Numbers 27:1-11
“Overlooked Stories: The Daughters of Zelophehad”
Preached Sunday, August 3, 2025
The daughters of Zelophehad - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah - you may not be familiar with their story, I know that I wasn’t before I chose this sermon series called, “Overlooked Stories.” During the month of August I will be focusing on five stories, and characters, from Scripture that may fade into the background. Maybe we’ve heard of them - maybe we haven’t. But likely we haven’t spent a lot of time with them and reflected what these overlooked stories have to say to us about God and our faith.
We are beginning this series with the daughters of Zelophehad - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. While their names are hard for me to say, it is important for me to say their names. Because, very surprisingly, the Bible does. Multiple times. In the Hebrew Bible, the text we know as the Old Testament, there are 1,426 personal names. 1,315 of those names are male or presumed to be male. That means there are only 111 female names used in the whole Old Testament - a mere 9 percent. And so, for these 5 daughters to all be named is, in itself extraordinary. It also goes beyond that. These women - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah - are not only mentioned in Numbers 27. They are mentioned 5 times in the Scriptures - Numbers 26, 27, and 36, Joshua 17, and 1 Chronicles 7. In four of those five times, their names - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah - are used. They are mentioned in three books of the Hebrew Bible - there are only two people mentioned in more books of the Hebrew Bible than them - they are Miriam and Moses.
Just by the numbers games - readers of the Hebrew Bible should be alerted at the extreme importance of these women, the daughters of Zelophehad - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. And yet, for many readers of these sacred texts, they are overlooked and unknown. Let’s change that for us gathered here today.
First, their story:
They first appear in the Hebrew canon in Numbers 26 where we establish their genealogy. They are descended from the ancestors of two half tribes of Israel - Ephraim and Manasseh. Zelophehad is a tenth generation son who fathered no sons - but five daughters. The name of their mother is not known. By the time we get to our story from today, in Numbers 27, Zelophehad has died, leaving his five daughters without an inheritance that they can legally claim - if there had been born sons instead of daughters, there would have been no issue.
The book of Numbers gets its names from the censuses that take place within it. The census is important because it is dividing up the land. According to the law of Israel, women could not inherit. Wil Gafney, author of Womanist Midrash, who I want to acknowledge her scholarship helped me understand this text and what was at play here, she points out that at this time Israel was actually unique in its law to not allow women to inherit land. She says, “Just as Israel was relatively isolated in largely restricting women from public and professional religious roles, they were also virtually alone in legislating women’s exclusion from property law. Women through the ancient Near East, from Egypt to Mesopotamia broadly, and specifically in places like Sumer, Ugarit, and Elam, owned and inherited property for more than a thousand years before the codification of Israel law.. The codes of Hammurabi and Israel’s Hittite neighbors also legally enfranchised the property rights of women.”
In other word’s, Israel’s laws prohibiting women from inheriting property, were not simply a sign of the times. They were unjust and restrictive. Enter the daughters of Zelophehad - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. Their father was dead. They were unmarried. They had no brothers. There was no male in close enough relationship to them that they would be counted in the census. Soon, they would have nothing to their names - no place of their own. So they stood up. They stood in the tent of meeting - they stood between the leading men of their community in front of them - all the other men in their community behind. Before them was considered the meeting place of God. They were in between, a mediator. A place where Moses often stood. And they said, perhaps with one voice, “Give us the land.” They did not ask. They did not beg. They did not add “please” at the end. They stood up and they said, they demanded, “Give us the land.” They then made their argument as to what they were due. They said, a quote from our Scripture, “Our father died in the wilderness; he was not among the congregation of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord in the congregation 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.” In other words, “Our father was a good man in good standing. He didn’t do anything against the tribe or earn any disinheritance. If we were men, we would have rightfully inherited. Thus, give us what should be ours if we were but men.”
Moses hears their demands, and he deliberates. He takes it to God. He does not dismiss the out of hand - this is to his credit. And God takes the side of the daughters of Zelophehad - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. God says - yes. God says, “they are right” - a word meaning not just correct but righteous. It is a powerful affirmation from God. And it should not surprise us. The theme of caring for the least and the least, which specifically includes widows and orphans, women and children, is a strong theme in all of our holy Scriptures. As we heard from Isaiah this morning:
“Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove your evil deeds
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil;
learn to do good;
seek justice;
rescue the oppressed;
defend the orphan;
plead for the widow.”
God hears them. And God doesn’t just hear the specific case of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. God uses them, if you will, as case law, commanding Moses and the people of Israel to re-write all their inheritance laws as it pertains to fatherless daughters without husbands or brothers. Women were now eligible to inherit land. This a change of torah, a change of the law. One commentator phrased it to say that while the law may have been written in stone, this story shows us that God’s people should be flexible and willing to right injustices - even if it means re-writing the law.
This is not the end of the story of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. After all, they are mentioned three more times in Scripture. We are, however, going to pause here for a moment, talk about the United Methodist heritage of justice work and bring in some more recent examples of Christians listening to God to right wrongs and re-write unjust laws.
I have talked about and preached many times over the Wesleyan theological concept known as “Means of Grace” - that is, the ways that we are called to live out our faith and the ways we encounter God. There are two axes - a vertical and horizontal - making four quadrants. I’ve talked about this before so I am going to rush through it a little - if it’s new to you, I’d love to talk to you more about it. So we have a vertical axis and horizontal axis that over lap - making four quadrants. Picture it with me. First we are concerned about our relationship with God - so we are called to individual acts of piety - prayer, reading the Bible, and such. And we are called to communal acts of worship - gathering together, singing hymns, celebrating the sacraments, and such. We are also called to be act on our relationship with our neighbors. So we are called to individual acts of compassion or charity - basically everything mentioned in Matthew 25: feed the hungry, give the thirsty something to drink, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, visit the sick and imprisoned. And then in this last quadrant, we are called to communal acts of justice. This is the concept, and the exhortation, that we aren’t just called to address needs as they arise with acts of compassion and charity - but we are to work against systems of injustice and work for a world where there is no hunger, no thirst, no need, no outcasts, no forgotten person. We are to work toward the Kingdom of God. Now, we need all four of these quadrants to experience the fullness of our faith. I have talked before about how if you only have one of the axes - you don’t have the fullness of our discipleship. We need love of God and love of neighbor - together they form the cross.
This last one we just talked about, communal acts of Justice. It’s often been politicized. Been scoffed at. Told to keep out of the pulpit. And yet, Justice is as much of a Christian concept as loving God is. This is not justice as it is often thought about and played out in our world today - courts and arrests and fines and sentences with a “justice” system that is less about rehabilitation as it is punishment. God’s justice is about setting all things right, about “Your kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.” About creating that holy Kingdom here on Earth where all persons are treated as the beloved children of God that God created us as.
When I talk about those four quadrants, I often say that each of us is going to have a quadrant in which we feel most comfortable. To which we naturally gravitate based on the gifts and personality that God gave us. I, for example, gravitate towards the Communal Worship quadrant. The beautiful thing about the body of Christ, is there are people who feel most at home in each quadrant present in this congregation. Together, we make up the fullness of the body of Christ.
And…I also say, that doesn’t excuse us from participating in the other quadrants. We are all called to the fullness of our faith. We are called to push ourselves, to grow, to step into areas of discipleship that don’t come naturally to us. Or, on the flipside, to extend a hand to others to “your” quadrant to help teach them the ropes of that area of Christian discipleship. The first time I participated in a march for a cause I believed in, a cause that I believed would help make this world look more like God’s Kingdom, it was alongside a seasoned friend in this area. I would not have had the courage to go alone. The first time I went to a prison, it was on an organized tour meant to educate seminary students. I needed my siblings in Christ to help me step out and grow in my faith and discipleship.
Each of us is called to justice work just as each of us is called to prayer.
And so, some examples for us to follow.
Martin Luther King Jr is certainly an example of a man who lived out his faith and pursued justice. In his “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” he gave multiple examples of just and unjust laws. Here is one such definition from that letter: “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregated a false sense of inferiority.” King gave his life to make our world a more just place, more like the Kingdom of God.
Further back in our tradition, John Wesley worked tirelessly for causes of Justice & the Gospel. He preached to miners and encouraged workers’ rights. He spoke out against the horrors of slavery and the slave trade - even when it was immensely unpopular to do so and he put his own well-being at risk on multiple occasions, escaping mobs and the threats of being tarred and feathered. One way he fought against this injustice was appealing to the humanity of those trafficking humans:
“Are you a man? Then you should have a human heart. .. . Do you never feel another's pain? Have you no sympathy .. . no sense of human woe, no pity for the miserable? When you saw the flowing eyes, the heaving breasts, or the bleeding sides and tortured limbs of your fellow-creatures, was [were] you a stone, or a brute? . . . Whatever you lose, lose not your soul: Nothing can countervail that loss. Immediately quit the horrid trade: At all events, be an honest man.”
As Christians we are called to love and care for all God’s children - to free the oppressed from oppression which seeks to eradicate the imago dei in all people. And to free the oppressor from the grip of hate which destroys the soul. This is the work of Christian Justice.
There are so many examples I could give. So many stories of Christians - giving water to refugees in the desert, feeding lunch to the homeless in the park, housing families in sanctuaries - examples of things that are illegal, according to the law - but actions that are just and right in the eyes of God.
The Christian work of Justice is not easy work. It requires courage to stand up for what is right - like Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah did. It requires a voice - clear and strong or wavering - but still speaking out for what is right. “Give us the land” as the sisters - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah - said. It requires those in power to listen and then to act for what is right. And above all, it requires persistence. The march towards justice is slow and arduous and does not come all at once.
Which brings us back to our story of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. This story in Numbers 27 should have been a happy ending. The women stand up for their rights, for what is right, and God calls them righteous and commands things not just be made right for them but for all women who are left in the lurch with no fathers, brothers, or husbands. Justice has been done. God calls it good and right.
But Moses…Moses ignores what God commands. He never gives them the inheritance that God told Moses that he should. Here we get into the complicated person of Moses - and his complicated relationship with women. Or, well, we could get into it but that’s for another sermon. This one is getting long enough…But here’s what you need to know. The next time Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah appear in Scripture, in Numbers 36, it is the men of the assembly complaining against these women and what God commanded regarding them. “But what if they marry men from other tribes and become richer because of it?” Moses does not consult God and says “Fine - they must marry men of their own tribe or forfeit their inheritance.” This takes away their agency…but still, they have not yet been granted their inheritance. Not while Moses is alive. In Numbers 20, God tells Moses that because of his disobedience, he will never see the promised land. God says, “Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” God’s rebuke in Numbers never gives specific reasoning - the context is he doesn’t strike a rock to give water - as he does in the Exodus account, Gafney says her preferred womanist interpretation of this text is that Moses is banned from the Promise Land, dying having never seen it, because he failed Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. He failed to listen to God’s command to do right by them and by women in their circumstances. Moses never gave them the inheritance.
So when Moses dies, and Joshua brings the people into the promised land, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah now stand before Joshua in Joshua 17 and they, once again, say, “Give us the land that is ours.” They do not ask. They do not beg. They don’t even say please. They know what is right and what is just - God has already confirmed their request as righteous. Joshua immediately complies and gives them their inheritance that Moses denied them.
The story of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah tells us that the path towards justice is a slow and arduous one and persistence is needed. The story of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah tells us that institutions and people in power, even good people likes Moses, or as King wrote about, “the white moderates who say to wait,” will stand in the way of God’s will that justice be done, that Earth looks more like Heaven, that all are cared for as the beloved children of God that we all were created to be.
The story of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah - the daughters of Zelophehad - is an overlooked one but an extremely important one. It tells us of God’s heart for justice, of caring for the last, the lost and the least - the widow and the orphan - all who society marginalizes. It tells us to stand up for what is right. It tells us to be persistent that God’s will be done, persistent in making sure we care for one another, that unjust systems are dismantled, that unjust laws are re-written, that we act out what we pray in the Lord’s prayer, “on earth as it is in heaven.”
So today, whenever and wherever you see injustice in this world, listen to and learn from the story of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. Speak up. Be bold. Trust in God. Live out your discipleship in fullness and wholeness, making our world more like God’s Kingdom.
May it be so. Amen.
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