Numbers 36

Tree of Life Version

Further Ruling About Daughters’ Inheritance

36 The heads of the ancestral family of the children of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh, from the sons of Joseph, came and spoke before Moses and before the princes of the chiefs of the fathers of Bnei-Yisrael. ² They said, “My lord, Adonai commanded to give the land by lot as an inheritance to Bnei-Yisrael. My lord was also commanded by Adonai to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters.

³ “If they become wives of men from other tribes of Israel, their inheritance will be taken from our ancestral inheritance and added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry. So it will be deducted from the allotment of our inheritance. ⁴ When the Jubilee year comes, their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry and deducted from the inheritance of our ancestral tribe.”

⁵ Then Moses commanded Bnei-Yisrael at the mouth of Adonai, “What the tribe of the descendants of Joseph is saying is correct. ⁶ This is the word that Adonai commands for the daughters of Zelophehad saying: They may become wives to whomever they please, as long as they marry within the family of the tribe of their father. ⁷ So no inheritance may be passed from tribe to tribe among Bnei-Yisrael—each one of Bnei-Yisrael will each keep the inheritance of the tribe of his ancestors. ⁸ Every daughter receiving an inheritance in one of the tribes of Bnei-Yisrael should marry within the family of her father’s tribe, so that Bnei-Yisrael will each possess the inheritance of his fathers. ⁹ No inheritance may pass from tribe to another tribe, for each tribe of Bnei-Yisrael is to keep its inheritance.”

¹⁰ So Zelophehad’s daughters did just as Adonai commanded Moses. ¹¹ Zelophehad’s daughters—Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah and Noah—married sons of their uncles. ¹² They married within the families of the sons of Manasseh son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained within the tribe of their ancestral family.

¹³ These are the mitzvot and judgments that Adonai gave by Moses’s hand to Bnei-Yisrael, on the plains of Moab at Jericho along the Jordan.