Reflections on Numbers 36

Numbers 36 (Contemporary English Version)

1. One day the family leaders from the Gilead clan of the Manasseh tribe went to Moses and the other family leaders of Israel
   
2. and said, "Sir, the LORD has said that he will show what land each tribe will receive as their own. And the LORD has commanded you to give the daughters of our relative Zelophehad the land that he would have received.
   
3. But if they marry men from other tribes of Israel, the land they receive will become part of that tribe's inheritance and will no longer belong to us.
   
4. Even when land is returned to its original owner in the Year of Celebration, we will not get back Zelophehad's land--it will belong to the tribe into which his daughters married."
   
5. So Moses told the people that the LORD had said: These men from the Manasseh tribe are right.
   
6. I will allow Zelophehad's daughters to marry anyone, as long as those men belong to one of the clans of the Manasseh tribe.
   
7. Tribal land must not be given to another tribe--it will remain the property of the tribe that received it.
   
8. In the future, any daughter who inherits land must marry someone from her own tribe. Israel's tribal land is never to be passed from one tribe to another.
   
9. (SEE 36:8)
   
10. Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah the daughters of Zelophehad obeyed the LORD and married their uncles' sons
    
11. (SEE 36:10)
    
12. and remained part of the Manasseh tribe. So their land stayed in their father's clan.
    
13. These are the laws that the LORD gave to Moses and the Israelites while they were camped in the lowlands of Moab across the Jordan River from Jericho.
    

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    Numbers concludes with one last instruction about distribution of land to be inherited by the Israelite tribes. It served as an addendum to an earlier stipulation regarding the distribution of land to daughters. The earlier stipulation allowed for daughters to inherit their father's land should he die without sons and thus preserve the land in his name. But after further thought some leaders from the tribe of Manasseh saw a flaw in the plan. What if a daughter inherited her father's land and then married a man from another tribe? The land would then be transferred from one tribe to another, and then in the year of Jubilee this transfer would become permanent. This concern was brought before Moses who took it to the Lord.  The Lord agreed that "An inheritance belonging to the Israelites must not transfer from tribe to tribe." (36:7)  So He gave the command that "Any daughter who possesses an inheritance from an Israelite tribe must marry someone from the clan of her ancestral tribe." (36:8) This solved the problem and is what the daughters of Zelophehad did who had raised the question originally concerning an inheritance by daughters. They married paternal cousins.
    
    The book closes with the statement "These are the commands and ordinances the LORD commanded the Israelites through Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho." (36:13) Thus stating that the content of the book was divinely inspired.