Numbers 36

The heads of the families of the clan of Gilead came forward. Gilead was the son of Machir, and Machir was the son of Manasseh. These clans came from Joseph's descendants. They spoke to Moses and to the leaders who headed the families of Israel.

1And 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:

NoteIsrael was organized in nested units: tribe, then clan, then extended family or 'father's house'. The 'heads of families' were the senior men who spoke for those households in legal matters. Manasseh was one of Joseph's two sons, and his descendants formed a tribe; Machir and Gilead were branches within it, so the men speaking here represent one large landholding clan.

2They said, "The LORD told my lord Moses to give the land to the people of Israel as their permanent property, and to divide it by casting lots. The LORD also told him to give the property of our relative Zelophehad to his daughters.

2And 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.

Note'My lord' is the formal way of addressing a superior, here Moses. Casting lots meant drawing marked stones or sticks to settle a decision, treated as a way of removing human favoritism from the division of territory. This verse looks back to an earlier ruling (Numbers 27): Zelophehad died leaving five daughters and no sons, and his daughters asked to receive the family's land themselves rather than see it disappear. 'Our brother Zelophehad' means a fellow member of the clan, not a literal brother. An 'inheritance' in this system is not money but a fixed plot of farmland, held permanently by a family and meant never to be sold off for good: it was the family's whole livelihood.

3But if they marry men from other tribes of Israel, their land will be taken out of what our fathers hold. It will be added to the land of the tribe they marry into. So it will be taken from the share we were given.

3And 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.

NoteThe worry rests on how marriage worked: a wife's property came under her husband's household, and her sons belonged to their father's tribe, not their mother's. So land inherited by a daughter would pass, within a generation, into whatever tribe she married into, and the tribal map would slowly shift.

4And when the Jubilee year comes for Israel, their land will be added to the tribe they married into. So their land will be taken away from the land of our father's tribe."

4And when the jubile 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.

NoteThe Jubilee was a year kept every fifty years, in which farmland that had been sold returned to the family that originally held it and debt-slaves went free. It was the safety net that stopped land being lost permanently. But land that changed hands through inheritance rather than sale would not be returned, so the Jubilee, far from undoing the transfer, would confirm it for good. That is the point the clansmen are making.

5So Moses gave the people of Israel a command from the LORD. He said, "The tribe of Joseph's descendants is right in what it says.

5And Moses commanded the children of Israel according to the word of the LORD, saying, The tribe of the sons of Joseph hath said well.

6This is what the LORD commands about Zelophehad's daughters: they may marry whoever they want, as long as they marry inside a clan of their father's tribe.

6This 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.

Note'Whoever they want' is a real freedom of choice, unusual in a world of arranged marriage; the single condition is that the husband come from their own tribe. Note also that this ruling grants a right and does not merely restrict one, the daughters keep the land.

7That way no land in Israel will pass from one tribe to another. Every Israelite is to hold on to the land of his father's tribe.

7So 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.

8Every daughter who inherits land in any tribe of Israel must marry a man from a clan of her father's tribe. Then every Israelite will keep the land his fathers held.

8And 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.

NoteHere the decision about one family becomes a general rule for every woman in Israel who inherits land, which is why the wording widens from 'Zelophehad's daughters' to 'every daughter'.

9Land must not pass from one tribe to another tribe. Each of the tribes of Israel is to hold on to its own land."

9Neither 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.

10Zelophehad's daughters did exactly what the LORD had commanded Moses.

10Even as the LORD commanded Moses, so did the daughters of Zelophehad:

11Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, married the sons of their father's brothers, which is to say their cousins.

11For Mahlah, Tirzah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married unto their father’s brothers’ sons:

NoteMarriage between first cousins was ordinary and lawful in ancient Israel, and among landholding families it was the normal way of keeping property inside the kin group. The Noah listed here is a woman; her name is a different Hebrew word from that of the Noah of the flood story, which English happens to spell the same way.

12They married inside the clans descended from Manasseh son of Joseph, and their land stayed in the tribe of their father's clan.

12And 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.

13These are the commands and legal rulings that the LORD gave to the people of Israel through Moses. He gave them on the flat land of Moab, beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho.

13These 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.

NoteThe plains of Moab were the flat land east of the Jordan River, opposite Jericho, where Israel camped at the end of the journey through the wilderness and just before crossing into Canaan. This sentence is a closing formula marking the end of the book, summing up everything given at that campsite. 'Commands' are direct instructions; 'legal rulings' are decisions in particular cases, like the one just made, that then serve as precedent.