Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #15 of Genesis 30, and we are going to read Genesis 30:21:

And afterwards she bare a daughter, and called her name Dinah.

This is referring to Leah who bore Jacob six sons, and after bearing those six sons, her next child was Dinah, a daughter.  We are going to take a little time to look at what the Bible has to say about a daughter or daughters. 

Now as far as Dinah’s name, it is Strong’s #1783, and it is from Strong’s #1779, “dı̂yn,” and that word is found 20 times, and it is translated as “judgment,” as “plea,” or as “cause.”  And it seems to have to do with legal matters, we could say, but we are not going to get into that because all we are told here is that Leah bare a daughter and called her name Dinah.  Maybe at some time in the chapters to come when we read more about Dinah, maybe her name will have significance and we can look at it.

But right now, we are going to look at the fact that she is a daughter, and it stands out because we have been reading about all these sons.  There were six sons born to Leah and four sons born to concubines, so there were 10 sons born to Jacob, and now a daughter.  And we wonder what the Bible has to say about daughters.  We know the Bible has a lot to say about sons, but it would be interesting to see what information we can find about daughters.

Let us go to Isaiah 37 to start, and let us look at Isaiah 37:21-22:

Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent unto Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith JEHOVAH God of Israel, Whereas thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria: This is the word which JEHOVAH hath spoken concerning him; The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.

Here, there are two references to “daughter.”  First is the virgin, the daughter of Zion, and then the daughter of Jerusalem, and they are synonymous because Zion and Jerusalem are interchangeable.  God can be speaking of historical Zion or Jerusalem, and the nation of Judah could also be included, or He can be pointing to what Jerusalem typifies, which would be the corporate church.  Additionally, it could also refer to “spiritual Jerusalem,” or “new Jerusalem,” the company of the elect.  So the daughter of Zion or the daughter of Jerusalem could refer to any of those things.

This is actually fairly typical because God also refers in the Bible to the daughter of Babylon, the daughter of Egypt, the daughter of Moab, and the various nations.  But in this case, it would point either to the corporate people of God or to the true elect people of God.

If we go to Proverbs 31, we will read of a virtuous woman.  It says in Proverbs 31:10-11:

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.

This “woman” is actually a figure of the bride  of Christ, and the husband would be the Lord Jesus Christ, eternal God.  So, again, the virtuous woman here would identify with a daughter of Zion or daughter of Jerusalem.  Further down in this chapter, it says in Proverbs 31:26-30:

She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth JEHOVAH, she shall be praised.

This is very positive language, and that is because it is describing the “bride” or spiritual woman, or the five wise virgins that we read of in the parable in Matthew 25.  They are all describing the same thing: “Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.”  These excel the daughters of Egypt, the daughters of Babylon, the daughters of Moab, or the daughters of the Philistines.  The daughters of Zion, the elect, or the virgin bride, are the ones the Lord has saved, and she excels all of them.

We also know that God refers to the sending forth of His Gospel as being carried by both “sons and daughters,” as it says in Joel 2:28:

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.

This would be a reference to both male and female, so your sons and your daughters shall prophesy because God’s salvation program was one in which He saved both men and women, the male and the female.  He is no respecter of persons in any way, concerning one’s origin, nation, language, sex, or color of skin.  In all ways, God is just and fair and equal, and not a respecter of persons.  All people make up mankind and are those that came forth from Adam and Eve.  We are children of God in that natural sense, and among the whole of the world’s population, God had a program to save both “sons and daughters.”

Now when it says, “…your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,” we can understand this due to other Scriptures that qualify this statement and give us guidelines regarding the manner in which sons and daughters are to prophesy.  For example, there is a statement that a woman is not to teach and usurp authority over the man, so God’s people that rightly prophesy are both sons and daughters, but they proclaim the Word of God only as permitted.  You know, this applies to males as well as females, as God had not equipped every male to be a teacher and to have authority during the church age, but it was certain men within the congregations that the Lord would use to be elders, deacons and pastors, and to rise to levels of teaching and exercising spiritual authority.  Most men did not do either one – they did not teach or exercise spiritual authority – just as women did not.  It was only a handful of individuals in the churches during the church age that were qualified.  At the end of the church age, God continued to equip a necessary few (men) in order to instruct the rest.  Remember what the Lord says in the Epistle of James, in James 3:1:

My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.

As far as the task we have been assigned and for which God has equipped us depends on what God’s plan is for us.  If you are a woman, you can know that God’s plan for you was not to be a pastor, elder or deacon during the church age.  It was not to be a Bible teacher teaching both men and women, but a woman could teach other women or children in Sunday School, but they were not to teach when there was a mixed group where men were present.

And yet, women could still prophesy, especially as the Lord worked things out at the time of the end, with the printing press and the development and production of printed material, like tracts.  And what a good and wonderful instrument that turned out to be, where we could go and hand out tracts, and a woman could engage in that activity as well as a man because she was just acting as a messenger – they were not her words.  And, normally, it was not the man’s Word, so they could both declare the Word of God by sharing faithful teaching from the Bible.  It was prophesying.   That is what “prophesying” means.  It is to declare the Word of God, and we do not have to use our own mouths to declare the Word of God.  It can be just getting that message out, and that would fulfill the verse: “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.”

Now we know that God does use all people that He saves, as it says in Galatians 3:27:

For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

And that would be the baptism of the Holy spirit, not “water baptism,” but spiritual baptism through salvation.

Again, it says in Galatians 3:27-29:

For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Alright, let us go to the book of Isaiah again, and we will see some references that have to do with our time wherein God has saved the great multitude.  And as we have been learning, the Lord has a plan to “draw” them to Himself in the time of judgment.  He saved them during the Great Tribulation, but did not draw them at that time, for the most part.  But then later as we transitioned into the Day of Judgment, God has a delayed drawing process in which He will call this great multitude, and they will respond and come to Him.  So we will read of that in some of these verse that we will read.  Let us begin in Isaiah 43:3-6:

For I am JEHOVAH thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life. Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth;

Here, the word “ends” is a geographical statement – it is not referring to time.  But God’s plan was to bring His sons from far and His daughters from the ends of the earth.  And, basically, those statements are synonymous.  It is just indicating saved people of God, whether they were male or female.  They will all enter into Christ and will no longer be considered in that way (as male or female), on one level, but they will just be the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now let us go to Isaiah 49:18-21:

Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith JEHOVAH, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a bride doeth. For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell. Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?

Let me just point out that there are two groups of children in view here.  There are the children that thou shalt have after thou hast lost the other.  What could that mean?  It is referring to God’s two seasons of rain or two periods of fruit.  There was the church age when the early rain fell and the firstfruits were gathered, and then came the end of the church age when God sent forth the Latter Rain to the nations, and that brought in the final fruits during the feast of ingathering, and that was the great multitude which no man could number.  And that is the reason for the language in verse 20: “The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.”  The word “strait” has to do with being “confined.”  There is not enough room.   It is like the idea of a couple that have two children in a small house.  And then those children are lost, but then they have 10 more children, and now their house is “too strait” for them, and they need a bigger house.  That same picture is brought up in Isaiah 54:1:

Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith JEHOVAH.

Again, there are two sets of children, the children of the desolate and the children of the married life.  Then it goes on to say in Isaiah 54:2-3:

Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.

Again, it is a similar picture, but this time it is using the image of a tent that has to be stretched.  It has to be enlarged because there are more the children of the desolate, and the reference to “desolate” has to do with the spiritual condition that would be on the earth when this happened during the Great Tribulation.  It was a time of judgment on the churches, and the churches were made desolate, but the people of God were called out, and they would go forth out into the world where God was sending forth His Gospel outside the churches to save the great multitude, and there would be a bountiful and plentiful blessing of God, a great multitude of children.

Going back to Isaiah 49, we read in Isaiah 49:22:

Thus saith JEHOVAH GOD, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.

Here, again, the Lord is indicating that the Gospel would go forth, and those that would respond would be sons and daughters.  The sons would be in their arms, and the daughters would be carried upon the shoulders.  It is synonymous language, in a way.

Then it says in Isaiah 49:23:

And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am JEHOVAH: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.

Now here we have some interesting language where God speaks of kings being your nursing fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers.  That is curious, is it not?  How can kings be nursing fathers?  Typically, when we think of nursing a child, it is the woman.  But here God speaks of kings as nursing fathers, and there is a reference in the book of Numbers to Moses, where we read the same kind of language.  It says in Numbers 11:10:

Then Moses heard the people weep throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent: and the anger of JEHOVAH was kindled greatly; Moses also was displeased.

By the way, the reason the people were weeping, and their crying displeased Moses was because they were crying because they only had manna to eat.  But the manna was the mercy of God.  It was God providing their necessary bread that was keeping them alive.  And they despised it.   They loathed that “light bread,” and they were weeping, showing how much they hated the “bread of God.”  Now there is a deep spiritual meaning to that regarding the Lord Jesus Christ, as He likened Himself to the “bread from heaven.”  That is the teaching here, and it just shows the ungratefulness and the selfish nature of man, who is dissatisfied and displeased with what God provides for his needs.  This was the provision of God.  God was feeding them.  Besides that, God had delivered them from slavery, but they did not care about any of that, and they were just lusting for some of the food they had in Egypt.  And this angered God, and Moses was also displeased.   Then it says in Numbers 11:11-14:

And Moses said unto JEHOVAH, Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? and wherefore have I not found favour in thy sight, that thou layest the burden of all this people upon me? Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers? Whence should I have flesh to give unto all this people? for they weep unto me, saying, Give us flesh, that we may eat. I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me.

Moses was speaking to God, and he was very troubled because the people were crying to him, so he said to God: “Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers?”  They were crying for food of their own desires.  But the idea is that of providing for the children of Israel, and it is interesting that this happened during that 40-year period after they came out of Egypt, which we have often seen ties into the 40 years from 1994 to 2033, or 40 inclusive years.  So we wonder if there is some kind of connection, especially because of the verses in Isaiah 49:23 where God is calling His sons and daughters, and kings would be their nursing fathers and queens their nursing mothers.

We will think about this a little more when we get together for our next Bible study.