Bible Challenge Day 60: Women (Numbers 30 and Luke 8)

My thoughts about the readings for today are not very coherent. The Numbers chapters were tough, particularly chapter 31 on the massacre of the Midianites, including killing my man Balaam. But we will face a lot more of that kind of violence when we get to the book of Joshua in a few weeks so I leave it for now.

The thing from Numbers that I do want to think about are the rules about women’s vows. I assume the vows being legislated are religious vows in which women commit to making particular sacrifices to God. Numbers is thoroughly patriarchal on this point. If a man makes a vow, he is bound to keep it (30:2). But a woman’s vow is not normally binding until the male authority figure in her life (father or husband) hears about it and lets it stand. The man has to nullify the vow immediately, or else it is his responsibility (30:15). And widows or divorced women (presumably women without a male authority figure in their lives) can make vows on their own (30:9). But this is still a very clear example of the way patriarchal society limited the autonomy of women: not even a vow to God is binding unless a man implicitly confirms it!

I suspect this ultimately had to do with property rights. The issue was, could a woman offer family property as a sacrifice? The answer was, yes, but only as long as the true property owner—the man—agreed. Perhaps I should take comfort in the fact that women could, in some circumstances, make the vow, just as women could, in some circumstances, own land (e.g. Numbers 27). But this is still pretty unsatisfying.

The woman with the hemorrhage in Luke 8 is a partial answer. She touches Jesus and is healed. Jesus knows power has gone out of him, but seems not to know who received it (8:45). Eventually the woman confesses that she was the one. What strikes me is that she was the active agent in her own healing. Power flowed through Jesus, but Jesus did not—so it seems—control the power. It is as if the woman’s touch unleashed his latent healing power without his consent. There is a lot to think about in this. But in connection with the Numbers material, I notice mainly that a woman exercises initiative. Clearly in this case a woman has access to God independent of any man in her life and even—amazingly—without Jesus’ conscious agreement. In this odd story, the woman is not a purely subordinate figure. Thank God for that!

Fr. Harvey