Numbers: Faith, Law, and History

Inheritance or Succession

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson : Inheritance or Succession

Genre:

Track: 66

Dictation Name: RR181AK66

Location/Venue:

Year:

O give thanks unto the Lord. Call upon Him. Make known His deeds among the people. Sing unto Him. Sing psalms unto Him. Talk ye of all His wondrous works. Glory ye in His holy name. Let the heart of them rejoice who seek the Lord. Let us pray.

O Lord, our God, we give thanks unto thee that thou who art Lord of all art mindful of us, hast decreed so great and marvelous a destiny for us, thy people. Give us therefore, grateful hearts, that day by day, we may work to further thy kingdom in our lives and in the world around us, that we may be mindful that we are not our own, that we have a calling far beyond ourselves, and our purposes and imagination. Make us thy servants and bless us to thy glory. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is Numbers 36:1-13. Our subject: Inheritance or Succession. “And the chief fathers of the families of the children of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of the sons of Joseph, came near, and spake before Moses, and before the princes, the chief fathers of the children of Israel: and they said, The Lord commanded my lord to give the land for an inheritance by lot to the children of Israel: and my lord was commanded by the Lord to give the inheritance of Zelophehad our brother unto his daughters. 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. 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: so shall their inheritance be taken away from the inheritance of the tribe of our fathers.

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. This is the thing which 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. 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. 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. Neither shall the inheritance remove from one tribe to another tribe; but every one of the tribes of the children of Israel shall keep himself to his own inheritance.

Even as the Lord commanded Moses, so did the daughters of Zelophehad: for Mahlah, Tirzah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married unto their fathers brothers' sons: and they were married into the families of the sons of Manasseh the son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of the family of their father. These are the commandments and the judgments, which the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses unto the children of Israel in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho.”

In Numbers 27:1-11, we see that the daughters could be heirs. This chapter does not contradict that earlier chapter, but supplements it. The question raised is of another sort. Namely, what happened to the clan lands if such female heiresses married outside the clan. If a girl were not an heiress, then it made no difference whom she married, or what his clan or tribal affiliations were. But if she were an heiress, her marriage to another would mean the break up of the integrity of clan lands. Her possession would then go possibly to men of another tribe. Moreover, in a Jubilee year, to whom would such lands revert if an inter-clan marriage took place?

Because the Bible is a land-based book, and our faith tied to the earth as the Lord’s, the question is not an academic one. For modern man, land has become a commodity and an investment, not essentially a faith inheritance. Our modern outlook thus warps our perspective. For this reason, our federal government thinks nothing of allowing in as immigrants an increasing number of people who are religiously and racially hostile to us. They see no relationship between faith and land. As a result, the United States and the Western world have embarked on a suicidal course. They reject the concept of Christendom for the humanistic family of man, and immigration policies in the United States and Europe, the policies are based on myths and illusions of a very destructive sort. Because neither land nor inheritance is now seen from the perspective of faith, we have problems in these spheres. The modern state sees itself as the primary owner. It’s not “The earth is the Lord’s,” but the earth is the state, and hence, eminent domain is basic to the state’s life, and it therefore views itself as the primary heir with death taxes. Both a tax on the land and death taxes are anti-biblical. A disregard for tithes to the land has been one of the most destructive forces of the twentieth century.

In Africa, after the war, artificial nations were created without regard for the fact that they encompassed rival warring tribes. Artificial unions such as Yugoslavia were created after World War 1, bringing together different peoples and religious groups. All such efforts have simply created chaos and conflict. The rationalistic planners of our time are Hegelians. For them, the rational is the real, and their rationalistic ideas become a procrustean bed on which humanity is tortured.

Now scholars, as a result of this, fail to see the importance of this chapter, because as one has observed, “The question of inheritance is such is not a living issues with us today.” I’m sorry to say that he is, in one sense, clearly right. When people, out of envy, vote in inheritance taxes, they clearly do not see the matter as religious, in essence, and neither do they see their envy and the resulting tax for what they are: sin. The daughters of Zelophehad were members of the tribe of Manasseh, but all the clans were concerned because they feared a break up of local loyalties and land ownership. It was these girls who had originally petitioned Moses about heirship. None now challenge that fact, however, the clan leaders of the sub-clan these girls belong to now raise the question. The clan or tribe is an extended family. The modern outlook is that such loyalties represent provincialism. It is true that some groups have been very short-sighted and provincial, but vast nations such as the United States have been equally short-sighted and provincial.

The greatest intellectual influence exercised by Germany, for example, was when it was not one nation, but many small principalities, some of them, not as large as our California counties. From before the Reformation until the time of Bismarck, these small German states, some very, very limited in area, were the intellectual and scientific centers of the world. It has been since about 1850 that bigness has been equated with superiority.

Calvin raised the question: “Why did God not answer this aspect of the inheritance problem when the daughters of Zelophehad raised the question in Numbers 27:1-11?” He felt that this was an important aspect of this problem. His answer was, “In short, whereas God might have spontaneously anticipated this, He preferred to grant it at the request of those who asked nothing but what was just and equitable.” He thus preferred that men see the implications of things and then inquire of him. In other words, we have an obligation to take God’s word, study it, and see the implications.

As Calvin pointed out, God gave these women free permission to marry, but they could not alienate the paternal inheritance insofar as the land is concerned. We can add that if the man chose to become a member of his wife’s clan and renounced his own, no problem would then arise. He would not then receive land from his own clan. The answer God gives through Moses is that the daughters who are heiresses should marry someone from their own sub-clan. The daughters of Zelophehad, apparently with God’s permission through Moses, decided to marry cousins on their cousin’s side. This was normally not permitted. We meet with one other instance of such unions in 1 Chronicles 23:21-22 where the daughters of a man without a male heir married their cousins.

Well, at this point, we come to a very, very important aspect, a very important fact which must be confronted. Our concept of inheritance is a modern one. It means strictly, the acquisition of property by one person on the death of another. This is not biblical. It’s a sterile, one-generational idea, and it is thoroughly alien to what the Bible means by inheritance. Another word may perhaps give us some idea of what the biblical doctrine means: succession. A succession in the line of faith. Naboth, in facing Ahab’s attempt to buy him out at a very good price, refused. His property was a trust from his forefathers to the generations yet to come, and it was not his to sell or profit by to the exclusion of future generations. Naboth saw himself as a link in a succession of generations.

This is why adoption was important in Antiquity. We meet with adoption first of all in Genesis 48:5-6, although in this case, Jacob adopts his two grandsons by Joseph as his own. These were Ephraim and Manasseh. Much more important, however, is the use of adoption in theology. God is the adopting father of Israel. Of course, the New Testament speaks of Christians as adopted sons by God’s grace.

The purpose of succession, or adoption rather, was to create a succession of authority, faith, and responsibility. We see the word succession used with reference to royalty and the nobility, and it has always meant a transfer of responsibility and custody. In one instance in England, a gentlemen of the aristocracy but not of the nobility, lost an 800 year old family inheritance because two quick deaths led to confiscatory taxation. What was involved was a town and many farms. All had been under the family’s government and protection for generations, and the people wept as the family left the ancient home and estate. The succession had been one of godly men who had inherited responsibilities and had discharged them faithfully under God. It is this doctrine of succession, a succession of faith, authority, and responsibility which modern society has virtually destroyed, and this is why commentators on chapters such as this are so blind. By God’s grace, I come from a family which lived for almost all the Christian era until 1915, in one place, and by God’s grace, we may, I hope, live for present generations on our present land. The concept of succession is a doctrine that holds that all property and wealth is a truth from past generations to the ones to come, under God. Our responsibility is not to use and burn up wealth, but to increase wealth for God’s glory and kingdom, and to enrich our children’s children in every way for His service and possession.

Historically, conversion from one religion to another has meant disinheritance all over the world, because the convert now is a member of a different law system, and is therefore, an heir to its wealth of faith, and he is the founder of a new line of succession. It should now be apparent how narrow and existentialist modern man has become on the subject of inheritance. Modern man’s thinking, however fact-filled, has lost a sense of history because he has severed himself from the God of all history.

When Lord Keynes was asked what would be the future under his economics, he said, “In the long run, we are all dead.” Now, that’s the modern perspective, and that is why we are in trouble. This is why we switched from the idea of inheritance as succession to inheritance as just handing something to someone else, irrespective of faith, and the result of it has been that the whole concept of inheritance has been eroded and the modern state has become the main heir, and people now have a short-sighted view. We even have bumper stickers in which grandparents drive around boasting, “We are using our children’s inheritance.” That tells us how low we have fallen, whereas, the Bible stressed inheritance as succession, godly succession. His kingdom is to be built up through what we pass on to the next generation and the generations to come. Let us pray.

Our Father, recall us to thy word, and to thy doctrine of inheritance and succession, that as a godly people, we may inherit the earth. We may lay down the guidelines for the future. We thank thee that thy word instructs us. Give us hearts to heed what thou hast declared. In Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] If a parent has no godly successors, should they then will their property to the church?

[Rushdoony] What has been done historically is that someone is adopted. They will take, and very often, over the centuries, this has been someone they know, a young man or someone a generation younger who is godly, and they will leave it to him as a trust for God’s work. Sometimes it has been left to the church as well, or some Christian cause, but basically, the idea is God’s kingdom is to be enriched, and this concept is very ancient and it has been more than just within Christendom. Within the Roman Empire, for example, it was very commonplace, and it was a real problem as Rome became an empire and started to decay badly. It meant that very often, children were worthless, and a part of the corruption of Rome, and they would very often adopt someone. Sometimes it would be a very responsible slave who was in the household, or sometimes a friend’s son, and they would make him an heir, and the law said when you adopted someone like that, you could not disinherit them. So, adoption was more binding than being a member by blood of a family, and this is why when Paul uses this doctrine, it had the meaning that the reformed doctrine of eternal security, once saved always saved, has. It meant that because we are the sons of God by the adoption of grace, we cannot lose our salvation. Just as the adopted child in the Roman Empire could never be disinherited. So this is why adoption was so commonly of adults. Yes?

[Audience] In order to maintain the estate, the Romans decided finally to include Caesar as one of their heirs in order to keep the state from confiscating the entire heritage. Now, here, the state has already put itself in as one of the heirs, and I notice with interest that corporations are now giving large sums only to medicine and education, and recently Dewitt Wallace left $37 million to a black female college. So, very large bequests are being made to schools and to hospitals, but not to individuals.

[Rushdoony] Yes, Rome began a process of confiscation and it led to making Caesar an heir. Those who were able in some way to buy off Caesar were able to maintain themselves, until finally, and I believe it was Simkovich, who a generation ago, studied what happened to Italy under Rome. It was reduced to a small handful of huge landowners who owned most of Italy, and they had ties with the emperors. However, the ties became so costly that even for them, it became confiscatory. So, the state really ate up the people and finally ate up the foundation of its power, and that’s why torture came in along the line as routine with the tax collector. It was assumed that people were hiding their assets.

[Audience] Well, their {?} of torturing us now.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and the only thing that can turn that around is either a collapse of the order, or a dramatic change of the whole social order by a religious change. Steven Ozment, in his book on the protestant revolution, makes one point that he hasn’t made elsewhere, because the book is not up to his others, but his one point is that whenever you have an effectual religious movement, you have a revolution in the law. It leads directly to a revolution in the legal system, and that’s the only hope we have. That’s what saved the world of that day and revitalized Europe, because for a time, it halted the tyranny that the Renaissance was creating, and now we are returning to the spirit of the Renaissance and of paganism, and have created tyranny anew. Any other? Yes?

[Audience] In eleven, here, it points out the fact that the daughters were married into their father’s brother’s sons, or first cousins. Now, Europe, when this was a common practice among the monarchy, it led to genetic problems. What was the outcome here?

[Rushdoony] Well, we have only two instances of that happening, and it was not apparently a common practice, although it subsequently became, in the modern era among the Jews of central Europe especially, a common practice, and it was in violation of the law, and these two instances are exceptional cases, and apparently with God’s permission, but the royalty of Europe did destroy itself, and it produced very serious genetic defects and in the last century, more than a few members of royal families were permanently in custodial care because they were both physically and mentally so far gone. I will never forget reading about this one grand duchess who was in permanent custody because she believe she was a glass grand piano, and very fragile and could easily break. She was in permanent custody, and royalty committed suicide with these marriages. It also led to the kind of thing that Queen Victoria passed on to all her children and descendants; hemophilia. Since then, the British royal family has tried to marry out of the usual royal channels in order to dilute that inheritance, but it did help destroy royalty. Yes?

[Audience] I wonder if this is where the crazy aunt in the basement came from that Ross Perot talks about all the time.

[Rushdoony] Yes, Bob.

[Audience] This was the basic reason Ahab was destroyed in his dealings with Nabob, in trying to get the vineyard, because of inheritance then. And wasn’t Ahab, didn’t he understand that he could not . . .

[Rushdoony] Ahab was nominally a believer, and actually he was not, and that’s why he allowed his wife, Jezebel, to take priority and bring in Baal worship. He assented to it, but he wasn’t taking responsibility for it. So for him, the faith of his fathers was passé, and Baal worship meant this: Baal means Lord or master, and the Baal in Baal worship is the king in most instances. So it was a worship of state power, the state as god walking on earth, and we miss the point of much of the religions of Antiquity including Baalism, if we fail to realize it was statism made into a religion, and we have the same thing today. We have the same thing, in terms of Hegelianism, although we don’t use the language, the state is god on earth, and the state is the one we are to bow down to. The state is the source of law, and any time you want to identify the god of a system, you have to see where is the source of its law. Now, this is a fact that the First Encyclopedia Britannica recognized, that all law comes from the sovereign, the lord, the god of a system, and in the modern system, the state is god. Well, if there are no further questions, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee for thy word and we thank thee that it gives us the answers for our times and for all times. Give us grace to heed thy word, to become more than conquerors for Christ, and for all things, to show forth His power, His kingdom, and His glory. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape.