Season Of Dinah Part 3
Today, we are in the season of Dinah, the next move of God. In the Bible, the Book of Numbers chapters 26 and 27, we see where Moses talked about the laws of inheritance and who's inheriting what. It also talks all about who all the family members are.
The person I want to bring to attention would be a man name Manasseh who was the first-born son of Joseph. He was the son consummated from love between his father Jacob and mother Rachel. Joseph had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. In Numbers 26, there is a listing of Manasseh’s sons. In verse 31, it refers to this one-word Shechem and the family of the Shechemites. That's the key. Put a little Astra there. We're going to go a little bit more and read all these other family names.
Then we come to chapter 27 verse one. And we find that “the daughters of
Zelophehad had the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of
the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph came near.”
Now we're back to Manasseh, again, and the families of Manasseh, the son of Joseph came near, and these are the names of his daughters, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, and Milcah. And Tirzah. Then when we go to verse three there in chapter 27, “they go before Moses and the priest, and they say our father died in the wilderness yet. He was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord, in the company of Korah, but he died in his own sin and he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be withdrawn from among his family? Because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father's brothers. And Moses brought their case before the Lord.”
See, this is the first time Moses had to deal with this issue of women owning land. How many of us are dealing with first time incidents? We've been dealing with, doing church as usual, same format, same hymnals, same thing, passing the offering plate around, paying for our overhead and expenses and outreaches. Most of us are “doing” church the same way that has been done for years getting the same results. We pray. we do communion. We pass the offering plate. We meet and greet on the outside, yet our hearts are distant and cold to intimacy with God and His body.
There had been a lot of change opportunities after passing over the red sea, yet the children of God still brought their years of bondage into their new beginnings doing things with the same heart, the same thought process of how things were to be done… and the men get the inheritance.
Moses didn't have a clue on how to answer them. So he goes before the Lord, the Lord, didn't just suddenly come up with this and say, “Hmm, gosh, never had that problem before.” Wonder what the Lord would do here. The Lord just hadn't revealed it yet. “And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, the daughters of Zelophehad are right in their statements. You shall surely give them, hereditary possession among their father’s brothers. And you shall transfer the inheritance of their father to them further. You shall speak to the sons of Israel saying, remember, Israel is Jacob, the sons of Jacob saying, if a man dies and has no son, then you shall transfer his inheritance to his daughter. And if he has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers.” (Numbers 27:7-10).
So, basically the entire line and the thought process of how to do inheritance suddenly changed because of these five women. Five women go before Moses and say, where's our inheritance. Five's the number of Grace. So, whenever I see something like that, it's like, wow, there's a grace issue here, Moses. It wasn't just saying, gosh, you know, I think I'll be kind to these women and softhearted. No, this is what the Lord was telling him. And why was this happening through the tribe of Manasseh? Why not one of the other tribes, maybe the tribe of Ruben. What about the tribe of Simeon? Or Asher? There's a specific of what God was bringing through that scarlet thread. God enjoys working with that. He now has established land rights on the earth in the book of Numbers, that was established in Genesis before Moses was born.
If we go to Genesis where I had mentioned before about Dinah, we read where Leah gave birth to the first daughter of Jacob in chapter 30. Leah had sons. Then Leah’s handmaid gave a couple sons to Jacob. We see where Rachel's hand maiden is given to Jacob, and she has sons. There's an intensity, “If I can only have a son, then I have worthiness within my husband's eyes.” Leah gave names to these children out of the heart of what's going on within herself. Every time she had a child, she named the child according to her heart’s challenges. She names her first-born Ruben. She says, “Because God has seen her affliction.” She has a second son. She names him Simeon because she felt unloved. She names her third one Levi, because now she feels an attachment. Each son of Jacob was named with an identity of what the emotional situation was of the mother. This has a significance. Then as we read down a few verses to Leah had her six-son born through her handmaiden, she names him Issachar meaning God is giving her wages. Leah then bears a sixth son on her own and she names him Zebulun as a gift from God. Afterwards she’s pregnant with a daughter. So, in her seventh pregnancy and seven is a number for completion, she now has a daughter called Dinah recognized as Leah’s daughter, not Jacob's daughter. That's a key factor too. What are we really trying to say, and is that scripturally correct? Is that the way it was originally written or was it brought through historically with variations because of the diminished and oppressive position of women that was common during that era.
God never orchestrated for the voice of women to be silenced. To come before God as the fullness of the church, that fullness is made up equally, male, and female in His image Genesis 1:27). It's not a gender issue. It's a heart matter of a relationship that God was having in the many facets of His image. So, we now have a situation here where the first daughter was born, and her name is Dinah. What's interesting is that when Jacob is confronted by his brother Esau after many years, he had a lot of fear (Genesis chapter 32). He struggled with a heart matter. In Genesis 32 verse 22, it says, “Now he arose that same night. And he took his two wives. He took his two maids and his 11 children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.” Jabbok is a river.
The river itself means you're emptying your gut. You're just emptying everything. Continuing it says, “He took them, and he sent them across the stream, and he sent across whatever else he had.” Basically, he's just emptying everything. And then he has the wrestling with God experience, with the angel of the Lord, and his name gets changed, but there's a key here. Scripture tells us in this verse there are 11 children. Joseph was born just before Rachel. Benjamin's not born yet. So, when we see the, the word 11 children it's assumed, oh, his 11 sons which is incorrect because he had 12 children. He had a daughter, where's the daughter here. Why isn't she acknowledged? He acknowledged his concubines’ children. He acknowledged them.
He's acknowledging the maids before his own daughter. See, something's wrong with that picture because if you're a father and you have a little girl, there should be a bonding relationship of love because it's that little girl that needs to know what kind of a husband based on her relationship she has with her father and with her siblings, her brothers, in order to know the right man and the right relationship of unity and love. So, something's missing here. Where's the relationship that Jacob should have had with Dinah?
I believe there was none which is why when Shechem saw her, it was the first time that Dinah saw love. When was the first time you knew in your heart what love looked like?