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Come and study the Holy Scriptures with us as Fr. Stephen DeYoung teaches verse-by-verse on the podcast The Whole Counsel of God. Fr. Stephen holds a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies and is an Orthodox priest serving at Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana.

okay so we'll go ahead and get started and when we get started here in just a moment we're going to be picking up in book of numbers beginning of chapter 27 so uh and it will be just a moment because you don't have to do a ton of recap because we we left off last time with census data so i'm not going to reread all those numbers as exciting as it was when i read them last time but we talked about why that was that we had the census at the beginning of the book now we have this census as we're coming to the end of the book of numbers and the point being that there was a succession of generations there there was the generation that came out of egypt that died in the wilderness and then now there's the new generation their children and so they're sort of renumbered again right as they're preparing to enter the land and face resistance as they do not only are we coming off of a census but this is also another one of those places as we've said over and over again in the book of numbers book of numbers is sort of this patchwork quilt of different kinds of material interspersed between each other so there's narrative there's stories there's census data there's commandments and they're all kind of mixed together and so we're also switching from after the census data to a different genre we're going to have a tiny little piece of narrative here and that's going to serve to introduce a bunch of legislative material meaning a bunch of commandments related to it and then we're just going to get commandments for a while then we're going to get another little piece of narrative and then commandments again right so there are only a few little morsels of narrative have left in the book of numbers most of what's left in the book of numbers is going to be commandments in these last we've got 10 chapters left but they're going to go relatively quickly because of the type of material they are we're i don't think we're going to get through 10 chapters tonight not that quickly but more quickly than some of the material and so that said we don't need a whole lot more review, I don't think, to get to where we start here in Numbers 27. So unless anybody has any leftover comments, questions, rodent sightings to report, we'll go ahead and pick up in chapter 27, verse 1. Now came the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hefer, the son of Gilead, the son of Mekir, the son of Manasseh from the tribe of Manasseh, the son of joseph and these were the names of his daughters mala noah hogla milca and tirza these are all perfectly good biblical names but if you name your daughter hogla

she will grow up and harm you so i'm just warning you now at least in an english-speaking country and for purposes of people here i will not baptize your daughter hogla i will change that name and she will thank me for it but if you want milka or uh tirza you know that's fine so these are when it gives the son of son of son of as we've said before this isn't a complete list of generations this is locating them within the tribes right so manasseh is the name of the tribe and then there's the name of the clan and the extended family and the immediate family right and this is just going in ascending order instead of descending order so rather than starting at the tribe of manasseh it starts with you know these these are actually the daughters of this person and then telling you where that person is located in the broader familial and tribal structures of israel so there's a more sense of like

leadership in a way like of importance rather than like you said it's not exactly

well this is sort of a part of identity right and we don't at least here in our american culture have that level of specificity but there are a lot of countries still like if you look at latin everybody you know roman citizens all had like five or six names it was you know their given name which sometimes was lame like there are a lot of people named

like primus secundus tertius quadratus you know that would be their given name but then they had their father's name their grandfather's name you know an ancestor's name right they had like a whole right and there are other cultures like i know in ethiopia it's like your given name your father's name your grandfather's name right like there's more of a sense that your identity who you are is located in tracing this line back right and sort of these larger units and in the U.S. you know you have a first name and a last name and that's about it and usually your last name is at least one of your parents last name now in the United States but that's about it right that's about as far as it works here so yeah so we don't quite have that same sense but in a lot of more traditional cultures they still have this idea of you know like that that sort of locates you your identity is a function of being part of these larger units in the present time and historically so it's that it's that kind of idea right so it's who are who are these women who are coming to see Moses oh here's who they are right here's how they relate who was part of this family that's part of this clan that's part of this tribe so they stood before Moses before Eliezer the priest and before the rulers and all the congregation by the door of the tabernacle of testimony saying okay so as we've seen already there's right the gateway into the sort of tabernacle compound so there's the tabernacle the tent itself and then there's the curtain that sort of goes around the perimeter of that area and people who weren't priests and levites didn't go in but when as we've seen over and over again when moses had something to say when there was some major dispute that needed to be settled even when god wanted to address all of the people they were all gathered to this place right so this is later in as we go through the old testament later in israelite history this is going to become the city gate so the people who live in the city and the people who live in the countryside on farms around the city when they have business to do they're going to go to the city gate and the city gate is where the elders of the people are going to be so if you're going to make a contract you go there because there are people there who can witness the contract right or if you have a dispute you need settled you go there so the elders could settle it so when they're in the camp in the wilderness that's the gateway of the tabernacle okay so they have an issue that they need resolved

so these these women show up there to do it they didn't gather everybody there but that's that's the place where people gather and so that this is their issue they say our father died in the desert but he was not in the company of those who gathered together against the lord in company with Korah but he died in his own sin and had no sons okay so he's one of that first generation that came out of Egypt their dad and he wasn't part of Korah's rebellion he wasn't part of one of these other rebellions where a bunch of people died, but he just died as part of that generation. That whole generation died in the wilderness because of their sin, right? So he's one of those folks, and he has no sons, right? Which means end of his line, end of his inheritance. Because remember, part of the reason why we got this census data is that not just the tribes in general, but each individual family is going to be given a piece of land when they go into Canaan. And that's going to be their family's land. Hypothetically, if they had done what they were supposed to do every 50 years in the year of Jubilee, that land would revert to that family. Right? That's the inheritance they're talking about. They're not just talking about, oh, there's no one to inherit my dad's clothes and walking stick or tent. Right? This is about in the land right so they say you know yes that generation died the next generation the sons are going to be the ones who receive that inheritance in the land but our dad died and doesn't have a son just us daughters so what happens to us that's kind of brave yeah yeah what happens to us right Yeah. Technically speaking, women did not have the right to address, like, court cases at this time in history. So it's a little, they have some chutzpah. So verse 4, do not let the name of our father be wiped out from among his tribe because he had no son. Give us a possession among our father's brothers. Right, so they're uncles. Right, so they're uncles, they have male cousins who are going to inherit, right? a piece of land, they say, we would like to have a piece of land just like them. So Moses brought their case before the Lord. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, The daughters of Zelophehad speak correctly. You shall surely give them a possession of inheritance among their father's brothers and assign the allotment of their father to them. Then you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying, If a man dies and has no son, you shall

assign his inheritance to his daughter but if he has no daughter you shall give the inheritance to his brother but if he has no brothers you shall give his inheritance to his father's brother but if his father has no brothers you shall give the inheritance to the relative closest to him in his tribe and he shall inherit his possessions so this shall be an ordinance of judgment to the children of israel as the lord ordered moses okay so what's what's the point of this early feminism well sort of sort of right in that right we do have women in inheriting things that normally they couldn't inherit but it's not just women inheriting things right because we read the rest of that too right well what if he has no kids at all when he dies right well then it goes to his brother well what if he has no brothers goes to his uncle so the idea here though is that we are preserving this particular piece of land as a family inheritance, at least, again, theoretically, if they did what they were supposed to do, as separate, right? As separate. Because if it's, say, his father's brother, right? His father would have received the inheritance from his grandfather. His brother would not have gotten a separate, right? The land didn't keep getting subdivided. It was inherited by the firstborn son. So if the secondborn son inherits this piece it's still separate right so the idea here is keeping all of those inheritances separate meaning this is god preventing another way someone could have tried to accumulate land like well i'm going to arrange marriages and i'm going to do this and that and try and you know cobble together this huge you know and and i'll make the family relationships such that, you know, and manipulate leverant marriage and other social excuses in such a way that that land never gets taken away from me and my family and me and my family just get more and more land and accumulate. Because that flies in the face of what God intended with the year of Jubilee. Remember, a big part of the year of Jubilee is that this prevents, the problem isn't isn't preventing generational wealth the problem is preventing generational poverty right it's not that oh that would be horrible if subsequent generations of a family all accumulated wealth at all prospered that's not like seen as a horrible thing but it is seen as a horrible thing if that's happening and other families then have generational poverty go generation after generation without having land of their own and have no way to get land of their own from generation to generation to generation right and so you're just born into poverty and you're going to live your whole life in it there's nothing you can do now there is

also a sort of moral hazard one might say even though it seems a lot less dire to us but maybe isn't of people being born in wealth and there's nothing they could do to not be wealthy their entire lives that does not tend to produce the best sort of people from on a moral basis right that's there's a general tendency we might notice in human history right but that is a less important moral hazard in terms of the torah than the opposite right they're the opposite so you may make bad choices and plunge yourself into poverty for the rest of your life but that shouldn't doom your children and your grandchildren to poverty forever is the idea and that's what the year of jubilee is designed to prevent and so this ruling is not so much about girl power as it is about maintaining these family inheritances as separate right and preventing accumulation at the potential expense of future generations. of other families. Verse 12, now the Lord said to Moses, go up into the mountain beyond the Jordan, this is Mount Nebo, and see the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel for a possession. We've already seen Moses, because of his sin, striking the rock instead of speaking to it, isn't going to get to go into the land. But God here tells him to go up on this mountain. Remember, they're in the plains of Moab. They're on the other side of the Jordan River. tells him to go to the top of this mountain because from there he can look down and see the land sort of spread out. Then you shall see it and be added to your people even you as Aaron your brother was added on Mount Hor because you transgressed my word in the desert of sin when the congregation was failing to sanctify me you did not sanctify me before them this was the water of contention at Kaddish in the desert of sin, in case you forgot, or in case it's been a couple of months since we read that chapter. So yes, God is literally saying to Moses, go up there and see the land because you're going to die. The way your brother Aaron died earlier at another mountain. So Moses is made aware by God. This is it, right? Now your life is going to come to an end. Notice the language. This isn't just a euphemism in terms of how they talk about death. You'll be added to your people, right? So think about what that language means for a minute. No, not at all. Added to your people. Who are his people, right? It's not the people of Israel. He's already part of the people of Israel. It's his ancestors. It's his brother who died before him and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He's going to be added to them. He's going to come into some

kind of community with them the reason i'm emphasizing this is that this implies sorry barterman and certain modern secular jews this kind of implies an afterlife right because none of those people are buried on that mountain so he's not being added in that way you can try and read it that way like if we're talking abraham isaac jacob several generations they're all buried in the same place right in the same set of tombs you can say oh well it means Literally, he's added to the tomb. Moses is not added to any of their tombs. So if he's going to be joining them, he's not joining them in a tomb. He's joining them where they are, which implies an afterlife of some sort. I mean, we can't be specific enough. This doesn't necessarily imply the bodily resurrection or something. But it certainly implies that death is not the end of Moses' existence or the existence of his ancestors to whom he's being added. And the way it specifically points out Aaron implies also that Aaron did not just cease to exist at the point of his death a few chapters ago. Right. And so the reason is, and this is the reason why he's not getting to enter the land. I mean, he's more than 120 years old, right? Like, I mean, eventually he was going to die. but uh the reason he's not getting to enter the land is is this transgression where he failed and notice the way it's phrased here he failed to sanctify god before the congregation meaning he failed to treat god as holy before the congregation he was angry he struck the rock he did what he was not supposed to do what is moses job as the prophet it's been a while since we laid this out, but we've talked about it a bunch before. Moses' job is the prophet. What makes him the prophet is he is supposed to represent God to the people, and he's supposed to represent the people to God, right? So representing God to the people means he speaks with God's authority, yes, but it also means he needs to accurately represent who God is and what he says right when he when he passed that on to the people and then the reverse he represents the people to god in prayer and intercessions right in all of these in all these ways so when it says you failed to sanctify me before the people he's saying to moses this is why moses sin was so egregious you think like okay he hit a rock with a stick right like i've gotten angry and you know throwing something on the floor right like that's not the most horrible thing in the world but for Moses right whose job when he stands before the people and communicates what God

has said to them and what God has told him to do him misrepresenting God to the people is a very serious sin right because the way the people know who God is is Moses. And so if he misrepresents God, right, this is taking the name of the Lord in vain. This is a misrepresentation. And so he didn't portray God as holy. And so that's why this is significant. Then Moses spoke to the Lord saying, let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation who will go in and out before their face, and lead them out and bring them in, then the congregation of the Lord will not be like sheep without a shepherd. So Moses says, okay, right? Remember, this is part of Moses' repentance from what he did, is that he accepts the consequences. Okay, this is the consequence. I accept it. That's part of repentance. Always, if we're still trying to evade, if we're apologizing, etc., But to avoid, to try to avoid the consequences of what we've done, that is not repentance. That is trying to get ourselves out of trouble. That is trying to justify ourselves. Real repentance involves, okay, I accept what I've done. I accept the consequences of what I've done, which Moses is doing. But Moses says, okay, I accept this consequence for me. But what does this mean for the people, right? Aaron's already gone Miriam's already gone when I'm gone there needs to be someone to lead the people people can't just be left out here in the wilderness right wandering around like sheep without a shepherd but he also uses these other phrases someone to lead them out and bring them back in this is not just a shepherding analogy, right? This is not just like, oh, you take the sheep out, you bring them back in. To lead them out and bring them back in, these are specific phrases that refer to going into battle and retreating or returning from battle. So they need not just any leader, but they're preparing specifically to go into the land, to go into the land of Canaan. There they are going to end up doing battle, right? And so they need someone, right? He's not implying that God won't. He's not saying he doesn't believe in God's promise that God will fight for them and lead them into battle. But they need someone to take his place, which is what? They need a leader who will

represent God to them and them to God in the context of the warfare they're about to make. right this is going to be a difficult situation in a whole variety of ways then the Lord spoke to Moses saying take Joshua the son of Nun with you a man who has the spirit in himself and put your hand on him and stand him before Eliezer the priest and give orders to him before all the congregation and give orders concerning him before them you shall then give him give some of your glory to him that the children of Israel may obey him. So he shall stand before Eliezer, the priest, and they shall inquire before the Lord for him by the judgment of the Urim. At his word, they shall go out and at his word, they shall come in. He and all the children of Israel in one accord, even all the congregation. So God says, okay, Joshua's that man. We've seen Joshua has been Moses' right-hand man this whole time. uh joshua has been in the tent of meeting when god is that moses are speaking face to face he went part way up the mountain with moses uh he was literally his right hand man and they were fighting the amalekites and joshua had to hold one of his arms up um so joshua's been there all along right and and so he has seen all of this along with moses And this is why he's sort of chosen, right, to be the one to succeed Moses. And we see this same thing in the book of Acts when they're choosing the deacons, when the apostles decide to choose an apostle to replace Judas, right? One of the criteria is we want someone who's been with us the whole time, right? They may not have been officially one of the 12, right? Or an apostle, but they've been with us. They've witnessed these things. They've seen these things that have happened. They've been with us, right? And now are ready to step up into this role. Where they're getting that is this, right? That this is sort of what qualifies someone. So it goes beyond just like, you know, Moses. was was mentoring him you know or or something like that right it's he because he's been an active participant all along too remember he's one of the spies who goes in and right i mean

he's been doing things as well hasn't he also been in the tent sometimes with moses where yeah

you were outside but yeah yeah he was in the tent of meeting when god and moses was speaking face to face right he's born witness to all of this so he's sort of shared of the experiences that Moses has had. So Moses did as the Lord commanded him and taking Joshua, he stood him before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation. Then he put his hands on him and appointed him as the Lord commanded Moses. So they go in front of everyone in front of the high priest. He lays hands on him and that's how the authority is transferred. Now a couple of notes in there from earlier, it talked about inquiring with the Urim. Remember the Urim and the Thummim were kept on the breastplate of the high priest and this was if they had to make a judgment call and they honestly didn't know what to do there was some way that they could throw these two stones that would indicate what to do we don't know exactly what it was right we don't know if they had two colored sides or exactly how that all worked but that was the way to sort of find out if you were honestly stumped so it's saying joshua is the one who will have the authority to make that call that this is a situation in which we need to do this also it says talks about moses sharing some of his glory with him right because moses doesn't like give up his authority it's not like okay i am now a retired prophet like i passed it on to you and now you know i no longer speak for god i no longer have any authority right obviously not right god he are still speaking right and we're to see the whole book of deuteronomy is moses speaking authoritatively after this right so yes

what what's the significance of like why would joshua get to do the urban throne if it's on the like priest like he keeps it but he's he's the one who makes that call

right when to use it you don't just use it whatever right it's when right and so joshua since he is going to have he's going to sit in moses seat okay right he's the final sort of

court of appeal if there's a dispute or indecision right he's acting more on the prophetic rule than

like like a king right right he's a prophet yeah and he's so if he rules he rules right on the thing right but if it goes to him and he isn't sure how to rule that's when you use the urim and thumb you can't use it to bypass him right right like the priest can't just decide you know well he hasn't said anything yet but uh you know i'm gonna do this and then go tell joshua well this is what the urim and thumbs right that's not how that works right um it's just weird because

I don't know, like, I feel like it's easier to kind of see Moses in this prophet role and then Joshua, I guess because of, like, the kind of commander aspect he has.

Well, because of what he ends up doing, yeah, what his role ends up being. But the line between prophet and what get called judges, like in the book of Judges, is very narrow, and Joshua sort of bridges that gap. Because, for example, the prophet Samuel is going to be referred to as the last judge of Israel. He doesn't go and do all the smiting that the judges do or that Joshua does, but he's called a judge. He's also a prophet, right? And so Joshua isn't going, he does a little bit, but he doesn't spend a lot of time making prophetic proclamations the way Moses did, right? He does a little, he's more, his role is a little different in terms of what he ends up doing. but that's because of the time in the ministry he's called to right so different prophets are going to end up doing different serving different roles and doing different things throughout the old testament right it's like the prophet jonah is going to get sent to a foreign city right isaiah is going to be sort of a court prophet for the king right elijah is going to be out in the wilderness sort of testifying against the king right like so there's different i think that's

because we kind of i mean usually it's you got to think more of like john the baptist and stuff and then yeah or somebody making like uh you know prophecies in the sense of like what's going to happen in the future and right there's a lot more to it than just that yeah

yeah yeah and so So, but notice here, right, the whole idea of the laying on of hands and succession is not this new thing that Roman Catholics make up in the Middle Ages. Sorry, Protestant friends. Right. It's not even something that's new in the New Testament. This goes all the way back. Like Moses is the first person to ever have this kind of authority. And the way he transfers it to the next person is through the laying on of hands for succession. And Joshua is going to do the same thing, right? And so there are these chains of authority, right? What we would now call ordination in our modern anglicized Latin. We would call it, there are these chains that run all through the Old Testament. And that start with Moses. so not just the people we think of as biblical prophets and stuff but the people who are going to show up as like rabbis in the new testament stuff have these chains of authority if they have any authority they have these chains going back to moses that's what uh christ talks about the pharisees sitting in moses seat remember he says to his disciples do whatever the pharisees tell you because they sit in moses seat right they have this authority and there's a chain connecting that pharisee through the laying on of hands all the way back to moses right so he sits in moses seat do what he tells you he has this authority but don't do what he does because he's a hypocrite don't follow his way of life because his way of life doesn't match what he's saying but the words he says do have that authority from god and you should right you should abide by it um but that's where that concept comes from now that gets cut off within judaism because they have the v they have the view all the way through the second temple period that for those ordinate quote-unquote ordinations those acts of laying on of hands to be valid it has to happen in the land so that's happened in judea right essentially that's why with the Pharisees show up in Galilee even, like where Jesus is ministering in Galilee, the Pharisees show up there. It says Pharisees came up from Judea. Because if you were going to do that, that's why St. Paul goes to study in Jerusalem when he's studying to sort of become a rabbi with Gamaliel. That was the only place you could do those ordinations. Well, guess what? The Romans threw them all out at the end of the first century and wouldn't let them do any ordinations. So all of those chains got broken. So you can look this up.

You can go to an Orthodox Jewish website. They do have rabbis. The rabbis are ordained, but they distinguish what they mean by ordained with a modern rabbi and what ordination was before. Right, before that break. That it's not the same thing. and that's why authority functions differently in orthodox judaism now than it did that there's not a person in orthodox judaism who could just like make a rule for all jews the way moses could or joshua could or right these other these other biblical figures because those chains of authority got broken and so now different rabbis can offer different opinions and based on the perceived wisdom and holiness of that rabbi, Jewish people give more or less weight to those opinions from different rabbis, but nobody can just say once and for all, this is it, right? So what we as Christians have historically believed is that the reason those all died is that Christ restarted it through the apostles, right? So when the apostles received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, just like we read here, Joshua is someone who was indwelt with the Spirit, right? That Christ essentially sets up the apostles, and then the apostles then lay on hands to their successors, the next generation of bishops. This is what we call apostolic succession, right? Which again, not something that gets made up by the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages. something that predates christianity right but christ sort of restarts these new chains with the apostles with his disciples and so we now have you can go like you go to the patriarch of antioch's website you can read the list there's this chain

of Patriarchs of Antioch going all the way back to St. Peter. And then, of course, through St. Peter, Christ. But going back to the apostle who received that authority and who passed it on to successors all the way down. So we have chains now too within the church. But all this comes from the Torah. I think I said back when I did the introduction to the Torah, back when we first started Genesis, I think I said, and I still hold to the fact that you can get all of Christian theology just from the Torah. And so this is a prime example, right? This is something obscure that a lot of our Protestant friends, for example, would say isn't even in the Bible, but not only is in the Bible, but it's in the Torah. It's right here, this idea of authority being transferred in succession through the laying

out of hands in a formal act um how is this how much of this is related in the same way that they would be putting hands on the offerings well the laying out of hands is a way of setting

something apart for a particular purpose and that's the connection so they lay hands on an animal before they sacrifice it because they're saying this goat this sheep this bull whatever it right is the one we're going to and in some cases like in the day of atonement you have two goats they use for two different purposes so you lay hands on the one and use it for the one purpose you lay hands on the other one and use it for the other right it's a way of designating and setting aside for a purpose right remember we also saw that i mean because i made a snarky comment uh that's with the the whole tribe of the levites right god had all the people of israel gather and lay their hands on the Levites, right? And I said, this is because they're going to kill all the Levites for their sins. No, right? Of course, obviously not. No, they're designating, right? Out of all of us, these people are the ones who are going to have the purpose of serving in the tabernacle and later in the temple, right? They're being set apart for that purpose. So that's always that idea, being set apart for a purpose. In this case, it's to wield authority. In that case, it's to be an offering, right? Or whatever.

Listen next time as Father Stephen DeYoung continues his study of the scriptures on the whole counsel of God. Father Stephen's email address is wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com. That's wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com.