Lives of Scripture

Zelophehad, a descendant of Manasseh through Hepher, died during Israel's forty years in the wilderness, leaving no sons -- only five daughters: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah (Numbers 26:33; 27:1). Numbers is careful to note that although Zelophehad died in the wilderness "for his own sin," he had not been part of Korah's rebellion against Moses (27:3) -- his family's case needed a hearing, not judgment. After Zelophehad's death, his five daughters approached Moses, Eleazar the priest, and the whole congregation at the tent of meeting, arguing that their father's name should not disappear from his clan simply because he had no son, and asking for a share of the promised land among their father's relatives (27:1-4). Moses brought their case directly to the LORD, who ruled in the daughters' favor and established a new law of inheritance: when a man died without a son, his inheritance would pass to his daughters (27:5-11). Later, leaders of Manasseh's clans raised a follow-up concern -- that if Zelophehad's daughters married outside the tribe, their inherited land would transfer to another tribe -- so the LORD instructed that daughters who inherit land must marry within their father's tribe, which Zelophehad's daughters did (Numbers 36:1-12). Joshua 17:3-6 records the promise finally kept: the five daughters received their father's inheritance in the land, exactly as the LORD had ordered through Moses.