22 And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I talked with you from heaven. ********
7 _And if a man sell his daughter_ to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do.
8 If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.
The Lord doesn"t object to a man selling his daughter, but if any one thing makes him angrier than another it is to have her go about as the men-servants do after she is sold. On a little point like that he is absolutely fastidious. You may here notice that G.o.d took the trouble to come down from heaven to tell the girl what not to do after she was sold. He forgot to suggest to her father that it might be as well not to sell her at all. He forgot that. But in an important conversation one often overlooks little details. The next is Joshua xv. 16-17:
16 And Caleb said, He that smiteth Kirjath-sepher, and taketh it to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife.
17 And Othniel the brother of Caleb [and consequently the girl"s uncle] took it: and he gave him Achsah his daughter to wife.
Please to remember that the said Caleb was one of G.o.d"s intimates--a favorite with the Almighty. The girl was not consulted; the father paid off his warriors in female scrip. The next is Gen. xix. 5-8:
5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where _are_ the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us that we may know them,
6 And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,
7 And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.
8 Behold now, I have two daughters * * * * * let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes; only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my root
These men had come under the shadow of Lot"s roof for protection, it seems, and Lot felt that his honor demanded that he should shield them even at the cost of the purity and safety of his own daughters! Do you know I have always had a mild curiosity to know what his daughters were under the shadow of his roof for. It could not have been for protection, I judge, since Lot was one of G.o.d"s best friends. He was on all sorts of intimate terms with the Deity--knew things were going to happen before they came--was the only man good enough to save from a doomed city--the only one whose acts pleased G.o.d; and this act seems to have been particularly satisfactory. These men were "angels of G.o.d" who required this infamy for their protection! If it takes all the honor out of a man when he gets to be an angel, they may use my wings for a feather-duster.
Now here is a little property law. Num. xxvii.:
6 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
8 And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die, _and have no son_, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pa.s.s unto his daughter.
And our law works a little that way yet; being the result of ecclesiastical law it naturally would.*
* See Appendix N. 5 and P. 5.
Next we have Num. x.x.xvi.:
8 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_.
9 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.
10 _Even as the Lord commanded Moses, so did the daughters of Zelophehad_.
That is all the women were for--articles of conveyance for property.
Save the land, no matter about the girls. Now these silly women actually believed that G.o.d told Moses whom they had to marry just because Moses said so! I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, it is not safe to take heavenly communications at second-hand. Second-hand articles are likely to be varnished over, and have to be taken at a discount. And it seems to me that, if the Lord is at all particular as to whom a girl should marry, she is the one for him to discuss the matter with. Moses didn"t have to live with the _sons_ of Zelophehad, and consequently wasn"t the one to talk the matter over with. But, you see, it won"t do to question what Moses said G.o.d told him, because upon his veracity the whole structure is built. He had more personal interviews with the Deity than any other man--he and Solomon--and hence they are the best authority.
I have here the 31st chapter of Numbers, but it is unfit to read. It tells a story of shame and crime unequalled in atrocity. It tells that G.o.d commanded Moses and Eleazar, the priest, to produce vice and perpetrate crime on an unparalleled scale. _It tells us that they obeyed the order, and that 16,000 helpless girls were dragged in the mire of infamy and divided amongst the victorious soldiers_. They were made dissolute by force, and by direct command of G.o.d!
This one chapter stamps as false, forever, the claim of inspiration for the Bible. That one chapter would settle it for me. Do you believe that G.o.d told Moses that? Do you believe there is a G.o.d who is a thief, a murderer, and a defiler of innocent girls? Do you believe it? Yet this religion is built upon Moses" word, and woman"s position was established by him. It seems to me time for women to retire Moses from active life. Coax him to resign on account of his health. Return him to his const.i.tuency. He has been on the supreme bench long enough. Don"t let your children believe in such a G.o.d. Better let them believe in annihilation. Better let them think that the sleep of death is the end of all! Better, much better, let them believe that the tender kiss at parting is the last of all consciousness for them, and after that eternal rest! Don"t let their hearts be seared, their lives clouded, their intellects dwarfed by the cruel dread of the G.o.d of Moses! Better, thrice better, let the cold earth close over the loved and loving dust forever, than that it should enter the portals of infinite tyranny.
Next we will take Deut. xx. 10-16:
10 When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. [Good scheme!]
11 And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, _that_ all the people _that_ is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.
12 And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it:
13 _And when the Lord thy G.o.d hath delivered it into thy hands_, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:
14 But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, _even_ all the spoil thereof, _shalt thou take unto thyself_; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thy enemies, which the Lord thy G.o.d hath given thee.
15 Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.
16 But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy G.o.d doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth.
The injunction to proclaim peace unto a city about to be attacked and plundered strikes me as a particularly brilliant idea. When you go to rob and murder a man, just tell him to keep cool and behave like a gentleman and you won"t do a thing to him but steal all his property and cut his throat and retire in good order, G.o.d always seemed to fight on the side of the man who would murder most of his fellow-men and degrade the greatest number of women. He seemed, in fact, to rather insist on this point if he was particular about nothing else. And, by the way, if you had happened to live in one of those cities, what opinion do you think you would have had of Jehovah? Would he have impressed you as a loving Father? Here we have 2 Samuel v. 10, 12-13:
10 And David went on, and grew great, and the Lord G.o.d of hosts was with him.
12 And David perceived that the Lord had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for his people Israel"s sake.
13 And David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron: and there were yet sons and daughters born to David.
The nearer he got to G.o.d--the more G.o.d was "with him," the more wives he wanted. Next we have 2 Samuel xx. 3:
3 And David came to his house at Jerusalem, and the king took the ten women, his concubines, whom he had left to keep the house, and put them in ward, and fed them * * * * * So they were shut up unto the day of their death, living in widowhood.
Now what did David do that for? I don"t know. It was such a trifling little matter that it was not thought necessary to give any reason.
Perhaps he had eaten too much pie and felt cross; and what else were those women for but to be made stand around on such occasions? Weren"t they his property? Didn"t those ten women belong to David? Hadn"t he a perfect right to shut them up and feed them if he wanted to? Don"t you think it was kind of him to feed them? I wonder if he sang any of his psalms to them through the key-hole. His son Absalom had just been killed, and he felt miserable about that. He had just delivered himself of that touching apostrophe we often hear repeated from the pulpit to-day, to awaken sympathy for G.o.d"s afflicted prophet: "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would G.o.d I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" And I haven"t a doubt that there were at least ten women who echoed that wish most heartily. It must have been carried in the family without a dissenting vote.
To this G.o.d of the Bible a woman may not go unless her father or husband consents. She can"t even promise to be good without asking permission.
This G.o.d holds no communication with women unless their male relations approve. He wants to be on the safe side, I suppose. I"ll read you about that. It is in one of the chapters that are not commonly cited as evidence that G.o.d is no respecter of persons, and that the Bible holds woman as man"s equal; nevertheless it is as worthy of belief as any of the rest of it, and its "Thus saith the Lord" and "as the Lord commanded Moses" are "frequent and painful and free," as Mr. Bret Harte might say. The chapter is Numbers x.x.x.:
And Moses spake unto the heads of the tribes concerning the children of Israel, saying, This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded.
2 If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.
3 If a woman also vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself by a bond, being in her father"s house in her youth;
4 And her father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she hath; bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at her; then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand.
5 But if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth; not any of her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul, shall stand: and the Lord shall forgive her, because her father disallowed her.
6 And if she had at all an husband, when she vowed, or uttered aught out of her lips, wherewith she bound her soul;
7 And her husband heard _it_, and held his peace at her in the day that he heard _it_; then her vows shall stand, and her bonds wherewith she bound her soul shall stand.
8 But if her husband disallowed her on the day that he heard _it_; then he shall make her vow which she vowed, and that which she uttered with her lips, wherewith she bound her soul, of none effect: and the Lord shall forgive her.
9 But every vow of a widow, and of her that is divorced, wherewith they have bound their souls, shall stand against her.