Numbers 36--Marriage of Female Heirs

Numbers 36
English Standard Version

Marriage of Female Heirs
36 The heads of the fathers' houses of the clan of the people of Gilead the son of Machir, son of Manasseh, from the clans of the people of Joseph, came near and spoke before Moses and before the chiefs, the heads of the fathers' houses of the people of Israel. 2 They said, “The LORD commanded my lord to give the land for inheritance by lot to the people of Israel, and my lord was commanded by the LORD to give the inheritance of Zelophehad our brother to his daughters. 3 But if they are married to any of the sons of the other tribes of the people of Israel, then their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our fathers and added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry. So it will be taken away from the lot of our inheritance. 4 And when the jubilee of the people of Israel comes, then their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry, and their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of the tribe of our fathers.”

5 And Moses commanded the people of Israel according to the word of the LORD, saying, “The tribe of the people of Joseph is right. 6 This is what the LORD commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad: ‘Let them marry whom they think best, only they shall marry within the clan of the tribe of their father. 7 The inheritance of the people of Israel shall not be transferred from one tribe to another, for every one of the people of Israel shall hold on to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. 8 And every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the people of Israel shall be wife to one of the clan of the tribe of her father, so that every one of the people of Israel may possess the inheritance of his fathers. 9 So no inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another, for each of the tribes of the people of Israel shall hold on to its own inheritance.’”

10 The daughters of Zelophehad did as the LORD commanded Moses, 11 for Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married to sons of their father's brothers. 12 They were married into the clans of the people of Manasseh the son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of their father's clan.

13 These are the commandments and the rules that the LORD commanded through Moses to the people of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.

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Moses is about to make a new set of stone tablets so that the original set can remain in the Ark of the Covenant after he dies and the people can still have a copy of the Law that they can see (the Law is supposed to turn into something internal that will be in their hearts, though at this point it will still be something external to them).  Everything in the Ark of the Covenant represents a portion of the gospel as the Law helps us remember God's rules that we could never complete fully and that we needed someone else (Jesus) to fulfill completely on our behalf.  It was also full of blessings and curses and we were all under the curse of sin, but Jesus took all the curses upon Himself that we deserved and gave us all the blessings that He deserved.  The Law is usually only thought of as the Ten Commandments, though that is only a small portion of the Law as we'll see when we eventually study the book of Deuteronomy.

The Law also dealt with civic issues and there was one issue that was sort of dealt with a while ago, but needs to be revisited to tie up some loose ends--the question of the rules surrounding a woman inheriting her father's estate.  Let's go back and look at that specific rule from Numbers 27 for context.


Numbers 27:8-11
English Standard Version
​8 And you shall speak to the people of Israel, saying, ‘If a man dies and has no son, then you shall transfer his inheritance to his daughter. 9 And if he has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers. 10 And if he has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to his father's brothers. 11 And if his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to the nearest kinsman of his clan, and he shall possess it. And it shall be for the people of Israel a statute and rule, as the Lord commanded Moses.’”

The question now is about if an inheritance is given to a daughter before she gets married and then she gets married, does that inheritance become the property of the husband and his family because she has become a part of his family, or must the land stay in the woman's family if possible and go to the next rightful heir according to the passage in Numbers 27?  Leaving the land in the possession of the wife's new family seems to go against the promise that the boundaries that God drew were to represent lots of land that were everlasting possessions for those tribes and the only way it seemed that someone was to lose their land was if all their descendants died and if that happened, then the land would still go to the clan or or tribe so that the boundaries that the LORD set did not change, so this is a good question asked by the tribe of Manasseh that the daughters of Zelophehad belonged to about their land (note they are interested in this now because they have already claimed their inheritance on the east side of the Jordan River--at least partially as half the tribe of Manasseh wanted their land to the east of the Jordan River, and the other half wanted to settle on the west side of the Jordan River as we'll see later.)

There was an easy answer to this problem.  These women who had inherited were to marry from within the clan of their father so the the land would continue to be an eternal inheritance to the tribe and clan.  "So no inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another, for each of the tribes of the people of Israel shall hold on to its own inheritance." (v. 9).  It was important to show that God was faithful to keep His promises to the people through all generations.

These women married their cousins (the sons of their father's brothers to obey the command of the LORD.  With that issue resolved, we close the book of Numbers which is the story of God faithfully bringing His people to the doorstep of the Promised Land twice--the first time the people were unfaithful and were sent back into the wilderness to die.  There is now a new generation standing before the LORD in this place and He has given them victory over many enemies already and they face the same foes with a different mindset that the LORD will give them victory.  However, God is concerned more about the moral defeat that will come to them if they disobey the Law and force Him to send the curses of the Law upon them like He had done upon their enemies.  He wanted to pour out His blessings on the people.  So, God is going to permit Moses to recite the entire Law to the people before he dies.  While we may only be concerned about having victory over the external situations, God is more concerned that His people have victory over their greatest enemy (themselves) by putting the flesh to death, repenting of their sin, and coming to God in faith for salvation and living the new life that God provides by His Spirit (apparently this was different back in the days before Pentecost, but I have to believe that no man was ever able to keep any part of the Law apart from the work of the Spirit of God and that somehow He was at work within the people of God, even if it was in a different way than it is today).