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Keil & Delitzsch
Commentary on the Old Testament

(Numbers 36)

Num 36:1-3 -

The occasion for this law was a representation made to Moses and the princes of the congregation by the heads of the fathers' houses (הָאָבֹות for בֵּית־הָאָבֹות, as in Exo_6:25, etc.) of the family of Gilead the Manassite, to which Zelophehad (Num_26:33) belonged, to the effect that, by allotting an hereditary possession to the daughters of Zelophehad, the tribe-territory assigned to the Manassites would be diminished if they should marry into another tribe. They founded their appeal upon the command of Jehovah, that the land was to be distributed by lot among the Israelites for an inheritance (Num_36:2 compared with Num_26:55-56, and Num_33:54); and although it is not expressly stated, yet on the ground of the promise of the everlasting possession of Canaan (Gen_17:8), and the provision made by the law, that an inheritance was not to be alienated (Lev_25:10, Lev_25:13, Lev_25:23.), they understood it as signifying that the portion assigned to each tribe was to continue unchanged to all generations. (The singular pronoun, my Lord, in Num_36:2, refers to the speaker, as in Num_32:27.) Now, as the inheritance of their brother, i.e., their tribe-mate Zelophehad, had been given to his daughters (Num_27:1), if they should be chosen as wives by any of the children of the (other) tribes of Israel, i.e., should marry into another tribe, their inheritance would be taken away from the tribe-territory of Manasseh, and would be added to that of the tribe into which they were received. The suffix לָהֶם (Num_36:3) refers ad sensum to מַטֶּה, the tribe regarded according to its members.

Num 36:4 -

And when the year of jubilee came round (see Lev_25:10), their inheritance would be entirely withdrawn from the tribe of Manasseh. Strictly speaking, the hereditary property would pass at once, when the marriage took place, to the tribe into which an heiress married, and not merely at the year of jubilee. But up to the year of jubilee it was always possible that the hereditary property might revert to the tribe of Manasseh, either through the marriage being childless, or through the purchase of the inheritance. But in the year of jubilee all landed property that had been alienated was to return to its original proprietor or his heir (Lev_25:33.). In this way the transfer of an inheritance from one tribe to another, which took place in consequence of a marriage, would be established in perpetuity. And it was in this sense that the elders of the tribe of Manasseh meant that a portion of the inheritance which had fallen to them by lot would be taken away from their tribe at the year of jubilee.

Num 36:5-9 -

Moses declared that what they had affirmed was right (כֵּן), and then, by command of Jehovah, he told the daughters of Zelophehad that they might marry whoever pleased them (the suffix ־הֶם, attached to בְּעֵינֵי, for ־הֶן, as in Exo_1:21; Gen_31:9, etc.), but that he must belong to the family of their father's tribe, that is to say, must be a Manassite. For (Num_36:7) the inheritance was not to turn away the Israelites from one tribe to another (not to be transferred from one to another), but every Israelite was to keep to the inheritance of his father's tribe, and no one was to enter upon the possession of another tribe by marrying an heiress belonging to that tribe. This is afterwards extended, in Num_36:8 and Num_36:9, into a general law for every heiress in Israel.

Num 36:10-12 -

In Num_36:10-12 it is related that, in accordance with these instructions, the five daughters of Zelophehad, whose names are repeated from Num_26:33 and Num_27:1 (see also Jos_17:3), married husbands from the families of the Manassites, namely, sons of their cousins (? uncles), and thus their inheritance remained in their father's tribe (עַל הָיָה, to be and remain upon anything).

Num 36:13 -

The conclusion refers not merely to the laws and rights contained in Num 33:50-36:13, but includes the rest of the laws given in the steppes of Moab (ch. 25-30), and forms the conclusion tot he whole book, which places the lawgiving in the steppes of Moab by the side of the lawgiving at Mount Sinai (Lev_26:46; Lev_27:34) and bring sit to a close, though without in any way implying that the explanation (בֵּאֵר, Deu_1:5), further development, and hortatory enforcement of the law and its testimonies, statutes, and judgments (Deu_1:5; Deu_4:44., Num_12:1.), which follow in Deuteronomy, are not of Mosaic origin.

 

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