Numbers 36:6-13

6 This is the Lord's command to Zelophehad's daughters: You may marry anyone you wish, as long as the person is from your own tribe.

7 In this way the Israelites' land will not pass from tribe to tribe, and each Israelite will keep the land in the tribe that belonged to his ancestors.

8 A woman who inherits her father's land may marry, but she must marry someone from her own tribe. In this way every Israelite will keep the land that belonged to his ancestors.

9 The land must not pass from tribe to tribe, and each Israelite tribe will keep the land it received from its ancestors."

10 Zelophehad's daughters obeyed the Lord's command to Moses.

11 So Zelophehad's daughters -- Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah -- married their cousins, their father's relatives.

12 Their husbands were from the tribe of Manasseh son of Joseph, so their land stayed in their father's family group and tribe.

13 These were the laws and commands that the Lord gave to the Israelites through Moses on the plains of Moab by the Jordan River, across from Jericho.

Numbers 36:6-13 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 36

This chapter gives an account of an application made by the heads of the tribe of Manasseh, concerning the inheritances of the daughters of Zelophehad, which, should they marry into other tribes, would be removed thither, and so be a loss to theirs, Nu 36:1-4, which case was judged worthy of regard; and to remedy this inconvenience, they were ordered to marry into the family of their father's tribe, and this was to be a law to all heiresses for the future in other tribes, Nu 36:5-9 and accordingly the daughters of Zelophehad married their father's brothers' sons, Nu 36:10-13.