course, NOBODY marries for money today. We’re beyond that now . . . (Yeah, right)

What this law does is plugs a hole in the law that might have allowed someone to use marriage with one of these girls as a tool for enriching himself or his family.

The whole passage also brings out the importance of family to Jews of the day. To us, marriage is really a personal affair, and although your close friends and family can offer their opinion, you really do make your own decisions. But to the Israelites (and to most societies at this time), marriages were negotiated between two families. So it really was important that the interests of the family were considered, even though this seems odd to us today.

Once again, we have the point that God ensured that in a totally male-dominated world, the interests of a woman were still important. This entire situation occurred because of a decision that these women deserved as much chance to look after themselves as any male enjoyed.

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So now we have finished Numbers. Where does it leave us?

It leaves us having walked [a lot of!] miles in the shoes of people who really had to rely on God for everything. They weren’t heroes, for the most part. They weren’t villains either, though they had their moments. There is certainly a lot they could have done better; when we see those things, we can learn the lesson and try to do better in our own lives. On the other hand, they could do worse, and in those circumstances we’d do well to follow the Israelites’ examples (especially those of characters like Joshua and Caleb).

I was going to finish off some other way, but by chance I happened to listen to a little Sermon/Song combo by Keith Green – you can find it on Youtube here. Something that Keith says in this little moment is interesting. The ultimate insult to God is, after all He has done for the people of Israel, for them to say “It was better back in Egypt”.

There are many different messages we could find from the book of Numbers, but perhaps a good one to take away as the big one is this – When God makes you free, you WILL face problems. Lots of problems. Freedom is like that; sometimes you wind up wishing that you were still in slavery. But persevere. Freedom beats slavery any day of the week.

Even when you end up having second thoughts and wanting to go back to Egypt, press on. Even if you have to wander in the desert for another 40 years, press on. Even if you yourself won’t make it to the Promised Land but have to bequeath the dream to your children, or your children’s children, PRESS ON.

In Christ, God has made you free. So don’t ever again allow yourself to be enslaved. Keep on walking through the Wilderness, and one day sooner or later you’ll be at the door to the Promised Land.
[1] Matthew Henry (1708)