🔢WEB · Numbers 27:1
What does Numbers 27:1 mean?
"Then the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph came near. These are the names of his daughters: Mahlah, Noah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah."
— Numbers 27:1 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Then the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph came near. These are the names of his daughters: Mahlah, Noah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah.
They stood before Moses, and before Eleazar the priest, and before the princes and all the congregation, at the door of the Tent of Meeting, saying,
“Our father died in the wilderness. He was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against Yahweh in the company of Korah, but he died in his own sin. He had no sons.
Why should the name of our father be taken away from among his family, because he had no son? Give to us a possession among the brothers of our father.”
Explanation
Numbers 27:1 introduces one of the most significant legal cases in the book of Numbers: the story of five sisters—Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah—who approach Moses to address an injustice in Israel's inheritance laws. The verse itself is simply a genealogical introduction, tracing their father Zelophehad's lineage back through Hepher, Gilead, Machir, and Manasseh to Joseph. This detailed genealogy is not incidental; it establishes their legitimate standing within the tribe of Manasseh and sets up the legal weight of the case they are about to bring before Israel's leadership.
The book of Numbers records Israel's forty years of wilderness wandering as the nation prepared to enter the Promised Land. Moses, as Israel's leader and mediator before God, was responsible for establishing the laws that would govern the nation, including how the land of Canaan would be divided among the tribes and families. Zelophehad had died in the wilderness leaving no sons, only daughters, which created a legal problem: under the existing inheritance customs, land passed through male heirs. Without a son, Zelophehad's family name and inheritance in the land were at risk of disappearing entirely. This narrative in Numbers 27 (which continues beyond verse 1) records the daughters' bold approach to Moses
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