July 6 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Numbers 27:1-8

¹Then came the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph: and these are the names of his daughters; Mahlah, Noah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah.
²And they stood before Moses, and before Eleazar the priest, and before the princes and all the congregation, by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,
³Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not in the company of them that gathered themselves together against the LORD in the company of Korah; but died in his own sin, and had no sons.
⁴Why should the name of our father be done away from among his family, because he hath no son? Give unto us therefore a possession among the brethren of our father.
⁵And Moses brought their cause before the LORD.
⁶And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
⁷The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father's brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them.
⁸And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.

Devotional

Normally, God has provided for meeting a woman's needs of a material and protective nature, and indeed of a spiritual nature, through the man who is her father or her husband. Part of the onerous task of the man is this care he has for the members of his family. He who does not shoulder this burden is worse thn an infidel. When no meember of the fsmily is available to tske care of these needs, the church is to accept this respohnsibility. This is all in God's plan for those He loves.

Scripture does not declare to us a God who is insensitive to he humanness of women and to their needs, whether spiritual or temporal. Women are people. There is not male and female before the Lord as far as the soul is concerned. And here we se written into the laws of the Jewish nation that if there were no sons the father's inheritance should be given to his daughters.

Note how graciously Moses and Eleazar and God Himself responded to the five women who stood at the door of the tabernacle and made their speech. A careful reading of the Old Testament does not support the accusation that women under Old Testament laws were mere chattels! Not only in Proverbs 31 and the Song of Solomon, but even hidden among these sometimes tedious listings of laws in the Pentateuch, we see how God regarded the one who like Adam was made in His image and who was designed to be a helper appropriate for Adam.