Numberschapter 36
13 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
Key verse
No inheritance in Israel may be transferred from tribe to tribe, because each of the Israelites is to retain the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers.
It stands in Marry within your father's family, verses 5 to 9.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The daughters of Zelophehad's follow-up. The families of Manasseh come before Moses: if the daughters marry into another tribe, the inheritance will move with them. Moses again inquires and rules: they may marry whom they think best, but only within the family of the tribe of their father. The inheritance is not to move from tribe to tribe. Zelophehad's daughters marry within Manasseh. The book closes as it began. With the careful ordering of inheritance and tribal structure. ‘These are the commandments and the judgments, which the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses unto the children of Israel in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho.’
Context
Law · Moses · Numbers overview
The world behind this chapter
Numbers 36The history
The chapter is a case brought by named men and answered by Moses at the word of the LORD. They are the family heads of the clan of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh. It stands last in the book, in the fortieth year on the plains of Moab, which verse 13 states as it closes. The occasion is the ruling of Numbers 27. The daughters of Zelophehad had asked for their father's portion because he left no son, and they were granted it. The men of their clan now point out what that grant does to the tribe's land if the women marry outside it. A first hearer knew what stood behind their worry at verse 4. Land in Israel returned to its original family at the Jubilee under Leviticus 25, so a portion carried into another tribe would be confirmed there. He also knew that marriage within the clan was already the ordinary custom, so the answer at verse 6 left the daughters free to marry anyone they pleased inside their father's tribe. Verses 10 to 12 record that the five women did as they were commanded, and name them: Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah and Noah.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
What it meant to them
The ruling held two rights together. A daughter without brothers kept her father's name on the ground, which is what the case in chapter 27 had won. Her tribe kept the portion allotted to it, which is what the men of Gilead had come to protect. Closing the book here put the point of the second half in view. The land was handed to families who did not yet hold it, and the arrangements for keeping it were settled before one of them crossed the river.
Sources cited
- Jacob Milgrom, Numbers , The JPS Torah Commentary, 1990
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments , 1832 to 1869, on Numbers 36
- John Calvin, Commentary on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony , 1563, on Numbers 36
Where the chapter sits
Numbers 36 falls in Second census and preparations (chapters 26–36). A new generation numbered; inheritance laws; Joshua commissioned; cities of refuge and tribal boundaries.
Before it: Approach to Moab, chapters 21–25.
The whole shape of Numbers→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Will their inheritance pass to another tribe?
1. (vv. 1-2)
Numbers 36:1
“What, then, can be the meaning of the objection, that God only half considered what was right? In my opinion, He so arranged His replies, that only when inquired of He assigned to each one his rights. The daughters of Zelophehad come, and demand justice of Moses and the elders, and God complies with their prayers.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Numbers 36:1
“Formerly they had applied, at their own instance, to be recognized, for want of male heirs in their family, as entitled to inherit their father's property [Nu 27:1-11]; now the application was made on behalf of the tribe to which they belonged--that steps might be taken to prevent the alienation of their patrimony by their alliance with husbands of another tribe.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Numbers 36:2
“To give the inheritance of Zelophehad - unto his daughters - See this case spoken of at large on Numbers 27 (note). Either the first eleven verses of Numbers 27 should come in before this chapter, or this chapter should come in immediately after those eleven verses; they certainly both make parts of the same subject. Here Moses determines that heiresses should marry in their own tribe, that no part of the ancient inheritance might be alienated from the original family.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The heads of Gilead bring the fourth case in Numbers that the law as given does not settle, after the men defiled by a dead body at 9:6-8, the sabbath-breaker at 15:32-36, and the daughters themselves at 27:1-11. They come near and speak before Moses and the princes, which is the approach the daughters made at 27:2, so the second hearing opens the way the first one did. What they raise is a collision between two things already commanded, the land divided by lot at 26:55 and the inheritance granted to Zelophehad's daughters at 27:7.
2. (vv. 3-4)
Numbers 36:3
“And it is probable that this was not a bare surmise, or supposition, but that they knew, at this time, great court was made to them by some young gentlemen of other tribes, because they were heiresses, that they might get footing in this tribe, and so enlarge their own inheritance.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 36:3
“And if they be married to any of the sons of the other tribes of the children of Israel,....”
Numbers 36:4
“And when the jubilee of the children of Israel shall be,....”
The objection is a consequence chapter 27 never addressed. A daughter who holds land and marries into another tribe carries that land with her, and the lot of Manasseh shrinks by the size of her portion. Verse 4 answers the remedy a reader would reach for, since the jubilee of Leviticus 25:10-13 restores land that was sold and land carried over by inheritance belongs to the receiving tribe outright, so the jubilee would fix the transfer in place. Albert Barnes states it in those terms, that the jubilee year would in effect confirm the alienation.
B. Marry within your father's family
1. (vv. 5-6)
Numbers 36:5
“Now the matter is thus accommodated: these heiresses must be obliged to marry, not only within their own tribe of Manasseh, but within the particular family of the Hepherites, to which they did belong. They are not determined to any particular persons; there was choice enough in the family of their father: Let them marry to whom they think best.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 36:5
“Here was an instance of progressive legislation (see also Ex 18:27) in Israel, the enactments made being suggested by circumstances. But it is deserving of special notice that those additions to, or modifications of, the law were confined to civil affairs; while the slightest change was inadmissible in the laws relating to worship or the maintenance of religion.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Numbers 36:6
“Now, since the genealogy of Joseph is so traced, Mary also appears virtually to have been of the same tribe as he, since, according to the law of Moses, intermarriages between different tribes were not permitted. For it was commanded to join in marriage with one of the same family and of the same people, so that the inheritance of the race might not be changed from tribe to tribe.”
Eusebius of Caesarea· written before 339· ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 1.7patristic
The answer given through Moses calls the objection right, the tribe of the sons of Joseph hath said well. A ruling delivered at 27:7 is refined here because a second party was heard, and the Torah records the amendment plainly. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown call this progressive legislation and observe that the additions of this kind fall in civil matters while the laws of worship take no such change. The liberty of the first ruling survives in the second, let them marry to whom they think best, with the limit set at the family of the tribe of their father.
2. (vv. 7-9)
Numbers 36:7
“So shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe,....”
Numbers 36:8
“And the principal reason why God was solicitous to preserve tribes and families unmixed was, that the tribe and family too, out of which the Messiah was to come, and by which he should be known, might be evident and unquestionable.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Numbers 36:9
“Neither shall the inheritance remove from one tribe to another,.... Which was one end of the year of jubilee, but that did not sufficiently secure it without this law, as this case shows: but everyone of the tribes of Israel shall keep himself to his own inheritance; the chief view of which was, that it might clearly appear of what tribe and family the Messiah sprang when he came.”
The case of one family becomes a standing law for every heiress in Israel, and verses 7 and 9 state the same principle twice in almost the same words. The tribal map drawn by lot at 26:55 is meant to hold, so each tribe keeps to the inheritance of its fathers. John Gill and John Wesley both read a further purpose in the law, that tribe and family stay traceable so the descent of the Messiah could be identified when he came, and Eusebius argues Mary's tribe from Joseph's on the same ground in his Ecclesiastical History. The reading belongs to those writers, since the reason Numbers gives is that every man may enjoy the inheritance of his fathers.
C. The daughters do as they were commanded
1. (vv. 10-12)
Numbers 36:10
“Even as the Lord commanded Moses, so did the daughters of Zelophehad. They married into, the family of their father's tribe, according to the following account.”
Numbers 36:11
“For Mahlah, Tirzah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Noah,.... The names of the daughters of Zelophehad, and the same as in Num 26:33, only the order a little varied, Tirzah and Noah here changing places; there they are according to their birth, here they are according to their marriage, as Aben Ezra thinks; though Jarchi is of opinion, that being thus differently placed shows that they were equal to one another, and one was not preferred to the other: these were married unto their father's brothers' sons; so that they were first cousins.”
Numbers 36:12
“And they were married into the families of the sons of Manasseh, the son of Joseph,.... The family of the Hepherites, of which they were. Aben Ezra observes, that their being married into families, and not a family, is a sign that their uncles' sons were not all of them brethren, or the sons of one man, but of more, though all sons of one or other of their father's, brethren: and their inheritance remained in the tribe of the family of their father; by means of these marriages, even both in their father's tribe and family.”
The five sisters are named for the third time in the book, and the order differs from 26:33 and 27:1 because Tirzah and Noah trade places. Gill reports the older explanations, Aben Ezra taking this order as the order of their marriages and Jarchi taking the variation as a sign that none of the five was preferred above another. They marry their father's brothers' sons, first cousins inside the family of Hepher, and Joshua 17:3-6 records the same women receiving their portion when Canaan is actually divided.
2. (v. 13)
Numbers 36:13
“These are the commandments, etc. - See these different terms analyzed and explained, Lev 26:15 (note). Thus ends the book of Numbers, containing a series of astonishing providences and events. Scarcely any piece of history in the sacred writings is better calculated to impress the mind of a serious reader with a sense of the goodness and severity of God. In every transaction his holiness and justice appear in closest union with his benevolence and mercy. From such a Being what have the wicked not to fear! From such a Father and Friend what have the upright not to hope!”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The book signs off by fixing a place, in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho. Leviticus had closed with its commandments given in mount Sinai at 27:34, and the change of address is the measure of what happened in between. The last thing Numbers records is a case raised by ordinary men and settled in their favour, and Deuteronomy opens in these same plains with Moses beginning to speak.
This page carries no textual note on Numbers 36. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
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