Numbers 27:6

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father's brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them. And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter. And if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren. And if he have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his father's brethren. And if his father have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his kinsman that is next to him of his family, and he shall possess it: and it shall be unto the children of Israel a statute and ordinance, as Jehovah commanded Moses."

It is of interest that the Hebrew text in the seventh verse here uses a masculine pronoun in the reference to the daughters of Zelophehad. Adam Clarke called this an error "due to some careless scribe,"[12] but Jewish scholars believed a purpose lay behind such usage: "Because when a woman assumes an inheritance, she is like a man for all legal purposes; therefore, this verse refers to them in the masculine sense rather than in a feminine gender."[13] We believe that the Jewish viewpoint should be accepted.

"The daughters of Zelophehad speak right ..." (Numbers 27:7). "Speak right" here is awkward; and it appears Orlinsky is correct in rendering this clause, "The plea ... is just."[14]

Current information has completely destroyed the critical allegations that would make this chapter a late addition dating near the end of the 7th century B.C. As Smick said:

"The custom of inalienable property (as mandated here) (and which required daughters to inherit in some cases) is now known to have been in practice LONG BEFORE the time of Moses, as the false adoptions of Nuzu testify (C. H. Gordon in O.T. Times, p. 101)."[15]

The law of the inheritance of daughters (in cases where they had no brother) was that the land should pertain to their father's brothers in perpetuity; and in case he had no brothers, it went to his uncles; and if there were no uncles, the "next of kin" inherited. The purpose of all this was to keep the land of Canaan within the tribes to whom it was originally allocated; that this was the case appears in Numbers 36 where the law was amended to prevent any marriage of the inheriting daughters outside of their tribe. The civilization of the ancient Jews was built upon the land; and it was a great crime for a Jew to part with his inheritance. The incident of Ahab and the vineyard of Naboth highlights this and also shows how mercilessly the evil kings of Israel destroyed the whole concept of inalienable ownership of the land.