Five Zelophahad’s Daughters Changed Moses’ Land Inheritance System

Nagaland’s 20th Sept. 2024 Notification of population census has caused considerable concern to a section of people, and may escalate into an atmospheric storm in a basket; yet for once it has also given the hope of authenticity to sweep the jumbled citizenship situation in the State clean.

The Jews of the house of Jacob (Israel), Son of Isaac, Abraham’s son, 76 of them migrated to Egypt to pass over a sever famine in Canaan. Circumstances favoured the clan’s settlement in the land of Goshen, Northern Egypt, a fertile hinterland, the delta of alluvial soil at the mouth of river Nile before it reaches the Mediterranean Sea.

In some 430 years, the immigrant Jews became “exceedingly fruitful so numerous that the land was filled with them.” They became so plentiful and populous that Pharaoh of Egypt grew alarmed and made them slaves, treated them harshly and gave order to the employed Jewish midwifes were to save the baby girls but to throw all if they were males into the river Nile immediately on their birth. The Jewish mothers were often strong and sturdy out of hard work and gave birth of baby often before the midwife arrives for the delivery. Thus the Jew families grew numerous despite the Egyptian pre-emptive persecutions.

One day, the Pharaoh’s daughter found a beautiful infant baby inside a basket floating on the Nile water where she bathes. The baby appeared so lovely, a boy, that she gathered him up and adopted him as her son and named him Moses –‘drew him out of the water’. She employed a Jewish midwife to nurse him and when the child grew older, the midwife, incidentally the child’s biological mother, took the boy to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son.

Moses was brought up like a Prince of the house of Pharaoh and gained the wisdoms, knowledge and practices of the Egyptians. Once Moses saw an Egyptian mistreating a Jewish slave ruthlessly; he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. Another day, he found two Jews fighting; he tried to separate them, but one of them insolent said: “who made you ruler and Judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” he said.

Scholars think Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament which includes the book of Exodus too, and so the accounts are first-hand, authentic, real and true without any embellishments or self-aggrandisements. One of the greatest admirers of Moses is the unparalleled Jewish historian Josephus who wrote 23 Volumes on Jewish history. He added some important names of persons, places and events not found in the Old Testament, they expand the dimensions of the time and of the events. But since Josephus wrote the story some thousands of years after the events took place, the accounts in the first five books of the Old Testament may be taken authentic. 

Pharaoh came to know of the killing of an Egyptian by Moses and hence sought to kill Moses. Moses fled the land and went southeast to the land of the Medians, worked for the Priest named Jethro of the place and tended Jethro’s livestock for 40 years. He married Zipporah, daughter of the Priest; they had a son and the Bible says his wife circumcised the son with a flint stone to prevent God kill Moses; a surprising account since Moses wrote it!

Then one day, Moses went up the Horeb Mountain side in search of his lost sheep and saw a fire in flame under the bush, but the bush was not consumed by the fire. He went nearer to investigate, and God called him: “Moses, Moses.” He responded and God told: “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” and said: “the cry of the Israelites has reached me and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt. I am the God of your father Abraham, Isaac and of Jacob.” Moses hid his face, he was afraid to look at God. To this day no one has seen the face of God; it is irreverent to look at God in the face!

The long exotic story of expatriation of the Jews from Egypt after 430 years of slavery to the land of Canaan began.

The Horeb, Sinai Mountain side today is completely barren, devoid of any green plants, even of tiny dry grass. Starting from the Tourist Lodge ‘Le Meridian’ in the foothill Plain, and a short walking distant away from the Lodge is a small public vehicle park at the foot of the mountain. From there tourists can hire vehicle or camel and start up the mountain side of unpaved road to the place where Moses is said to have seen the ‘flame in the bush’.

Some 8 km from the Park, up the slanting road on this side of the a dry gully, on the side of the Sinai mountain, is a small Christian abode, and beyond the small dry gully, up a little on the opposite side, is a small fenced-up spot about a small table-size within which is a well-nurtured plant looking like growing well-cared after than a dry bush in a wilderness. On enquiry, we were informed the name of the Plant: It is a Rubus thorny species of dry areas.

My wife picked up a small piece of stone, souvenir from the Mount Sinai on our way back on foot intending to find whatever plants or insects or living things on the ground, but found no ants of any kind, no insects of any kind, no spider of any size big, small or tiny, no fly, no worms in any of the rock crevices on the road bank; everywhere, only rock, rock and loose pieces of rock everywhere all over the mountains surface near and dim far away. What an awesome landscape!

When the Jews started their Exodus from Egypt, their population was 601730 souls. Then as they neared the land of Canaan, but before they cross over the Jordan to Jericho in Canaan, God instructed Moses and Aron’s younger brother Eleazar, the priest: Aaron died just some time ago; to “take census of the whole Israelite community by families of all those twenty years and above who are able to serve in the Army.” The Levites, one month old and above counted 23000, were not added to the population because they had no inheritance, engaged only in religious duties. The population of the second census just before their entry into the Promised Land was found to be 514620. This is less (601730–514620=87110) by eighty seven thousand, one hundred and ten than their first census when they started from Egypt about the year 1513 BC:

While the Israelites were camping in the Desert of Zin at Kadesh, the youngest sister of the Aaron and his brother Moses, Miriam died; they buried her there. There was “no grain, figs, grapevines or pomegranates and no water to drink.” The people complained bitterly against Moses to have brought them to such a horrible place. God instructed Moses to take his staff, Aaron and the assembly leaders in presence to “speak to that rock and it will pour out its water for the community and their livestock can drink.” However, Moses in exasperation at the frequent rebellions of the people, struck the rock twice; then water gushed out and the community and their livestock drank.

But, because of not following God’s instruction exactly, God would not allow Moses and Aaron nor anyone of those started from Egypt, for their rebellion against God and for fear of the people of Canaan, except Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, for their courageous resolve in obedience to the commandment of God, to enter Canaan.

The land of Canaan is to be conquered and God said: “be sure that the land is distributed by lot among the larger and smaller groups” proportionately according to the size of the clan of the tribe.

Numbers 27 of OT records: “The daughters of Zelophehad, son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, belonged to the clans of Manasseh son of Joseph. The names of the daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah. They came forward and stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the leader and the whole assembly at the entrance to the tent of meeting and said:

“Our father died in the wilderness. He was not among Korah’s followers, who banded together against the Lord, but he died for his own sin and left not sons. Why should our father’s name disappear from his clan because he had no son? Give us property among our father’s relatives.”

So Moses brought their case before the Lord, and the Lord said to him: “What Zelophehad’s daughters are saying is right. You must certainly give them property as an inheritance among their fathers’ relatives and give their father’s inheritance to them.”

“Say to the Israelites, “If a man dies and leaves no son, give his inheritance to his daughters.” And the Lord commands to the Zelophehad’s daughters: “they may marry anyone they please as long as they marry within their father’s tribal clan. No inheritance in Israel is to pass from one tribe to another.”

The land inheritance system of the Naga is strongly Abrahamic in that it is strongly patriarchal; yet the practice of male circumcision, an invariably deciding factor of Abrahamic connection, is viewed a little indecent in Naga sense of sensible and insensible, appropriate or inappropriate in the society. The position of woman in the Naga society by and large in the many Naga tribes is something of a deeply considered respect, and a thing of confident pride in woman. 

In the case of Angami Naga tribe, there is in almost every village always some well-to-do or so families who gift even prized terrace paddy field to his daughters for good; or for cultivation during the daughter’s lifetime and after her death returned to the nearest surviving brother on the biological father’s side, on her death so that the land comes to the original clan, similar to the treatment of the Zelophehad daughters.

The difference in the case of the five daughters of the Old Testament and the Naga case is:  in the case of the former, the law came down from “I am that I am”, in the latter case, the deal grew in the people themselves, both are good Abrahamic principles. 

Thepfulhouvi Solo, IFS Retd.