Numbers 36:6

6 This is what the LORD commands for Zelophehad's daughters: They may marry anyone they want to, but only within a family of their ancestor's 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 Israelites' jubilee year comes, their land will be added to that of the tribe they married into. Then part of the land of our ancestors' tribe will be gone."

5 So Moses gave the Israelites a command from the LORD. "The tribe of Joseph's descendants is right.

6 This is what the LORD commands for Zelophehad's daughters: They may marry anyone they want to, but only within a family of their ancestor's tribe.

7 In this way no land of the Israelites will pass from one tribe to another. Every Israelite must keep the tribal land inherited from his ancestors.

8 A woman who inherits land in any of the tribes of Israel may marry a man from any family in her ancestor's tribe. In this way every Israelite keeps the land inherited from his ancestors.