Links for today’s readings:
Read: Numbers 36 Listen: (2:15) Read: 1 Corinthians 10 Listen: (4:04)
Scripture Focus: Numbers 36.5-9
5 Then at the Lord’s command Moses gave this order to the Israelites: “What the tribe of the descendants of Joseph is saying is right. 6 This is what the Lord commands for Zelophehad’s daughters: They may marry anyone they please as long as they marry within their father’s tribal clan. 7 No inheritance in Israel is to pass from one tribe to another, for every Israelite shall keep the tribal inheritance of their ancestors. 8 Every 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 their ancestors. 9 No inheritance may pass from one tribe to another, for each Israelite tribe is to keep the land it inherits.”
Reflection: Limiting Our Freedom
By John Tillman
Earlier in Numbers, Zelophehad’s daughters, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah, from the tribe of Manasseh, came to Moses requesting to inherit land in their father’s name because he had no sons. God not only granted this request, but made this a law for all of Israel. In this chapter, Manasseh’s tribal leaders brought concerns to Moses.
Each tribe’s land was part of a sacred promise and laws protected tribes and individuals from losing land. For example, moving a boundary stone was a capital offense. Additionally, the year of Jubilee provided a “reset button,” returning land to its original tribal owners. This protected families against spiraling downward into generational poverty if bad luck or bad decisions caused individuals or tribes to sell or lose their land.
The tribal heads of Manasseh realized that if the daughters married outside the tribe, one promise of the law would cancel out the other. When Jubilee came, instead of lost land being restored, land promised by God would be lost. The provision of land to the daughters would undermine the provision of land to the entire tribe.
To protect one freedom from canceling out another, God limited the women’s freedom in order to better their tribe. Instead of marrying whomever they wished, they were told to marry within the tribe to preserve the fair distribution of land to all tribes.
Scripture is written for us but not to us. This means that all scripture is “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3.16) however, most of scripture was written to particular people in particular situations. This passage doesn’t dictate economic or marriage policy to us but it can inform how we use the freedom that God has given us.
Like the women, we have a great inheritance of freedom, power, love, and knowledge in Jesus. How are we using it?
Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah limited their freedom to benefit their tribe and nation. Paul warned the Corinthian church against exercising freedom in ways that harmed others.
Does our freedom cause others to be in bondage? Is our power stripping others’ rights? Is our benefit paid for by another’s loss?
We must limit our freedoms when exercising them harms others. Let us be careful that we do not cancel someone else’s blessing by using our own.
Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Open my eyes, that I may see the wonders of your law. — Psalm 119.18
– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime
by Phyllis Tickle
Read more: Freedom For, Not From
Let us think about our freedom in the way Paul did, not as a way to benefit ourselves but as a way to benefit others.
Read more: Inheritance of Rachel’s Daughters
As Jesus looked to a greater law than Moses, he grants to men and women a greater inheritance than any land or property.