Numbers 36:6

6 This is what the Lord has commanded concerning Zelophehad's daughters: They may marry anyone they like provided they marry within a clan of their ancestral tribe.

Numbers 36:6 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 36:6

This is the thing which the Lord doth command concerning the
daughters of Zelophehad
Concerning this affair relative to them; the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases the words,

``not for the generations that rise up after the division of the land, but for the daughters of Zelophehad;''

as if this order only respected them, or what might happen before the land was divided, but not after; and this is the general opinion of the Jewish writers; but it seems, that as the following law not only concerns them, but all heiresses, so all such after as well as before the division of the land, since the reason of it holds good after as before:

saying, let them marry to whom they think best;
whom they like best, who are most acceptable to them; as it was reasonable they should, and not have such forced upon them, whose persons were disagreeable to them:

only into the family of the tribe of their father shall they marry;
they were to marry not only such as were of the tribe of Manasseh, but of their father's family in that tribe; they could only marry into the family of the Hepherites; see ( Numbers 26:32 Numbers 26:33 ) .

Numbers 36:6 In-Context

4 When the Jubilee comes for the Israelites, their inheritance will be added to that of the tribe into which they marry, and their inheritance will be taken away from the inheritance of our ancestral tribe."

5 So Moses commanded the Israelites at the word of the Lord, "What the tribe of Joseph's descendants says is right.

6 This is what the Lord has commanded concerning Zelophehad's daughters: They may marry anyone they like provided they marry within a clan of their ancestral tribe.

7 An inheritance belonging to the Israelites must not transfer from tribe to tribe, because each of the Israelites is to retain the inheritance of his ancestral tribe.

8 Any daughter who possesses an inheritance from an Israelite tribe must marry someone from the clan of her ancestral tribe, so that each of the Israelites will possess the inheritance of his fathers.