The Daughters of Zelophehad

0:36 I sure hope you have enjoyed so far this little series we've done called Overlooked. We are in our final message of that series today in the book of Numbers. Turn to the book of Numbers, chapter 27. It's the fourth book in the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and then Numbers. Numbers chapter 27. As we are settling into a study of the scriptures, we do recommend highly and ask you courteously to maintain your seat so that you don't become a distraction to others. It's distracting when in the middle of a study, somebody gets up and walks around or walks out. All the eyes go off of what God is saying and on to you. So we just would ask you respectfully to maintain that request. So we're in Numbers chapter 27. And over in Hollywood, there is a pecking order for actors. There are A-listers, A-lister actors. That's the top tier of the acting community. They're globally recognized for their major roles. If you can land them in your movie, you have guaranteed ticket sales because of their name, A-list names. Names like Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, several A-list actors. But then there are B-listers. And B-listers are famous, but not as famous. They are not household names. And they are often cast, chosen for supportive roles in the movie.

2:31 I would venture to say that most of our Bible knowledge is about A-listers. people like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Moses, Joshua, David, Samson, Isaiah, Peter, Paul. These are A-listers. We know their names. Many of their names are found in Hebrews chapter 11, that great chapter called the Hall of Fame of Faith. Men and women who are A-listers, household names. But then there are B-listers in the Bible. And B-listers are known, they're just not as known. Names like Aaron, Jonathan, Barnabas, Silas. These are names not found in Hebrews chapter 11. and then there are even c-listers in scripture and largely in this series overlooked we have looked and noticed some of these c-listers jethro baruch the shulamite bride in the song of solomon joseph of arimathea anna on a cyphras they're worth knowing about we have discovered because their importance to the main character or their vital importance to the story itself, as we have discovered. Now, if you've grown up in church, if you've grown up around the Bible, especially a Bible teaching church, many of the names that we have talked about in this series may be familiar to you. But even if you've known about Anna and Jethro, even if you've known about Joseph of Arimathea, and even if you have heard of Onesiphorus, the one we covered last week, you probably know nothing about the daughters of Zelophehad.

4:40 And those are the ones we look at today, the five daughters of Zelophehad. For some of you, this is the very first time you haven't heard that name before. But did you know that the daughters of Zelophehad are mentioned five times in the Bible? Five times. And four out of those five times, they are mentioned by name. That is not collectively under the moniker daughters of Zelophehad, but rather they are named by their given names in four out of those five places in Scripture. Now, that's striking when you consider that we don't know the name of Noah's wife. We don't know the name of Lot's wife. We only know her as Lot's wife. We don't know the name of Solomon's wife, the Shulamite bride in the Song of Solomon. We don't know the name of the Canaanite woman who approached Jesus in Matthew 15. We don't know the name of the woman who had an issue of blood who came to speak to Jesus in Luke chapter 8.

5:50 And the woman at the well of Samaria, anybody know her name? Nobody knows her name. It's not given. The five daughters of Zelophehad are given. Now, what's really important about their story is the legal ruling that follows their request. They come to Moses with a request. What happens during that time will form legal precedent for the nation of Israel going forward. So we are in the book of Numbers, and I've asked you to turn to Numbers chapter 27. The book of Numbers is called that because it is a book about, guess what? numbers. Exactly. It is a book of census taking. They tally the number of people. And there are two different censuses. Would that be sensei? No, I think it is actually censuses for the plural. But the first giving of the census is a census of those people who left Egypt and went into the wilderness. The second census in this book are the people about to enter into the promised land. So you have kind of like two different groups, one who left Egypt, and then they number again those who are about ready to go into the land of Canaan. The task of this census is to find out the number of able-bodied men over the age of 20 that they can conscript for the Israeli army. That's the task. So chapters 1 through 25 of the book of Numbers, just giving you a little background, is census number 1. Chapter 26 to 36 is census number two. Now, you may be wondering, okay, they took one census. Why did they take another census? Why are there two recorded in this book? Well, what happened to the first generation of Israelites

7:58 that left Egypt? They died, right? They're dead. They died in the wilderness. They died because of their disobedience. You remember the story, 12 spies are sent out. That's also recorded in the book of Numbers. Twelve spies are sent out. They come back. Two of them say, let's take the land. God has given it to us. Ten of them, however, are freaked out. They don't want to go. There's too many giants in the land. It's too hard. And so they spread that bad report among the people of Israel. These Israelites are filled with disbelief. And so God makes them wander for 40 years in Rio Rancho, in the desert. Sorry, I couldn't resist. In the middle of nowhere. So they all died. And now a second generation of Israelites, their children are counted in the second part of this book. Now, let me ask an obvious question about the book of Numbers and census. What's so spiritual about a census that you would have to have that in the Bible?

9:07 answer absolutely nothing unless your name's in it if your name is recorded in a book like this you're pretty stoked if I take a group picture right now and put it in the foyer who's the first person you're going to look for after church in that picture yourself so if your name is in the book of Numbers, and that's a book in the Bible, that's pretty wonderful. I kind of look at Numbers as this is God's way of saying, I love you, and I love you, and I love you, and I love you, and I love you. I see you, and you. You're important. You're important. You're important. And so there's a list of numbers of tribes and names of people. Jesus said in Luke 10, do not rejoice that the Demons are subject to your name, but rejoice that your name is written in heaven.

10:05 So as we go through this set of verses in chapter 27 of Numbers, I want to give it to you in four phases. Four phases. The crisis in the nation, the courage of these five women, the confirmation that is given by God and the correlation to how it applies to us. Let's begin with the crisis. Verse one, Numbers 27. Then came the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepha, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh from the families of Manasseh, the son of Joseph. And these were the names of his daughters. I think he liked the ah sound a lot. And they stood before Moses, before Eleazar the priest, and before the leaders and all the congregation, by the doorway of the tabernacle of meeting, saying, Our father died in the wilderness, but he was not in the company of those who gathered together against the Lord.

11:19 in company with Korah, but he died in his own sin, and he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be removed from among his family because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father's brothers. First of all, just check out the names here, right? Zelophehad, and then his five daughters. So I'm guessing if you're looking for Bible names for your children, you're not going to pick any of these, which would be a smart move. It's sort of hard for us in America to relate to this little story here, because when it comes to land, land ownership, we can buy and sell land privately. We buy a parcel of land, we get it zoned for a certain project, and we build according to the zoning laws. In antiquity, it was different, especially in the Old Testament and giving of the land to the children of Israel.

12:23 It was all by tribal allotment. The land was tied to a mandate from God. God gave the land of Canaan, which is now the land of Israel, to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his 12 sons, the 12 tribes of Israel, as a perpetual covenant, an eternal covenant. In Leviticus 25, the Lord said, the land is mine and it shall not be sold permanently. So the land was to stay within the tribal allotments that would be given when they got into the land. So God owns the land, God owns the people, and God owned the people who owned the land. But it was imperative that all the people had some of the land because after all, it was called the promised land. And it's not the promised land if you don't have some of the land that was promised. So it was important that every tribe, every clan within that tribe, every family within that clan within that tribe had some portion of the land. However, the tribal allotments were reckoned among the sons that were born into the families. Well, the problem in chapter 27 is what happens if you have no sons? What happens if there's only girls born in the family, daughters born in the family. And that's what is happening here. Zelophehad, can I just call him Mr. Z from now on? Mr. Z dies. He has no sons. He has five daughters. They are afraid that his name is going to be blotted out. Nobody's going to remember him because he has no sons.

14:19 So poof, gone. No Mr. Z anymore. In ancient cultures, in most all ancient cultures, women were considered property of men. They were the possession of men. Now, that is not the teaching of the Bible, by the way. In Genesis, Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She will be called woman because she was taken out of man. So they became partners in life together. That is the biblical teaching. But still today, in many places in the world, it is not that way. In places like India, in many countries in Africa, in lots of countries in the Middle East, girls are sold for forced marriages, especially countries under Muslim-majority rule under Sharia law.

15:27 In many Muslim countries, women are illiterate by design. Very few enter the workforce. Even in Judaism, in ancient Judaism, the prayer was, God, I thank you that I'm not a slave, a Gentile, or a woman. and the strict rabbis were forbidden to greet women as they saw them in the streets. They couldn't even speak to their wives and daughters publicly. It was a broader push for modesty, but what ended up happening is women felt very, very isolated in those cultures. And I don't know if you know this or not, but in the first century Judaism, so around the time of Christ. There was even a group of Pharisees. You know about the Pharisees, right? A group of Pharisees called bruised and bleeding Pharisees. You know why they were called that? Because if they were walking down the street and they saw a woman coming, they would close their eyes.

16:29 So they wouldn't have any bad, immoral thoughts. Well, if you close your eyes while you're walking down the street, you're going to become a bruised and bleeding Pharisee. You're going to hit a wall or a goat or something. And that is what ended up happening. They're mentioned, by the way, in both the Mishnah and the Talmud, bruised and bleeding Pharisees. So you have this isolation of women in ancient societies. By the time you open the New Testament, there's a breaking of those barriers. and you read something in the first book of the New Testament that is absolutely groundbreaking. You have a genealogy of Jesus Christ and you have four women mentioned in an ancient genealogy, unheard of, unheard of. One of them was even Rahab the harlot. In the genealogy of the Son of God, to the about-d c women's liberation did not begin in the 1960s under glorious steinham it began 2 000 years ago under jesus christ he brought women into his circle he brought women into his genealogy he had women on his ministry team there were women at the cross there were women at the tomb he spoke to the samaritan woman a syrophoenician woman was treated with compassion by him the woman caught in adultery was forgiven by him, etc. Jesus obviously did not care about the traditions or the moral constraints of the society. He let love and compassion triumph over all of that.

18:12 And it's sort of summed up by Paul, right? In Galatians chapter 3, when Paul said, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. So the crisis sets up the story. Now the second phase is the courage of these women. So go back to verse three, and here's their spiel to Moses. quote, our father died in the wilderness. But they quickly say, but he was not in the company of those who gathered together against the Lord in the company with Korah, but he died in his own sin and he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be removed from among his family because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father's brothers. These five gals approach Moses and Eleazar the priest and the leadership of Israel to deal with a problem.

19:19 And they come to the entrance of the tabernacle. You remember the tabernacle, that sacred place. And it says here, verse 2, they stood before Moses and Eleazar. The language there suggests this is a public, formal meeting. It is sort of like coming to Congress or the Supreme Court or to the White House or perhaps having a large gathering at the D.C., the mall out there in Washington, D.C. They come with a bold request, something never done before in Israel, hoping that this will become a landmark case and it will become codified in Jewish law, which it actually does. Now, just remember, I'm taking you back a few studies in this Overlook series.

20:15 Remember we talked about Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses? Remember what Jethro told Moses to do? He said, Moses, you're meeting people all day long. You can't handle all these people. They can't handle you. You're gonna get tired. They're gonna get tired of you. So get 70 men who can oversee all these little petty disputes, and they'll bring the hard cases to you, right? This is one of those hard cases. Maybe they met with an intermediate leader of one of the 70, but now they're taking this directly to Moses for Moses to get God's will. Now, I think you need to know this because it sort of stuck out to me as I was studying this, and I'm reading commentaries, I'm reading articles, and I'm going online. Some people want to make these five women into the first feminists. and I can't tell you how many articles and books that have kind of cast them as the first feminists.

21:16 One source says, this is a defining and revolutionary moment of early women's rights and civil courage. Another source said, this made the first crack to shatter the glass ceiling in ancient Israel. That phrase, glass ceiling, breaking the ceiling, comes from the 1970s, where the idea is breaking barriers that would prevent women from advancing in society, breaking the glass ceiling. So that's what some are saying about this. Well, that's not true. After all, they're concerned with what? They're concerned with the name of their father. So this is not an issue of women's rights.

22:09 This is an issue of family rights. This is an issue of our father's name and our father's place going forward in Israel. And did you notice that these women bring up the issue that dad wasn't a part of Korah's gig, his rebellion? Now let me refresh your memory on that. That's back in Numbers chapter 16. There was a guy named Korah who didn't like Moses all that much. and he got 250 other rebels with him to go against and challenge Moses' leadership. And you remember God had a response. God grounded them. He opened up the ground and swallowed them whole. He grounded them. And so she wants to point out, or these five gals, he wasn't a part of that, But notice they say he died in his own sin. And all that means is he was a part of the normal sinful generation that all died in the desert.

23:09 They all died because of their disbelief. They wandered for 40 years. All of that generation except two, Joshua and Caleb, they all died. He was just a part of that natural generational death. He died in his own sin. But we get something from this text. We infer that the rebels with Korah, Korah and his 250, not only lost their lives in the judgment, but that their survivors probably lost the land that would have been given to them in Israel as well. So, feminists, no. Courageous, yes. Very courageous, unafraid to stand up for the right reason and willing to challenge the status quo with a holy courage for their own future's sake. Ernest Hemingway said, courage is grace under pressure. We are seeing grace under pressure.

24:10 Actually, I like it put this way. Courage is just fear that has said its prayers. You might go into a situation and you are fearful. That's okay. Courage is where you harness that. Courage is just fear that has said its prayers. You know, if you think about it, courage is a lot like a teabag.

24:31 You never know how strong it is or how good it is until you put it through some hot water. Courage is like that. It's like a teabag. You put a person through some hot water and you see what comes out. So these five are courageous. They have a gutsy faith. They come boldly before Moses and Eleazar and the leadership. They knew that things would never change in Israel unless they seize this moment. So the crisis is followed by their courage. The third phase is the confirmation that is given by God himself. Verse 5. So Moses brought their case before the Lord. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, The daughters of Mr. Z speak what is right. You shall surely give them a possession of inheritance among their father's brothers and cause the inheritance of their father to pass to them.

25:37 And you shall speak to the children of Israel saying, if a man dies and has no son, then you shall cause his inheritance to pass to his daughter. If he has no daughter, and you shall give his inheritance to his brothers, he has no brothers, and you shall give his inheritance to his father's brothers, and if his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to the relative closest him in his family, and he shall possess it, and it shall be to the children of Israel a statute of judgment, just as the Lord commanded Moses.

26:19 They bring it to Moses. Moses brings it to God. I love that about Moses. He wasn't one to say, well, okay, I'll figure that I can come up with my own ruling here. He seeks the Lord. He knows that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. And so we ask God, and I love this, God validates the five women. He confirms their hunch. God didn't say, you go tell those five gals, they have to live with this. That's just the way things are done here. God said, no, they're right, Moses. They're right. So you give the legal right to the land to the daughters and make that a law from now on. and if there's no daughters, then the next of kin. Now, let me put a little fine point on that. The only caveat to this law, and we don't get it here. We get it in chapter 36 of this book. I'm not going to have you turn there, but there's a caveat. And the caveat is the girls to keep the land have to marry within their own tribe. So they're from the tribe of Manasseh. They got to marry some guy from the tribe of Manasseh. But if, let's say, Hogla or Milcah or Tirzah sees some cute guy from Judah and marries him, then the tribe of Judah gets that land.

27:41 Or if one of these gals sees this handsome hunk from Issachar and they hook up and get married, then it's going to go to the tribe of Issachar. So the caveat is you've got to marry within your own tribe for this law to be in effect. But this is a very, very important ruling. Why? Because there are about 2 million people in the children of Israel at this time, which means there's lots of families with no sons, only daughters. So they bring it to Moses, Moses brings it to God, and they wait for the answer. They wait for the answer. They will accept and submit to whatever answer the Lord gives back to Moses to tell them.

28:29 Winston Churchill said, courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, but courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. And they did both, didn't they? They stood up and they spoke, they voiced the concern, and then they waited to get the response. They sat down and they listened. But here's what I love about this whole story. God doesn't overlook anybody. The very people that are overlooked, God does not overlook. Even in a patriarchal society dominated by firstborn males, God doesn't overlook anybody. The very people we overlook are often the very people God looks over, looks after, superintends. God sees you.

29:20 God knows you. He knows what you're dealing with. He loves you. He does not overlook you. Every society has overlooked people, marginalized people, people who aren't thought about. They are not overlooked by God. one of my favorite stories that comes from world war ii is we had our soldiers fighting in the war in on european soil and uh this group of friends one of them was shot in battle the friends in mourning the loss of their fallen friend wanted to give him a decent burial in a church cemetery they found a local church i think it was in france somewhere They went to bury him in the churchyard in the cemetery. The priest said, I'm sorry, unless he is a member of our faith, he can't be buried inside the churchyard.

30:20 It's the rules. I can't change the rules. Well, they were sad about that, and they buried him just outside the cemetery, outside the fence. They dug a shallow grave, buried their friend, said some prayers, put a little cross on it, and went away for the night. The next morning they got up, wanted to visit the grave one last time before they went back to battle. And they couldn't find the grave that they dug. They looked everywhere outside the fence, went all around it a couple times and said, we cannot find it. Then the priest shows up and he kind of hung his head and he said, well, last night I was unable to sleep. So I got up and I moved the fence. to include your friend. And when I read that story years ago, I thought that's the heart of the gospel, right? Jesus always is moving the fence to include more people.

31:17 He moves the fence. He moved the fence for me. He moved the fence for you. He includes you. He doesn't overlook you. So that's the crisis and the courage and the confirmation now by God. I wanna close this by giving you the correlation, how this relates to us. These five ladies present and provide an example for us.

31:43 And based on what we read in these 11 verses, I think we should do three things. Based on what they do, we should do three things. Number one, we should come boldly. We should come boldly. just as they boldly approached Moses and Eleazar and the leaders at the door of the tabernacle in that formal kind of a manner, just as they came boldly, so we should also approach God. We're told to do that. Hebrews chapter four, verse 16, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Come boldly is the invitation. And then James puts a fine point on this idea when he says, you have not because you ask not.

32:44 So ask. So come and come boldly. Oh, I can't come boldly. I'm just, you know, I'm flesh and blood and he's God. Well, he said, come boldly. This is not arrogance. This is confidence. This is not a call to being arrogant. It's a call to being confident. Be confident in God, in his character. It's assurance in the character of God. He invites you to come. You have access to his compassion and strength. You may remember in Luke chapter 18, the chapter begins, Jesus spoke this parable unto them that men ought always to pray and not lose heart. Men ought always to pray and not lose heart. Then he gives this wild analogy of a judge in a town who's a rascal, an unjust judge. And this woman came to the judge for justice and she had an issue and judge didn't want to hear about it because he didn't care. He was a rascal, but she kept coming and kept coming and kept persisting. And finally the judge said, all right, I'll do what you want. Not because I want to do it, but because you keep bugging me.

34:01 And Jesus uses that example to say, if an unjust, just rascally judge would do that for a woman who keeps coming who didn't lose heart, how much more will a good and gracious, compassionate, loving heavenly father do for his children? So men ought always to pray and not lose heart. People who persist in prayer are people who do not lose heart. People who lose heart are people who do not persist in prayer. So, come boldly. Second, live expectantly. Live expectantly. these five ladies, along with all of the children of Israel, they were not yet in the promised land. This is important. They were still out in the wilderness on the other side of the Jordan River. They weren't in the promised land yet, but they knew they would be one day.

35:08 Soon enough, they're going to cross that Jordan and be over in the promised land. so they are living as if they're in the land now right they want this ruling done there there's no land to occupy yet but they'll be there soon so here's the application learn to live in the tension of the not yet. Not yet. We're not there yet. Live in the tension of the not yet. And I would say parents have to do this all the time with kids. Because kids don't have the patience that a parent has. Some parents don't have patience, but kids definitely don't. So when you go on vacation, you're driving down the freeway, what's the question your kids ask you? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? And you say, we're not there yet, but soon.

36:04 Hold on. You know, you're right. You give them a little bit of hope. But they keep asking, are we there yet? Not yet. but soon we are not yet in heaven. We are not yet enjoying our eternal reward. We are not yet in that full unveiled presence of God. We are not yet in glorified bodies. We are not yet ruling and reigning with Christ, but we will soon. And we can be living in the tension of the not yet by preparing for it. Jesus said, lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven. You can do that now. Paul said, seek those things which are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. So come boldly and live expectantly.

37:00 Third and finally, plan generationally. Plan generationally. These five gals pass the torch of blessing to the next generation. The ruling that they will see on this day will have ramifications for other families going forward in future generations. And part of our task is to set the next generation up for success rather than for failure. If you're a parent or a grandparent, that is one of your primary tasks. Set the next generation up for success and not failure. It has to come a time in your life where it's not about you anymore. It's about them. So we have looked for eight weeks at eight overlooked people or people groups, all who are vital to the story, all of which encourage our hearts.

38:02 And I wanna close this whole series out with one of my favorite stories. And it's been several years since I've brought this out, so I think I'm safe bringing it out again. This is a little piece written by Peter Marshall. I don't know if any of you recognize that name. Peter Marshall was, I think, Scottish. He was not from this country, but he became the chaplain to the United States Senate.

38:28 Very distinguished role. He wrote a little piece called The Keeper of the Spring. He said, once there was a quiet forest dweller who lived high above an Austrian village in the mountains. He was hired to clear away debris from the pools of water up in the mountains that fed the spring that was flowing through their town. With faithful, silent regularity. Listen to that again. With faithful, silent regularity. He patrolled the hills, removed the leaves, took away the branches and the silt that would otherwise choke and contaminate the fresh flow of water. The village became a popular attraction for vacationers. Swans floated along a crystal clear spring, businesses located near the water, farmlands were irrigated, and the view from the restaurants was picturesque beyond description.

39:37 Can you see it? One evening, the town council met for a semi-annual meeting. Now the government gets involved. As they reviewed the budget, one man's eye caught the salary figure being paid this obscure keeper of the spring. Well, the keeper of the purse, the secretary, said, who is this old man? And why do we keep him on year after year? Nobody ever sees him. For all we know, this strange roamer of the hills is doing us no good. I don't think he's necessary any longer. So there was a unanimous vote to dispense with his services. Well, for weeks, nothing changed.

40:33 But then the fall came, and the leaves, the trees shed their leaves. Small branches snapped off and fell into the pools, hindering the rushing flow of sparkling water. And one day, someone noticed the yellowish-brown tint in the spring. Days later, the water was much darker And within a week, a slimy film along the banks And a foul odor was detected Water wheels moved slower and some finally stopped The swans left The tourists left too Embarrassed, the town council called a special meeting realizing the error of their ways they hired back the keeper of the spring and within weeks the water cleared up what the keeper of the spring was to that village, Baruch was to Jeremiah, Jethro was to Moses, Mordecai was to Esther, Onesiphorus was to Paul, and these five women were to the nation of Israel.

41:50 Remember that phrase? Faithful, silent regularity. Overlooked. Overlooked. vitally important. If you feel overlooked, you're only overlooked by some people. God does not overlook you. He looks you over, sees your advantage, sees your gifts, has given you those gifts, wants to engage you for his purpose. You are vital to the kingdom. and finally if you're one of those people who does not yet know christ he is willing to move the fence again to include you in his company if that's what you're willing to do let's pray together father thank you for this short series on overlooked people we could have certainly extended this to hundreds more that we haven't covered.

42:50 But we learned the idea that though not as seen, not as A-list actors they are still A-listers in your annals. They form a vital part, a vital function so that we can enjoy the clarity of the spring, the clear water that comes to us from your word. Thank you for so many servants that serve in this church, in this body, that allow the word of God to go out and the worship to be strong and our experience to be fulfilling. thank you Lord for your willingness to move the fence again and again and again to include all of us and if you're here today or you're joining us online if you've never surrendered to Christ you could do that right at this moment you could say these words and I encourage you to do so say them out loud or say them in the quietness of your heart say Lord I give you myself I give you my life I know I'm a sinner forgive me I believe in Jesus I believe he died for me on a cross he spilled his blood for me he was resurrected on the third day I turn from my sin I turn to Jesus as Savior as Master I want to follow him you