Numeri 27:8 Kommentar

Here is, I. The case of Zelophehad's daughters determined (Num 27:1-11). II. Notice given to Moses of his death approaching (Num 27:12-14). III. Provision made of a successor in the government, 1. By the prayer of Moses (Num 27:15-17). 2. By the appointment of God (Num 27:18, etc.).

INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 27 This chapter relates, that, upon a petition of the daughters of Zelophehad, the affair of inheritances was settled; and it is directed that, in case of want of male issue, inheritances should pass to females, and in failure of them to the next of kin, whether father's brethren or any near kinsman, Num 27:1, also an order to Moses to go up to the Mount Abarim, and take a view of the good land, and die; with the reason of it, Num 27:12, upon which Moses desires a successor of him might be appointed, Num 27:15, in answer to which Joshua is nominated, and being presented before the high priest and the people, was invested with his office, by imposition of hands, and had his charge given him, Num 27:18.

And if he have no daughter,.... Dies without any issue: then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren; and the children descending from them; that is, if his father was dead; otherwise, if he was living, he was to be preferred to them, according to the Jewish writers; though, according to our law, no estate in fee simple ascends lineally, or goes from a son, who has made a purchase of it, to a father: in the Misnah it is said (x), the order of inheritances is thus,"if a man dies and has no son, then they cause his inheritance to pass to his daughter; a son is before a daughter, and all that descend from the son are before the daughter; the daughter is before the brethren (of her father), and those that descend from the daughter are before the brethren; the brethren (of a man) are before his father's brethren (or his uncles); and they that descend from his brethren are before his father's brethren: this is the general rule, everyone that is before in the inheritance, those that descend from him are before others, and a father is before all that descend from him.'' (x) Ut supra, (Bava Bathra, c. 8.) sect. 2.

Moses commands the people to write the law upon stones, when they shall come to the promised land, Deu 27:1-3. And to set up these stones on Mount Ebal, Deu 27:4; and to build an altar of unhewn stones, and to offer on it burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, Deu 27:5-7. The words to be written plainly, and the people to be exhorted to obedience, Deu 27:8-10. The six tribes which should stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people, Deu 27:11, Deu 27:12. Those who are to stand upon Mount Ebal to curse the transgressors, Deu 27:13. The different transgressors against whom the curses are to be denounced, Deu 27:14-26.

THE DAUGHTERS OF ZELOPHEHAD ASK FOR AN INHERITANCE. (Num 27:1-11) Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not . . . in the company of . . . Korah--This declaration might be necessary because his death might have occurred about the time of that rebellion; and especially because, as the children of these conspirators were involved along with their fathers in the awful punishment, their plea appeared the more proper and forcible that their father did not die for any cause that doomed his family to lose their lives or their inheritance. died in his own sin--that is, by the common law of mortality to which men, through sin, are subject.

Claims of Zelophehad's Daughters to an Inheritance in the Promised Land. - Num 27:1-4. The divine instructions which were given at the mustering of the tribes, to the effect that the land was to be divided among the tribes in proportion to the larger or smaller number of their families (Num 26:52-56), induced the daughters of Zelophehad the Manassite of the family of Gilead, the son of Machir, to appear before the princes of the congregation, who were assembled with Moses and Eleazar at the tabernacle, with a request that they would assign them an inheritance in the family of the father, as he had died in the desert without leaving any sons, and had not taken part in the rebellion of the company of Korah, which might have occasioned his exclusion from any participation in the promised land, but had simply died "through his (own) sin," i.e., on account of such a sin as every one commits, and such as all who died in the wilderness had committed as well as he. "Why should the name of our father be cut off (cease) from the midst of his family?" This would have been the case, for example, if no inheritance had been assigned him in the land because he left no son. In that case his family would have become extinct, if his daughters had married into other families or tribes. On the other hand, if his daughters received a possession of their own among the brethren of their father, the name of their father would be preserved by it, since they could then marry husbands who would enter upon their landed property, and their father's name and possession would be perpetuated through their children. This wish on the part of the daughters was founded upon an assumption which rested no doubt upon an ancient custom, namely, that in the case of marriages where the wives had brought landed property as their dowry, the sons who inherited the maternal property were received through this inheritance into the family of their mother, i.e., of their grandfather on the mother's side. We have an example of this in the case of Jarha, who belonged to the pre-Mosaic times (Ch1 2:34-35). In all probability this took place in every instance in which daughters received a portion of the paternal possessions as their dowry, even though there might be sons alive. This would explain the introduction of Jair among the Manassites in Num 32:41; Deu 3:14. His father Segub was the son of Hezron of the tribe of Judah, but his mother was the daughter of Machir the Manassite (Ch1 2:21-22). We find another similar instance in Ezr 2:61 and Neh 7:63, where the sons of a priest who had married one of the daughters of Barzillai the rich Gileadite, are called sons of Barzillai.

On this occasion God issued a general law of inheritance, which was to apply to all cases as "a statute of judgment" (or right), i.e., a statute determining right. If any one died without leaving a son, his landed property was to pass to his daughter (or daughters); in default of daughters, to his brothers; in the absence of brothers, to his paternal uncles; and if there were none of them, to his next of kin. - On the intention of this law, see my Archaeol. 142 (ii. pp. 212, 213); and on the law of inheritance generally, see J. Selden, de success. ad leges Hebr. in bona defunctorum, Fkft. a. O. 1695.