A wife¡¯s inheritance
1 Then the heads of families in the clan of Gilead, son of Machir, grandson
of Manasseh, one of the clans of Joseph, came forward. They spoke before
Moses and the heads of the families of Israel
2 and said:
¡°Yahweh has commanded you to give the land to the people of Israel, sharing
it out by drawing lots; and Yahweh has commanded you to give the inheritance
of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters.
3 Now, if they marry someone from another tribe in Israel, their property
will be taken away from the inheritance of our fathers. The property of the
tribe to which they will belong will be increased, while the property given
to us will be de creased.
4 And when the jubilee year comes, the property of these women will be added
to the inheritance of the tribe to which they then belong, and lost to the
inheritance of our own tribe.¡±
5 Moses, at Yahweh¡¯s command, gave the following ruling to the people of
Israel. He said:
¡°The tribe of Joseph is right.
6 This is Yahweh¡¯s decision for the daughters of Zelophe had: They may marry
whom they please, but they must marry into a clan of their father¡¯s tribe.
7 The property of the people of Israel is not to be transferred from tribe
to tribe; the property of every Israelite is to remain attached to his own
tribe.
8 Every woman who has inherited property in one of the tribes of Israel must
marry into a clan of her own tribe, so that each Israelite may inherit the
property of his ancestors.
9 No property may be trans ferred from one tribe to another: every tribe of
Israel will always keep its own property.¡±
10 The daughters of Zelophehad did as Yahweh had commanded Moses.
11 Mah lah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah and Noah, daughters of Zelophehad,
married the sons of their father¡¯s brothers.
12 Since they married into the clans of Manasseh, son of Joseph, their
property remained with the tribe of their father¡¯s clan.
13 These are the commandments and laws that Yahweh gave to the people of
Israel through Moses in the plains of Moab near the Jordan opposite Jericho.