FAITHFUL AS DAUGHTERS

Various Passages

INTRODUCTION:

A true story:  A woman called in to a conservative Christian radio talk show and asked, "What do you think of Phillip's four daughters who prophesied?  The guest clergyman on the show replied, "It just means they witnessed for Christ."  "But," the caller asked, "Why can't women teach and preach?"  With impeccable logic, the clergyman responded, "That ministry is for men only and I can give you a very good reason:  God made roosters to crow and hens to lay eggs."

Last week, I preached about faithfulness as sons.  This week, I want to consider the subject of faithfulness as daughters.  Some people believe that if daughters are to be faithful to their parents and faithful to God, they must never crow and only lay eggs.

The fact is that the Bible gives us many examples of gifted women of achievement.  You are probably familiar with Deborah, the judge; Esther, the queen and Lydia, the seller of purple.  But are you familiar with five women named Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah?  I thought not.

We meet Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah, the daughters of Zelophehad, in five different places in three books in the Old Testament:  Numbers 26:33, 27:1-11, 36:1-12, Joshua 17:3, I Chronicles 7:1.

These are obscure accounts about an obscure family...a family of daughters.  But this morning, I want to bring these women out of obscurity and into the light so we can note the sterling characteristics they demonstrated:  characteristics that made them both faithful daughters and women of achievement.

The first of these sterling characteristics I want to highlight is:

I.    Faithful daughters RESPECT THEIR LEADERS  (Numbers 27:1-2)

 When this quintet of fine women are first mentioned in Scripture it is in Numbers 26:28-34.

²⁸The descendants of Joseph by their clans through Manasseh and Ephraim were: ²⁹the descendents of Manasseh: through Makir, the Makirite clan (Makir was the father of Gilead); through Gilead, the Gileadite clan.  ³⁰ These were the descendants of Gilead:  through Iezer, the Iezerite clan;  through Helek, the Helekite clan; ³¹ through Asriel, the Asrielite clan; through Shechem, the Shechemite clan; ³² through Shemida, the Shemidaite clan; through Hepher, the Hepherite clan.  ³³ (Zelophehad son of Hepher had no sons, he had only daughters, whose names were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah)  ³⁴ These were the clans of Manasseh; those numbered were 52,700.

Don't you just hate running across a passage like that in your devotional reading?  Trust me, I hate having to read a passage like that out loud!  I have a really tough time with those names.  But the text in its context helps to frame the issue:  Zelophehad had no sons.  He had five daughters and I am sure they were wonderful women.  but that is the point:  they were women.  And women could not inherit,

So the next time we encounter these five ladies, it is when they go before the recognized leaders of Israel to ask for the inheritance of land in Canaan that should rightfully go to their family.

 ¹The daughters of Zelophehad son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, belonged to the clans of Manasseh son of Joseph.  The names of the daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah.  They approached ²the entrance to the Tent of Meetng and stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the leaders and the whole assembly. (Numbers 27:1-2a)

I think it noteworthy that, out of respect for their leaders, these women were willing to state their case to the people who were responsible to administer the rules of the community.  They could have just ignored the problem.  They could have simply complained among themselves about the injustice of it all.  They could have grumbled to their friends about how life is so unfair to women.

When any of these responses happens, resentment can build up and, by the time the leaders hear rumors about the unrest, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to correct.  It happens in the church.  It has happened in every church I have ever heard about.  Someone doesn't care for a decision that was made or an action that was taken.  But rather than go to the people who made the decision or the person who took the action, they go to someone else (sometimes a LOT of someone elses) and soon a number of people become troubled over it.  Often, if they understood why the course was taken, they would have agreed with it.  But because they did not go to the people who made the decision, they didn't learn the reason for the decision.

Ben Merold has said, "People are often down on what they aren't up on."  And while it is true that leaders have a responsibility to communicate with those they seek to lead, people have a responsibility to ask about what they want to know.

I once ministered with a church in which there was a man who did not agree with the direction of one of our leaders.  he talked to a lot of people about his disagreement...a lot of people!  When rumors got back to the elders, they went to him and asked him why, if he didn't agree with this man's actions, he had not brought it up with him or with the elders of the church.  His answer?  "I thought it might hurt the church."  Trust me, gossip hurts the church.  Rumor hurts the church.  Backbiting hurts the church.  But the honest questions of people wanting to know the facts never hurt the church.

Zelophehad's daughters demonstrated respect for their leaders when they took their complaint to the people who were in a position to do something about it.

II.    Faithful Daughters HONOR THEIR PARENTS (Numbers 27:3)

I also see, in the daughters of Zelophehad, an example of daughters who honored their parents.  I want to read the text from Numbers 27:1-2 that U read a moment ago but I want to go on to read the next verse as well.

¹The daughters of Zelophehad son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, belonged to the clans of Manasseh son of Joseph.  The names of the daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah.  They approached ²the entrance to the Tent of Meetng and stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the leaders and the whole assembly and said, ³"our father died in the desert.  He was not among Korah's followers, who banded together against the LORD, but he died for his own sin and left no sons.

These daughters wanted to make sure that their father's name was cleared.

You can read about the rebellion of Korah in Numbers 16.  Korah, Dathan and Abiram, along with 250 prominent men from among the various tribes of the Hebrew people, rose up against Moses and Aaron and told them they had gone too far in their leadership of the people.  "Why do you set yourselves above the Lord's assembly?" they asked.

These men were not coming to Moses and Aaron to learn from them, they were coming to oppose them.  God defended His chosen leaders and consumed Korah and his fellow-rebels.

Now, almost 20 years later, it is time to decide which families will get what portions of the Promised Land.  Because Zelophehad did not have any sons, his descendents were not in line to receive any land.  But his five daughters did not think that was right or fair so they went to Moses.  In addition to making sure that their father's descendents got land, they wanted to make sure that the people understood that their father had not participated in Korah's rebellion.  If he had, it would have been just for his people not to receive an inheritance,  But Zelophehad did not participate in Korah's mutiny against Moses and Aaron and his daughters wanted the record to show that.

Faithful daughters honor their parents and seek to make sure that their parents' names are respected.  One way that daughters (and sons) can do that is to live in such a way that they bring tribute to their moms and dads.  Daughters bring tribute to their parents by living up to the Lord's standards and not down to the world's.  Because daughters (and sons, too) wear their parents' name, what they do brings honor or dishonor to that name.  Faithful daughters honor their parents by how they behave, by what they say about their parents, by how they treat their parents and by how they preserve the memory of their parents.

III.  Faithful Daughters PREPARE FOR THEIR FUTURE (Numbers 27:4)

 In the example of the daughters of Zelophehad, I see another pattern to be followed.  The daughters of Zelophehad prepared for their future.  They wanted to make sure that they had land for income and also for inheritance.

These may be the first career women in Scripture.  I've mentioned Esther who was a queen.  Lydia was a seller of expensive purple dye.  Priscilla was a tent-maker.  But the first career women may very well have been these daughters of Zelophehad who made sure that they owned real estate.  The land they wanted to receive would provide a living for them.  That was unconventional thinking for that day.

When this incident took place, women were perceived as possessions of the men who married them.  They did not need to have business skills or make business decisions.  They sat around with their dowries and waited for some man to want them enough to take them as wives.  In fact, the dowry was a kind of bribe or inducement to lure a man to have her,

These five women were unwilling to cast their fate to the men.  They were determined to control their own destinies by controlling their own financial security.  We ought to teach our daughters the virtue of such assertiveness.

IV.  Faithful Daughters ACCEPT THEIR RESPONSIBILITY  (Numbers 36:1-12)

¹The family heads of the clan of Gilead son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, who were from the clans of the descendants of Joseph, came and spoke before Moses and the leaders, the heads of the Israelite families.  ²They said, "When the LORD commanded my lord to give the land as an inheritance to the Israelites by lot, he ordered you to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters.  ³Now suppose they marry men from other Israelite tribes; then their inheritance will be taken from our ancestral inheritance and added to that of the tribe they marry into.  And so part of the inheritance allotted to us will be taken away.  ⁴When the Year of Jubilee for the Israelites comes, their inheritance will be added to that tribe into which they marry, and their property will be taken from the tribal inheritance of our forefathers."

⁵Then at the LORD's command Moses gave this order to the Israelites:  "What the tribe of the descendants of Joseph is saying is right,  ⁶This is what the LORD commands for Zelophehad's daughters:  They may marry anyone they please as long as they marry within the tribal clan of their father.  ⁷No inheritance in Israel is to pass from tribe to tribe, for every Israelite shall keep the tribal land inherited from his forefathers.  ⁸Every daughter who inherits land in any Israelite tribe must marry someone in her father's tribal clan, so that every Israelite will possess the inheritance of his fathers.  ⁹No inheritance may pass from tribe to tribe, for each Israelite tribe is to keep the land it inherits."

¹⁰So Zelophehad's daughters did as the LORD commanded Moses.  ¹¹Zelophehad's daughters - Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah and Noah - married their cousins on their father's side.  ¹²They married within the clans of the descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in their father's clan and tribe.

The daughters of Zelophehad brought their concern to the leaders of their nation and in so doing, secured for themselves a share of the inheritance in the Promised Land.  That is commendable.

But their kinsmen in the clan of Gilead were not pleased about this.  They were concerned that if these women got an inheritance of their own and, if they married, their share of the land designated for the clan of Gilead would become part of the estate of their husbands and would then pass out of the family forever.  So the family heads of the clan of Gilead brought this concern to Moses.  Moses had to acknowledge the legitimacy of their concern so he sought the Lord on the subject.

God told Moses to tell the daughters of Zelophehad that if they married, it must be within their tribal clan so that the land would stay with the clan.

You could understand if the daughters of Zelophehad thought that command was too restrictive.  You can understand if they had protested that these rules weren't fair.  You can understand if they had said, "Who do you think you are to tell me whom I can and whom I cannot marry?"

But these women did not react like that.  They listened to their relatives' concerns.  They listened to Moses' conclusion.  They considered what all these people had to say and the reasonableness of it and decided to accept their responsibility to their extended family.

Don't you believe that Zelophehad would have been proud of his daughters?  They certainly demonstrated openness and maturity.  Faithful daughters (and sons) do so.

CONCLUSION:

 I would like to point out that Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah had done nothing to earn or merit the land they received.  They neither purchased it not worked for it.  All they had to do was request and then receive it.  It came to them because of their father.

The same applies to the inheritance your Father has for you.  You do not have to earn your place in God's Promised Land.  In fact, you cannot earn it.  But you can receive it if you will but ask.

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