Then drew near the daughters of Zelophehad the son of Hepher, son of Gilead, son of Machir, son of Manasseh, from the clans of Manasseh the son of Joseph. The names of his daughters were: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. And they stood before Moses and before Eleazar the priest and before the chiefs and all the congregation, at the entrance of the tent of meeting, saying, “Our father died in the wilderness. He was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the LORD in the company of Korah, but died for his own sin. And he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? Give to us a possession among our father’s brothers.” Numbers 27.1-4

We have seen how important it is that God’s people should learn the Law of God. God has written the works of His Law on the hearts of all people (Rom. 2.14, 15). He commanded that the Law of God should be taught in the homes of His people, read and preached in public, exercised in “sunshine” courts where all could observe, and reviewed at feasts and important events in the life of the nation. Jesus taught that greatness in the Kingdom of God is directly linked with knowing, obeying, and teaching the Law of God. Clearly, God intends for His people to know His Law.

The daughters of Zelophehad knew the Law. They also understood the covenantal background of the Law, and saw the familiar covenantal pattern of the primacy of sons played out before them in the two different censuses taken during the book of Numbers. Clearly the Law was proceeding according to covenantal precedent, and sons were – as they had always been since the days of the patriarchs – the heirs of the lands and wealth of the fathers.

But the daughters of Zelophehad were confronted with a dilemma. Their father, a man of faith, died in the wilderness without a son to inherit his part of the land of promise, the possessing of which was, by Numbers 27, imminent. Knowing that the Law of God did not speak directly to this situation, the daughters of Zelophehad approached Moses for consideration of their situation. They did not presume to take the Law into their own hands; rather, in a decent and orderly manner, they brought their concern to the proper authorities, those entrusted with weighing the application of the Law to specific situations in Israel.

Would they have thought to do this (a) if they did not understand that the Law of God was to be the guide to faith and life in the land of promise? and (b) if their knowledge of the Law of God left them concerned that, as the Law stood at Numbers 27.1, their father’s name might be vulnerable to some injustice, and they might be deprived of what seemed to them to be their rightful property, a possible violation of the eighth commandment?

It is most unlikely. God used the daughters of Zelophehad to clarify the further development of His divine economy by explaining that, in the land of promise, women as well as men could stand in line to inherit the property of their fathers (vv. 5-11). This was a further development and clarification of the protocols of the Covenant, but they did not exceed the spirit or intent of God’s Covenant, since that Covenant was promulgated on the basis of men and women alike being image-bearers of God (Gen. 1.26-28).

If we want to make just use of the Law of God we must first study to know the Law of God. Ignorance of God’s Law will make us vulnerable to injustice – both to have it perpetrated against us and for us to perpetrate it against others.

For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the life of faith, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.ailbe.org and click on our Book Store.