Zelophehad’s Daughters and the Marriage Ruling

This was a later question about Zelophehad’s daughters. The heads of families from Gilead’s clan, from Manasseh and the families of Joseph, came before Moses and Israel’s leaders. They reminded Moses that the land was to be shared by lot, and that Zelophehad’s daughters had been given their father’s inheritance by the Lord’s command.

Then they raised a concern. If those daughters married men from another tribe, their inheritance would be added to that tribe’s share instead of remaining with their own. They said that when the jubilee came, the land would be taken from their fathers’ inheritance.

Moses answered according to the Lord’s word. He said the sons of Joseph were right. The daughters of Zelophehad could marry whom they thought best, but they were to marry within the family of their father’s tribe.

This was not only about one family. Moses said that no inheritance in Israel was to move from tribe to tribe. Any daughter who held an inheritance was to marry within her father’s family line, so each tribe would keep the land given to it.

The daughters obeyed. Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah married their father’s brothers’ sons, within the families of Manasseh son of Joseph. So their inheritance remained in their father’s tribe. These commands were given through Moses in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan at Jericho.