Numbers27chapter 27

Numbers 27:1-2

The census just finished had already named these five women at Numbers 26:33, the one place in either census where daughters are listed, and here they come and stand. Their descent is given back four generations to Manasseh and to Joseph, so what they claim is a portion of a named tribe rather than land in general. They stand at the door of the tabernacle before Moses, Eleazar, the princes and the whole congregation, which puts a family inheritance question in front of the entire assembly.

Numbers 27:3-4

Our father died in the wilderness: The case is argued in two moves and both of them are legal. They separate their father from the company of Korah in Numbers 16 so that no charge of rebellion attaches to his house, and they say he died in his own sin, which places him under the general sentence of Numbers 14:29 rather than under a particular judgment. Barnes reads the claim as resting on Numbers 14:31, where the children of that generation were promised the land their parents refused. What they ask for is their father's name kept in his family, and the possession is the means of keeping it.

Numbers 27:5-6

Moses hears a case he has no law for and leaves it undecided. This is the third time in Numbers that a situation arises which the law does not cover, after the men defiled by a dead body at 9:6-8 and the sabbath-breaker at 15:32-36, and Numbers 9:8 gives the shape of all of them, I will hear what the LORD will command concerning you. Gill takes the answer of verse 6 as spoken from off the mercy seat, on the promise of Exodus 25:22 and as Numbers 7:89 records it happening.

Numbers 27:7-8

The ruling goes further than the request. They asked for their father's portion, and verse 8 turns the particular case into a standing law for every man in Israel who dies leaving no son. Gill notes that what was determined in their case was made into a general law, so a petition brought by five women without an advocate becomes the inheritance rule of the nation. The same verdict of having spoken right is given to the tribe of Joseph at Numbers 36:5, when they come to object to this very ruling.

Numbers 27:9-11

The law is then written out as an order of succession, son, daughter, brothers, father's brothers, and then the nearest kinsman of the family. Every step stays inside the father's house, so the land holds still where the tribal allotment put it. Calling it a statute of judgment makes it a rule the magistrates decide by rather than a single ruling, and chapter 36 finds its limit when the fathers of Manasseh object that a daughter's marriage would carry her land into another tribe.

Numbers 27:12-13

A ruling about who inherits stands next to a man being told he inherits nothing. Moses is sent up mount Abarim to see the land, and Deuteronomy 32:49 names the height as Nebo while Deuteronomy 34:1 calls it Pisgah. Gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother was gathered, points back to Numbers 20:23-28, where Aaron died on Hor with his garments already transferred to his son.

Numbers 27:14

The reason given here is the strife at Meribah in the desert of Zin, where Moses was told to speak to the rock at Numbers 20:8 and struck it twice instead. This verse charges him with rebelling against the commandment and with failing to sanctify God at the water before their eyes, and Numbers 20:12 puts it as unbelief. Moses himself gives it differently when he tells Israel at Deuteronomy 1:37, 3:26 and 4:21 that the LORD was angry with him for your sakes. Both accounts stand in the canon and neither chapter reconciles them.

Numbers 27:15-16

Moses answers the sentence by asking for a successor, and the request is made for the people. Deuteronomy 3:23-26 records that he also pleaded to be allowed over Jordan and was refused, which Numbers does not report, and both accounts stand. He addresses God as the God of the spirits of all flesh, the title he and Aaron used on their faces at Numbers 16:22 when the whole congregation stood to be destroyed. Barnes reads the title as an acknowledgment that the men who need a leader are flesh and helpless of themselves.

Numbers 27:17

Going out and coming in before them is the Hebrew way of naming the whole of a leader's public conduct, in war and out of it. The reason Moses gives is that the congregation be not as sheep which have no shepherd. Micaiah uses those words of a leaderless Israel at 1 Kings 22:17, Ezekiel 34:5 turns them into a charge against the shepherds themselves, and Matthew 9:36 puts them in the mouth of Christ over the crowds. Clarke reads the request as Moses describing the office he had filled himself.

Numbers 27:18-19

The reason given for Joshua is a man in whom is the spirit, and it is the only qualification the verse names. Joshua had fought Amalek at Exodus 17:9, stayed in the tent when Moses left it at Exodus 33:11, and stood with Caleb against the ten spies at Numbers 14:6-9, so the camp had watched him for forty years. Moses lays his hand on him, and Deuteronomy 34:9 says Joshua was full of the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands upon him. The charge is given in their sight, so the congregation watches the transfer rather than hearing about it later.

Numbers 27:20-21

Some of thine honour is what passes to Joshua, and verse 21 shows where the difference falls. Joshua stands before Eleazar, who asks counsel for him by the judgment of Urim, while Moses had been spoken with mouth to mouth at Numbers 12:8. Barnes reads this as setting Joshua below Moses and alongside every ruler after him, inquiring of God through the high priest, and he points to Joshua 9:14, where that counsel went unasked and the treaty with the Gibeonites followed. The honour is put on him so that the congregation will obey, which the verse gives as the stated purpose.

Numbers 27:22-23

The doing is recorded in the same words as the command. He lays his hands on Joshua, plural here where verse 18 said hand, and gives him the charge before Eleazar and the whole assembly. Moses had two sons, Gershom and Eliezer, and 1 Chronicles 23:14-15 leaves their line among the ordinary Levites, so the government passes out of his family in front of the nation that watched him lead it. Henry reads the ordination as Moses willing that the people should look away from him to the man coming after.