1And the heads of the fathers’ houses for the clan of the son of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh from the clans of the sons of Joseph came forward and spoke before Moses and before the chieftains, heads of the fathers’ houses of the Israelites. 2And they said, “The LORD charged my lord to give the land to the Israelites in estate by lot, and my lord was charged by the LORD to give the estate of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters. 3But should they become wives to any of the sons of the Israelite tribes, their estate would be withdrawn from our fathers’ estate and added to the estate of the tribe to which they would belong, and from the lot of our estate it would be withdrawn. 4And though the jubilee comes for the Israelites, their estate would be added to the estate of the tribe to which they would belong, and from the estate of our fathers’ tribe it would be withdrawn.” 5And Moses charged the Israelites by the word of the LORD, saying, “Rightly do the tribe of the sons of Joseph speak. 6This is the thing that the LORD charged concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, saying, ‘To whomever is good in their eyes they may become wives, only within the clan of their father’s tribe must they become wives. 7And an estate of the Israelites shall not turn round from tribe to tribe, but the Israelites shall cling each man to the estate of the tribe of his fathers. 8And every daughter inheriting an estate from the tribes of the Israelites shall become wife to someone from the clan of her father’s tribe, so that the Israelites may inherit each man the estate of his fathers. 9And an estate shall not turn round from a tribe to another tribe, but each man shall cling to his estate in the tribes of the Israelites.’” 10As the LORD charged Moses, so did the daughters of Zelophehad do. 11And Mahlah, Tirzah, and Hoglah and Milcah and Noa the daughters of Zelophehad became wives to their uncles’ sons. 12Within the clans of the sons of Manasseh son of Joseph they became wives, and their estate was attached to the tribe of the clan of their father.
13These are the commands and the regulations that the LORD charged the Israelites by the hand of Moses in the steppes of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.
CHAPTER 36 NOTES
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1. the heads of the fathers’ houses. In both occurrences of the phrase in this verse, the Hebrew uses an ellipsis, “heads of the fathers.”
2. the estate. The issue of inheritance, so urgent in the later chapters of Numbers, is thematically focused in this concluding episode by the constant repetition of “estate,” naḥalah.
3. any of the sons of the Israelite tribes. The obvious reference is to husbands outside their own tribe and clan.
their estate would be withdrawn . . . and added to the estate . . . from . . . our estate it would be withdrawn. The speech of the Gileadite leaders reflects an extraordinary degree of redundancy (and these recurring phrases are recycled still again in the next verse). Perhaps the repetition indicates nervousness on their part about the substance of their petition: they seem peculiarly anxious that some parcel of their tribal estate might slip away from them and be annexed by another tribe unless Moses takes immediate steps to rectify the situation. Moses’s answer shows something of the same inclination to repetition (compare verses 7 and 9), as though in response to their anxiety he wanted to make absolutely clear what the governing principle must be.
the lot of our estate. The slightly odd collocation of these two nouns in the construct state (smikhut) is dictated by the fact that the estate is divided by lot.
4. though the jubilee comes for the Israelites. In the jubilee year, the end of a forty-nine year cycle, land that has been sold is supposed to revert to its original owners. This is not the case, however, for inherited land, and so the land inherited by Zelophehad’s daughters, were they to marry outside the tribe, would remain attached to their husbands’ tribes, even after the occurrence of the jubilee.
5. by the word of the LORD. Despite this phrase, there is no indication here that Moses has consulted an oracle, which was the case in the initial legal issue of the daughters of Zelophehad (chapter 27). Confronted with an unanticipated consequence of the earlier ruling, a ruling said to be dictated by God, Moses the judicial leader is compelled to engage in legal interpretation of how the ruling is to be applied. The act of interpretation itself is represented as a kind of extension of the oracular revelation that was manifested in the earlier incident. The phrase, “by the word [literally, mouth] of the LORD” here is a microcosmic adumbration of the whole theology of legal interpretation that later will undergird the Talmud: every rabbinic ruling is halakhah lemosheh misinai, “a law according to Moses from Sinai.”
Rightly do the tribe of the sons of Joseph speak. As Richard Elliott Friedman notes, these words are a pointed self-quotation by Moses of his response to the petition of the young women in 27:7: “Rightly do the daughters of Zelophehad speak.”
12. and their estate was attached to the tribe of the clan of their father. Although the legal anecdote of the marriage of Zelophehad’s daughters is often characterized by scholars as an appendix to the Book of Numbers, it does serve as a vivid focus for the prospect of inheriting the land that confronts the Israelites as they await orders to begin their invasion. Not only does “estate” recur as a key word but also “clan,” “tribe,” and, it should be duly noted, “fathers” and “sons.” The case of inheriting daughters puts a certain strain on the patriarchal system, but its patriarchal character remains firmly in place, as the reiteration of “fathers” and “sons” makes clear, and thus a limitation on the choice of husband (to which noninheriting daughters would not be subject) is imposed on these young women in order to preserve the integrity of the tribal configuration with its patriarchal definition. With the viability of the tribal division of the land thus reaffirmed, the Israelites are prepared to begin the conquest. First, however, in the redacted final form of the Five Books of Moses, they will have to listen to Moses’s long, recapitulative valedictory speech that makes up the Book of Deuteronomy.
13. These are the commands and the regulations. This concluding summary is more appropriate as a coda to the sections of law and cult procedure in the latter part of Numbers than to the book as a whole, with its many incidents of rebellion and its account of military campaigns in the trans-Jordan region.
in the steppes of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho. This phrase of geographical location has been repeated several times, reminding us that the Wilderness wanderings of the Israelites conclude with a long pause at this final way station. It is fitting that “Jericho” should be the last word in the Book of Numbers. Jericho will be the first military objective when the Israelites cross the Jordan, and so the concluding word here points forward to the beginning of Joshua.