The last time we met, we were dealing with the thorny issue of Tz’lofchad and his five daughters.
Or to be more clear, we were dealing with the problem that Tz’lofchad had never given birth to a son to whom he could pass on his inheritance.
Well, contrary to popular opinion, the Torah actually does contain a provision that allows females to inherit land.
And once Moses agreed to it, it was a done deal and would no longer be considered an exception to the rule.
“Where is this provision?”…you ask.
I’m glad you asked because here it is…
“Then the daughters of Tz’lof’chad the son of Hefer, the son of Gil‘ad, the son of Machir, the son of M’nasheh, of the families of M’nasheh, the son of Yosef, approached. These were the names of his daughters: Machlah, No‘ah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirtzah.
They stood in front of Moshe, El‘azar the cohen, the leaders and the whole community at the entrance to the tent of meeting and said, “Our father died in the desert. He wasn’t part of the group who assembled themselves to rebel against Adonai in Korach’s group, but he died in his own sin, and he had no sons.
Why should the name of our father be eliminated from his family just because he didn’t have a son? Give us property to possess along with the brothers of our father.” Moshe brought their cause before Adonai.
Adonai answered Moshe, “The daughters of Tz’lof’chad are right in what they say. You must give them property to be inherited along with that of their father’s brothers; have what their father would have inherited pass to them. Moreover, say to the people of Israel, ‘If a man dies and does not have a son, you are to have his inheritance pass to his daughter.“-Numbers 27:1-8
Well, there you have it homies!
The Lord Himself (not coming from fleshly man) established a law stating that if a man ends up not having a son and only daughters, the man in question is to give his inheritance to his daughters.
In fact, it was this specific incident itself that caused the creation of this new provision in the Torah that would enable Hebrew females to inherit their father’s property (if the father did not have a son).
So at the end of the day, how did things go down?
Things went down in quite a grand fashion I would say.
Each of the five daughters receive a generous portion of land.
But that’s not all.
There were the five uncles also mentioned in the preceding verses.
We can’t forget those dudes.
Check out these verses:
“Thus ten parts fell to M’nasheh, in addition to the land of Gil‘ad and Bashan beyond the Yarden, because the daughters of M’nasheh had an inheritance along with his descendants; but the land of Gil‘ad belonged to the rest of the descendants of M’nasheh.”-Joshua 17:5-6
Therefore, in total, Manasseh received a whopping total of 10 plots of land, 5 plots for the daughters of Tz’lofchad and 5 plots for the five dudes.
Plus, check out this part of verse 6: “but the land of Gil‘ad belonged to the rest of the descendants of M’nasheh”.
So this was in addition to the land that was given to Manasseh on the EAST side of the Jordan River.
Manasseh got a heck of a lot of land folks!
Alrighty, I’m done.
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