The Daughters of Zelophehad

(Numbers 27:1-11)

1The 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 housesa of the Israelis. 2“The LORD commanded my masterb 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daughters. 3But when they get married to one of the descendants of the tribes of Israel, their inheritances are to be withdrawn from our father’s inheritance and added to the inheritance of the tribe to which they are to belong. Consequently, it is to be withdrawn from the portion of our inheritance. 4Then, when the Jubilee Year of the Israelis comes, their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe to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!”

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

10Zelophehad’s daughters did just what the LORD had commanded Moses 11for Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah: Zelophehad’s daughters married their uncle’s sons. 12They marriede 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.

13These 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.