Now the family heads of the clan of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh, one of the clans of Joseph, approached Moses and the leaders who were the heads of the Israelite families and addressed them, saying, "When the LORD commanded my lord to give the land as an inheritance to the Israelites by lot, He also commanded him to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters. But if they marry any of the men from the other tribes of Israel, their inheritance will be withdrawn from the portion of our fathers and added to the tribe into which they marry. So our allotted inheritance would be taken away. And when the Jubilee for the Israelites comes, their inheritance will be added to the tribe into which they marry and taken away from the tribe of our fathers." So at the word of the LORD, Moses commanded the Israelites: "The tribe of the sons of Joseph speaks correctly. This is what the LORD has commanded concerning the daughters of Zelophehad: They may marry anyone they please, provided they marry within a clan of the tribe of their father. No inheritance in Israel may be transferred from tribe to tribe, because each of the Israelites is to retain the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. Every daughter who possesses an inheritance from any Israelite tribe must marry within a clan of the tribe of her father, so that every Israelite will possess the inheritance of his fathers. No inheritance may be transferred from one tribe to another, for each tribe of Israel must retain its inheritance.” So the daughters of Zelophehad did as the LORD had commanded Moses. Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married to cousins on their father’s side. They married within the clans of the descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained within the tribe of their father’s clan.
And you shall count off seven Sabbaths of years—seven times seven years—so that the seven Sabbaths of years amount to forty-nine years. Then you are to sound the horn far and wide on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement. You shall sound it throughout your land. So you are to consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be your Jubilee, when each of you is to return to his property and to his clan. The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee for you; you are not to sow the land or reap its aftergrowth or harvest the untended vines. For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You may eat only the crops taken directly from the field. In this Year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his own property. If you make a sale to your neighbor or a purchase from him, you must not take advantage of each other. You are to buy from your neighbor according to the number of years since the last Jubilee; he is to sell to you according to the number of harvest years remaining. You shall increase the price in proportion to a greater number of years, or decrease it in proportion to a lesser number of years; for he is selling you a given number of harvests. Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God; for I am the LORD your God. You are to keep My statutes and carefully observe My judgments, so that you may dwell securely in the land. Then the land will yield its fruit, so that you can eat your fill and dwell in safety in the land. Now you may wonder, 'What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not sow or gather our produce?' But I will send My blessing upon you in the sixth year, so that the land will yield a crop sufficient for three years. While you are sowing in the eighth year, you will be eating from the previous harvest, until the ninth year's harvest comes in. The land must not be sold permanently, because it is Mine, and you are but foreigners and residents with Me. Thus for every piece of property you possess, you must provide for the redemption of the land.
Significance
Leviticus 25:8-24 establishes the Jubilee principle that all land returns to its original tribal allocation every fiftieth year, since the land "is Mine" (Lev 25:23). Numbers 36:1-12 identifies a legal conflict created by the daughters of Zelophehad inheriting land: if they married into another tribe, their land would transfer permanently at the Jubilee, violating the tribal boundary system. The solution -- requiring heiresses to marry within their father's tribe -- preserves both the Jubilee land-restoration mechanism and the female inheritance right established in Numbers 27. The connection demonstrates how the Pentateuch's legal system requires internal harmonization when different provisions create competing obligations, with the overarching principle being that tribal נַחֲלָה (nachalah, "inheritance") must never cross tribal lines.
