The Daughters of Zelophehad^(A)

36 The leaders of the ancestral families of the descendants of Gilead, who were descendants of Machir, and descendants of Manasseh, from Joseph’s tribe, approached and spoke to Moses and the leaders of the ancestral houses^[a] of the Israelis. ² “The Lord commanded my master^[b] to apportion the land as an inheritance by lot to the Israelis,” they said. “Now my master was ordered by the Lord to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters. ³ But when they get married to one of the descendants of the tribes of Israel, their inheritances are to be withdrawn from our father’s inheritance and added to the inheritance of the tribe to which they are to belong. Consequently, it is to be withdrawn from the portion of our inheritance. ⁴ Then, when the Jubilee Year of the Israelis comes, their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe to which they have come to belong. Their inheritance will thus be taken away from the inheritance of our father’s tribe!”

⁵ So Moses issued the Israelis these orders based on what the Lord said: “The tribe of the descendants of Joseph has spoken. ⁶ This is what the Lord is commanding the daughters of Zelophehad: If they decide it’s a good idea in their opinion^[c] to get married only within the family of their father’s tribe, then let them get married ⁷ so that the inheritance of the Israelis won’t be turned over^[d] from one tribe to another. Each one has an inheritance from his own father’s tribe that the Israelis are to maintain. ⁸ Every daughter who is in possession of an inheritance from the Israelis is to marry someone from the families within her father’s tribe so the Israelis can retain possession of their ancestral inheritance. ⁹ That way, their inheritance won’t be turned over from one tribe to another, because the Israelis are each to maintain their ancestral inheritances.”

¹⁰ Zelophehad’s daughters did just what the Lord had commanded Moses ¹¹ for Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah: Zelophehad’s daughters married their uncle’s sons. ¹² They married^[e] into families of the descendants of Manasseh, that is, Joseph’s descendants, so that their inheritance remained within the tribe of their ancestor’s family.

¹³ These were the commands and the ordinances that the Lord issued to the Israelis through Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan River in Jericho.