The Woman's Bible Part 23

3 And if they be married to any of the sons of the other tribes of the children of Israel, then shall their inheritance be taken from the inheritance of our fathers, and shall be put to the inheritance of the tribe whereunto they are received; so shall it be taken from the lot of our inheritance.

4 And when the jubilee of the children of Israel shall be, then shall their inheritance be put unto the inheritance of the tribe whereunto they are received:

5 And Moses commanded the children of Israel according to the word of the Lord, saying, The tribe of the sons of Joseph hath said well.

6 ......the Lord doth command concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, saying, Let them marry to whom they think best; only to the family of the tribe of their father shall they marry.

7 So shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe: for every one of the children of Israel shall keep himself to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers.

8 And every daughter, that possesseth an inheritance in any tribe of the children of Israel, shall be wife unto one of the family of the tribe of her father, that the children of Israel may enjoy every man the inheritance of his fathers.

10 Even is the Lord commanded Moses, so did the daughters of Zelophehad:

11 ...... and were turned unto their father's brothers' sons.

In a former chapter there was a sense of justice shown towards the daughters of Zelophehad, but here a new complication arises. The uncles of these girls had their eyes on the property and perhaps feared that their sons had not found favor in the eyes of their cousins, as they might have seen and admired some fine looking young men from other tribes. So the crafty old uncles moved in time to get a statute pa.s.sed that would compel daughters to marry in the tribe of their fathers and got a direct command from the Lord to that effect, then the young women, compelled to limit their predilections, married their cousins, setting the laws of heredity quite aside; property in all ages being considered of more importance than persons. Thus, after making some show of justice in giving the daughters of Zelophehad the inheritance of their fathers, the Israelites began to consider the loss to their tribe, if peradventure the five sisters should marry into other tribes and all this property be transferred to their enemies.

They seemed to consider these n.o.ble women dest.i.tute of the virtue of patriotism, of family pride, of all the tender sentiments of friends.h.i.+p, kindred and home, and so with their usual masculine arrogance they pa.s.sed laws to compel the daughters of Zelophehad to do what they probably would have done had there been no law to that effect. These daughters were known by the euphonious names of Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah and Noah, and they all married their father's brothers' sons. Cousins on the mother's side would probably have been forbidden.

If Moses, as the mouthpiece of G.o.d, aimed to do exact justice, why did he not pa.s.s an ordinance giving property in all cases equally to sons and daughters.

E. C. S..

Moses gave what appears to be, in the light of this Christian era, a just judgment when he decided that the daughters of Zelophehad should inherit their father's property, but he gave as the law of inheritance the direction that "if a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pa.s.s unto his daughter;" thus, as I think, unjustly discriminating between women who have brothers and women who have none, and he goes on further to deal unjustly with women when he directs that the daughters of Zelophehad marry so that the inheritance justly awarded them should not go out of the family of the tribe of their fathers.

"Let them marry to whom they think best," and those words seemingly recognize their righteous freedom. But immediately he limits that phrase and informs the five women they must only marry in their father's tribe, and were limited also to their father's family. The result was that each married her own cousin. If this was contrary to physiological law, as some distinguished physiologists affirm, then they were compelled by the arbitrary law of Moses to break the law of G.o.d.

P. A. H.

THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY.

CHAPTER I.

Deuteronomy i.

3 And it came to pa.s.s in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spake unto the children of Israel, according unto all that the Lord had given him in commandment unto them;

6 The Lord our G.o.d spake unto us in h.o.r.eb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount:

7 Turn you, and take your journey, and go to the mount of the Amorites, and unto all the places nigh thereunto, in the plain, in the hills, and in the vale, and in the south, and by sea side, to the land of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon, unto the great river, the river Euphrates.

8 Behold, I have set the before you: go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them.

10 The Lord your G.o.d hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for mult.i.tude.

This book contains an account of what pa.s.sed in the wilderness the last month of the fortieth year, which is supposed to be written by Ezra, as the history is continued several days after the death of Moses. Moses' farewell address to the children of Israel is full of wisdom, with a touch of pathos. This had been a melancholy year with the Hebrews in the death of Miriam, Aaron and Moses. The manner in which this people were kept wandering up and down on the very verge of the land of Canaan because they were rebellious does seem like child's play. No wonder they were discouraged and murmured. It is difficult from the record to see that these people were any better fitted to enter the promised land at the end of forty years than when they first left Egypt. But the promise that they should be as numerous as the stars in the heavens, according to Adam Clarke, had been fulfilled. He tells us that only three thousand stars can be seen by the naked eye, which the children of Israel numbered at this time six hundred thousand fighting men, beside all the women and children. Astronomers, However, now estimate that there are over seventy-five million stars within the range of their telescopes. If census takers had prophetic telescopes, they could no doubt see the promises to the Hebrews fully realized in that one line of their ambition.

Deuteronomy ii.

34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain.

Though the women were ignored in all the civil affairs and religious observances of the Jews, yet in making war on other tribes they thought them too dangerous to be allowed to live, and so they killed all the women and children. The women might much better have helped to do the fighting, as it is far easier to die in the excitement of the battlefield than to be murdered in cold blood. In making war on neighboring tribes, the Jewish military code permitted them to take all the pure, virgins and child women for booty to be given to the priests and soldiers, thus debauching the men of Israel and destroying all feelings of honor and chivalry for women. This utter contempt for all the decencies of life, and all the natural personal rights of women as set forth in these pages, should destroy in the minds of women at least, all authority to superhuman origin and stamp the Pentateuch at least as emanating from the most obscene minds of a barbarous age.

Deuteronomy v, vi.

16 Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy G.o.d hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy G.o.d giveth thee.

17 Thou shalt not kill.

18 Neither shalt thou commit adultery.

19 Neither shalt thou steal.

20 Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour.

21 Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour's wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his a.s.s, or any thing that is thy neighbour's.

2 That thou mightest fear the Lord thy G.o.d, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.

The best commentary on these texts is that no Revising Committee of Ecclesiastics has found it necessary to make any suggestions as to whom the commandments are addressed. Suppose we reverse the language and see how one-sided it would seem addressed only to women. Suppose this were the statement. Here is a great lawgiver and he says: "Thou art to keep all G.o.d's commandments, thou and thy daughters and thy daughter's daughters, and these are the commandments: 'Thou shalt honor thy mother and thy father.' 'Thou shalt not steal nor lie.' 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's husband, nor her field, nor her ox, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.'"

Would such commandments occasion no remark among Biblical scholars? In our criminal code to-day the p.r.o.nouns she, her and hers are not found, yet we are tried in the courts, imprisoned and hung as "he," "him" or "his," though denied the privileges of citizens.h.i.+p, because the masculine p.r.o.nouns apply only to disabilities. What a hustling there would be among prisoners and genders if laws and const.i.tutions, Scriptures and commandments, played this fast and loose game with the men of any nation.