Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ZELOPHEHADS

(Heb. ṣĕlopĕḥāḏ)

DAUGHTERS

The daughters of Zelophehad, of the tribe of Manasseh, who petition Moses for inheritance of their father’s property (Num. 27:1-11). The petition is notable because elsewhere in the Bible property went to surviving male relatives (Deut. 21:15-17; Ruth 4:3; Jer. 32:6-15), and Zelophehad “had no sons, but daughters” (Num. 26:33). The daughters do inherit along with their father’s brothers, and a new law is established for daughters to inherit land when there are no sons (Num. 27:6-11). The legal precedent implies that women were able to work and live off the land (Prov. 31:16; Cant. 8:12). In Num. 36:2-12 a further provision adds that the daughters must marry within their own tribe in order to retain the property within the tribe. This too becomes the occasion for a general law, that any daughter inheriting land from her father must marry within her father’s tribe. The daughters retain their father’s name by inheriting his land, and are themselves remembered by name in biblical texts: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, Tirzah (Num. 26:33; 27:1; 36:11; Josh. 17:3). Two of those names, Hoglah and Noah, are mentioned in the Samaria ostraca in the region of Manasseh. Job, perhaps in extension from this law, generously gives his daughters an inheritance along with his sons, and they too are named in the text (Job. 42:13-15).

Bibliography. J. Weingreen, “The Case of the Daughters of Zelophchad,” VT 16 (1966): 518-22.

Carey Walsh

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ZELOPHEHADS

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)