Finding Purpose in Obscurityናሙና

Zelophehad’s Daughters – Finding Justice in Obscurity

I live and write inside “the loop” of Indianapolis. Within the circle of Circle City—as it’s affectionately called—is a long lineage of redlining and injustice toward the Black community.

There was a time when the majority of African Americans in our city inhabited the city center. Indianapolis Avenue was the epicenter of Black culture, boasting renowned jazz clubs, restaurants, and businesses in the late 1800s and early 1900s. And then, in the 1950s, wealthy White elites desired real estate in the city center. Redlining pushed the Black community to where I now reside, what was once dubbed “the golden ghetto” because so many hard-working African Americans were forced into underdeveloped, violent, unpoliced neighborhoods.

We read history like this and—as followers of Jesus—lament the inequality and injustice to human dignity.

To be systemically barred from advancing in life because of race, ethnicity, or gender is a travesty that our world continues to wrestle with.

It’s a problem that goes back millennia. In Numbers 27, a man named Zelophehad dies. In Jewish culture, only men could obtain and own property. Women and children were considered second rate and would not be entrusted with that responsibility.

But the daughters of Zelophehad—whom you may have never heard of—stand for justice and equality in a way that should force all of us to contend with how we—as followers of Jesus—might stand for the oppressed and marginalized in our communities.

Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah, and Tirzah come before Moses—the Israelite leader—and demand that they justly deserve to inherit the property which belongs to their family lineage even though there is no male among them.

Moses brings the case before the Lord and the Lord says, “What Zelophehad’s daughters are saying is right. You must certainly give them property as an inheritance among their father’s relatives and give their father’s inheritance to them” (Numbers 27:7, NIV).

This was a massive breakthrough for women in a culture where their rights were essentially nonexistent. In this passage, we witness a God who draws near the powerless, voiceless, and oppressed. It’s a key insight into the God whom we serve.

In our current cultural moment, the term social justice has been coined and co-opted as a political buzzword that has effectively lost its meaning.

But justice towards others is a theme we see all throughout Scripture. Jesus himself said the greatest commandment is to, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37-39, NIV).

Justice—at its best—is love in action. It is to be local, communal, relational, and incarnational. To seek justice without action is dangerously close to activist idealism. To seek justice without compassion is prey to retribution and falls short of the biblical narrative of justice.

To “act justly” is to seek the well-being of our neighbor. To clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, and to house the houseless. All of this is at its best when worked out in the context of our literal neighborhood with our literal neighbors.

To love our neighbor as ourselves implies an ethic of social justice. In other words, it is not optional for the follower of Jesus. These women—who often languish in obscurity—offer to us a beautiful vision for recapturing justice in our current moment. May we heed their courage and, as the prophet Micah instructed, “act justly” (Micah 6:8, NIV).