Numbers 36:1-13

NUMBERS—NOTE ON Numbers 36:1 The jubilee occurred every 50 years. During that time, land that had been sold was to return to its original owner (Leviticus 25:10). This did not apply to land transferred through marriage. Normally when men married, there was no transfer of land; it stayed within the man’s own tribe. But if a land-owning daughter married, the land would be transferred to her husband’s family and tribe. To prevent tribal land being lost through intermarriage, Moses rules that Zelophehad’s daughters (see Numbers 27:1) must marry men from their own tribe (Numbers 36:6). In this way tribal lands will be preserved. This insistence that every one... shall hold on to his own inheritance can be seen as a promise that the tribes will always live in their God-given land (Genesis 17:8).