Numbers 36:10

"Even as Jehovah commanded Moses, so did the daughters of Zelophehad: for Mahlah, Tirzah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married unto their father's brothers' sons. They were married into the families of the sons of Manasseh the son of Joseph; and their inheritance remained in the tribe of the family of their father.

These are the commandments and ordinances which Jehovah commanded by Moses unto the children of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho. The specific mention of the plains of Moab "by the Jordan at Jericho" indicates that this certification for divine authority applies especially to this chapter and that here is not a formal ending of all of Numbers, as some have thought."

The very problem that surfaced in this chapter is the same one that "resulted in the institution of Levirate marriages (Deuteronomy 25:5-10)."[15] We appreciate the words of Whitelaw here, as follows:

"It is a curious instance of the inartificial character of the sacred records that these five names of the daughters of Zelophehad, which have not the least interest in themselves, are repeated thrice in this book, once in Joshua 17:3."[16]

It is innumerable things of this nature which separate God's Book from the books written by men.

"Married unto their father's brothers' sons ..." (Numbers 36:11). This should not be read as a restriction to marry only their first cousins; because the meaning here is "unto the sons of their kinsmen,"[17] that is, members of their same tribe; but, as these tribes numbered in the tens of thousands each, there could have been no restriction to marry only their closest kinsmen. Even the word "son," as used in the Bible, has many meanings such as: (1) "grandson"; (2) "son-in-law"; (3) "adopted son"; (4) "Levirate son"; and (5) "son by creation".