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5/27 Reading Portions: Numbers 36; Psalm 80; Isaiah 28; 2 John
Numbers 36:8
“And every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the people of Israel shall be wife to one of the clan of the tribe of her father, so that every one of the people of Israel may possess the inheritance of his fathers.”
EXCEPTION
Zelophehad was from the half-tribe of Manasseh, Joseph’s eldest son; and Zelophehad had no sons, only daughters. This would create a problem when they crossed into the Promised Land and the daughters married because the inheritance would go to their husbands; and if the husband was from a different tribe, or from a different clan within Manasseh, Zelophehad’s progeny would lose this inheritance altogether. This exception for Zelophehad’s daughters would solve the issue. Some might think erroneously: “Couldn’t a sovereign God have eliminated the problem in the first place by giving Zelophehad sons?” Others may even take this chapter, coupled with a scant few others, and attempt to justify the ordination of women elders and preachers in Christ’s church. This thinking misses the mark. Whenever we view an apparent “problem” in Scripture, we need to take it to the cross and consider it through Christ’s gospel. The passage speaks of the inheritance on the west side of the Jordan River. The inheritance of Israel in the land illustrates our gospel inheritance in Jesus Christ. The apostle says it this way:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28
Neither our ethnicity, nor our occupation, nor our gender, male or female, matters when it comes to our gospel promises and inheritance in Christ. The land of Israel was given as a possession of stewardship. The portion of land given always returned in the year of jubilee to the clan it was allotted by the LORD because the land is His (Lev 25:23). Our gospel salvation— that is, our promises and inheritance in Christ— is likewise. Salvation is of the Lord, and by the Lord, and through the Lord alone, because salvation belongs to the Lord. We are, by His sovereign grace, stewards of His heavenly blessings in Christ. Hallelujah! What a Savior!