36:1–4 For the third time the lineage of Zelophehad’s daughters is evoked: Joseph, Manasseh, Machir, Gilead (v. 1), Hepher, and his son Zelophehad (26:28–33; 27:1; 36:2). Zelophehad’s daughters will marry, bear children, and, by the land they inherit, carry on their father’s name. The problem the Gileadite leaders raise addresses the possibility of these daughters’ marrying outside the Manassite tribe, in which case their inheritance would pass to their husbands’ tribe(s) (36:3). Their children would bear the fathers’ names, as would land they inherit from their mothers. The inheritance would therefore be irretrievably lost to the tribe of Manasseh.

The reason for “the jubilee” (Hb. hayyobel; v. 4) to figure in the equation has drawn diverse suggestions. The jubilee law requires land that has been sold to return on the fiftieth year to the original owner (Lev. 25:10, 24–28). Here the question concerns land transferred to the “tribe into which they marry” (Num. 36:3). Are the leaders pointing out that the jubilee would not affect inherited land under the earlier ruling in Numbers 27?333 Or are they indicating that the jubilee law is inapplicable here?334 Indeed, how could land revert to its original owner if it were transferred by marriage to another tribe? Perhaps their appeal exposes a jubilee legal custom reflected only here. Perhaps land inherited by a daughter who marries someone from a different tribe could, in the event of her death, be redeemed by her family before the jubilee year. But “when the jubilee . . . comes,” it will irrevocably become property of her husband’s family.335 If so, the Gileadite leaders’ appeal has in view the likelihood that Zelophehad’s daughters will outlive the jubilee.

36:5–13 The case presented, Moses makes a ruling concerning Zelophehad’s daughters (vv. 5–6), a civil precedent for all daughter-heirs who marry (vv. 8–9). The daughters of Zelophehad can “marry whom they think best, only they shall marry within the clan of the tribe of their father” (v. 6). This ruling extends to “every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe” (v. 8), which satisfies the inalienability principle: “So no inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another, for each of the tribes of the people of Israel shall hold on to its own inheritance” (v. 9; cf. v. 7). Zelophehad’s daughters obey and marry as instructed, so that “their inheritance remained in the tribe of their father’s clan” (v. 12; cf. 27:7).

Numbers 36:13, the last verse of the book, is a colophon covering “the commandments and the rules” given to the new generation camped “in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho” (cf. 26:3), which frames the instructions that begin with those on inheritance in chapter 27.336

Chapter 36 is a response to a major concern. Thirty-eight years earlier, the exodus generation was at the door of Canaan, but ten of their leaders refused to enter (Num. 13:25–14:38). Will leaders of the succeeding generation also fail to lay hold of God’s promise and not enter the Promised Land? In particular, the request for an inheritance outside Canaan by the Transjordanian tribes—including Zelophehad’s Manassite clan—has already been compared to the rebellion of the old generation at Kadesh (32:6–15). Zelophehad’s daughters demonstrate their confidence in God’s promise to give them an inheritance. The Manassite Gileadite leaders now also express their faith by requesting a ruling, applicable to all the tribes and to succeeding generations. As such, chapter 36, being more than a supplement or appendix, draws Numbers to a close on a note of faith and hope.