When the nation of Israel escaped from Egypt and travelled around in the wilderness for 40 years, Zelophehad’s daughters became some of the most famous women in the nation of Israel.
We know nothing much about Zelophehad, except that he had 5 daughters and no sons. Why was this important? Well, in Israel, a man’s land and goods were left to his sons. When women married, they joined the tribe of the man they married and any children born to the couple also belonged to that tribe. Even foreign women could join the tribes of Israel in this way, as is shown by Rahab from Jericho and Ruth the Moabitess, who both joined the
tribe of Judah by marrying men from the tribe of Judah.
Of course, often women would have married local men who were very likely to belong to the same tribe – so most women would not have transferred between tribes, but they were free to do so in most cases.
Only daughters?
Zelophehad was blessed with five daughters and there was nothing wrong with that. However, when the nation of Israel entered the land of Canaan, land was to be allocated to men – and by that time, Zelophehad was dead.
So what should happen?
If nobody had asked the question, Zelophehad’s name would have disappeared from the land areas allocated to the tribe of Manasseh. But someone did ask the question, and it seems most likely that it was the daughters of Zelophehad because we are told that these five daughters appeared before Moses, Eleazar the High Priest, the other leaders and all the rest of the people. They explained the situation and asked to be given an inheritance among their
father’s brothers.[1]
Moses immediately took the question to God, who told Moses that the five daughters were right: if a man had only daughters, those daughters should inherit his land.[2]
Aside: You may wonder what would happen if a man had no children at all, and the answer God gave was that the inheritance was to go to the man’s brothers. If there were no brothers, it went to the man’s father’s brothers, and if there were none of them, then it went to the “nearest kinsman” – the closest relative.[3]
Only part of the question...
So far, so good!
However, it seems that some time later, someone realised that giving the inheritance to the daughters didn’t completely solve the problem. Since a woman joined the tribe of the man she married, if one of the daughters married someone from another tribe, the land she inherited would be transferred to the tribe of her husband. Once again, it was the daughters of Zelophehad who were used as the example, which might suggest that they were the ones who first
realised the complication. Whoever it was who realised the problem, though, it was the leaders of Zelophehad’s clan who described the problem to Moses and the leaders and asked whether that was the intended result. Once again, God answered the question and said that where women were to inherit land, they must marry within their tribe so that the land would not be transferred into another tribe.[4]
How it worked
When the land was being allotted to the tribe of Manasseh, Zelophehad’s daughters received the land that their father would have been given if he had survived,[5] and they all married sons of their father’s brothers.[6] Simple and satisfactory.
Fiction Favours the Facts
This story is told in a micro-tale “I was Just Thinking…” included in “Fiction Favours the Facts – Book 3”, which is to be released on 20 October 2020 (God willing). If you want more information, see https://www.bibletales.online/fiction-favours-the-facts-book-3/.
An excerpt from the story is shown below:
“But everyone knew that inheritance went through the men of the family. It was sad, but Zelophehad had missed out badly when he had all daughters and no sons.
At that moment, Noah and her sisters decided that they were not willing to allow that to happen without a fight. Father deserved that they at least make an effort to ensure that he didn’t slip from the memory of the nation, the tribe or the clan.
They started the official wheels turning, and within days, the echoes of their question had reverberated even in the ears of Moses. A time was set for this extraordinary question to be considered by Moses, Eleazar the priest and the leaders of the congregation. It was to be an open hearing: anyone could be present to listen, and many took an interest in this strange situation.”
Notes
[1] Numbers 27:1-4
[2] Numbers 27:7-8
[3] Numbers 27:9-11
[4] Numbers 36:1-9
[5] Joshua 17:3-6
[6] Numbers 36:10-12
