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Context No. 1362 of 4322 · Numbers

Context · Reflection

Numbers 36:1-13: in context

1The heads of the fathers’ households of the family of the children of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of the sons of Joseph, came near and spoke before Moses and before the princes, the heads of the fathers’ households of the children of Israel. 2They said, “The LORD commanded my lord to give the land for inheritance by lot to the children of Israel. My lord was commanded by the LORD to give the inheritance of Zelophehad our brother to his daughters. 3If they are married to any of the sons of the other tribes of the children of Israel, then their inheritance will be taken away from the inheritance of our fathers, and will be added to the inheritance of the tribe to which they shall belong. So it will be taken away from the lot of our inheritance. 4When the jubilee of the children of Israel comes, then their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe to which they shall belong. So their inheritance will be taken away from the inheritance of the tribe of our fathers.” 5Moses commanded the children of Israel according to the LORD’s word, saying, “The tribe of the sons of Joseph speak what is right. 6This is the thing which the LORD commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, saying, ‘Let them be married to whom they think best, only they shall marry into the family of the tribe of their father. 7So shall no inheritance of the children of Israel move from tribe to tribe; for the children of Israel shall all keep the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. 8Every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the children of Israel shall be wife to one of the family of the tribe of her father, that the children of Israel may each possess the inheritance of his fathers. 9So shall no inheritance move from one tribe to another tribe; for the tribes of the children of Israel shall each keep his own inheritance.’” 10The daughters of Zelophehad did as the LORD commanded Moses: 11for Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married to their father’s brothers’ sons. 12They were married into the families of the sons of Manasseh the son of Joseph. Their inheritance remained in the tribe of the family of their father. 13These are the commandments and the ordinances which the LORD commanded by Moses to the children of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.

The heads of the tribe of Manasseh bring a concern to Moses. God had granted the daughters of Zelophehad, who had no brothers, the right to inherit their father's land, but now a difficulty arises: if these heiresses marry into another tribe, their inheritance will pass with them, and the land allotted to Manasseh will be permanently diminished. Moses, at the LORD's word, gives the ruling: the daughters may marry whom they wish, but only within their own tribe, so that no inheritance passes from one tribe to another, and each tribe keeps the land God apportioned to it. The daughters obey, and marry their cousins within Manasseh.

What is quietly notable here is how God's law holds two goods together that seemed to be in tension. On one side stood the daughters' right to inherit, a real justice that God had already granted, so that a family without sons would not lose its place. On the other stood the tribe's right to keep the land God had assigned it, which the daughters' marriages threatened to erode. It would have been easy to sacrifice one for the other, to protect the tribe by stripping the daughters of their inheritance, or to protect the daughters while letting the tribal allotments unravel. Instead the ruling honors both: the daughters keep their inheritance, and the land stays within the tribe, held together by the single condition that they marry within Manasseh. God's justice is careful; it does not solve one problem by creating another, or protect one party by wronging a second. There is something to trust in that about the character of God as a lawgiver and judge. His justice is not clumsy, sacrificing one right to secure another; it is attentive to every legitimate claim, working out a provision in which the vulnerable daughters and the wider tribe are both kept whole. The God who orders even the details of inheritance so that no one is wronged can be trusted to hold together, in our own lives, the competing goods we fear cannot both be honored.

Do I trust that God's justice is careful enough to hold together the competing goods I fear cannot both be honored, the God who ordered even a question of inheritance so that neither the vulnerable daughters nor the wider tribe was wronged?

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