Numbers 36:6

6 This is what the Lord commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, "Let them marry whom they think best; only it must be into a clan of their father's tribe that they are married,

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 And when the jubilee of the Israelites comes, then their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they have married; and their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our ancestral tribe."

5 Then Moses commanded the Israelites according to the word of the Lord, saying, "The descendants of the tribe of Joseph are right in what they are saying.

6 This is what the Lord commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, "Let them marry whom they think best; only it must be into a clan of their father's tribe that they are married,

7 so that no inheritance of the Israelites shall be transferred from one tribe to another; for all Israelites shall retain the inheritance of their ancestral tribes.

8 Every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the Israelites shall marry one from the clan of her father's tribe, so that all Israelites may continue to possess their ancestral inheritance.