And now we come to the five little Rosa Parks ladies of the Israel nation that wouldn't go sit at the back of the bus.  Hoglah, Mahlah, Milcah, Noah, and Tirzah.

Moses called for all the men over 20 years of age to be numbered and get ready to hear how the land would be divided when they crossed the Jordan river over into the promised land.  So each of the tribes presented their numbers.  "To many you shall give the more inheritance, and to the few you shall give the less--to every one shall be given according to those that were numbered of him."

I have no idea why this was done before they crossed the river.  Only two of the men over 20 years of age were left alive by then--Joshua, and Caleb.  However, every family knew what they had been allotted, so the men of each of those families had passed the inheritance on to their firstborn sons.

But there was a man who had no sons.  His inheritance was about to be lost.  That's when his five daughters got their picket signs and started to march.  "Then came the daughters of Zelophehad--of the tribe of Manassas (Joseph's son) and stood before Moses, and the priest, and all the congregation by the door of the tabernacle and said:  Our father died in the wilderness.  Why should his name be done away with because he didn't have a son.  Give us a possession in our father's name."

So Moses, being a very wise man, looked out over a sea of thousands and thousands of men and women and said, 'I better take this up with God.'  Which he did.  And God told Moses, "The daughters of Zelophehad speak right.  You shall cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them."

What followed was a pronouncement by God of what to do in cases like this in the future.  Which must have been a shock to the male-dominated society of that day.  Women had rights!!  God had spoken, the laws were clear, and from that day forward women could inherit property.

Sometimes we forget the small steps that women have taken in the face of impossible odds and difficult circumstances to give us the rights that we have today.  Thank God for brave women.