The daughters of Zelophechad were wise, learned, and God-fearing. The question they posed to Moshe was timely, intelligent, and respectful. In return, the Torah names the laws of inheritance after them.
The question was timely. The land of Israel had been divided into twelve equal parts in accordance with the number of tribes of Israel. Each male member of each tribe who was twenty years of age or older and who had actually left Egypt would be eligible to receive a piece of land in Israel, equal in size to the total acreage allocated to his whole tribe divided by a number equal to the number of such men who left Egypt. Since most of the men originally eligible to receive such land had subsequently died during the forty-year trek in the wilderness, they bequeathed their rights to their surviving male heirs of twenty years or more.
As the Jews were about to enter Israel and claim their rights to the land, a census was taken to count every male heir above the age of twenty, just like the census originally taken when the Jews left Egypt thirty-nine years before. Both Zelophechad and Chefer, the grandfather of the daughters of Zelophechad, had been entitled to portions in the land of Israel because both had been among the men of the tribe of Menashe who left Egypt. But both Zelophechad and Chefer had died in the wilderness and their portions in the land of Israel had to be bequeathed to their next of kin.
The issue was that Zelophechad had no sons. The question the daughters of Zelophechad posed was, in the absence of sons, who are the next of kin of Zelophechad and who are the next of kin of Chefer? Was it Zelophechad’s brothers or was it Zelophechad’s daughters? And could the daughters of Zelophechad participate with their uncles in inheriting the portion of the land Chefer was entitled to by stepping into Zelophechad’s shoes?
The question was also intelligent. The daughters of Zelophechad made the brilliant connection between the laws of yibum, the Levirate marriage, and the laws of inheritance.
The case of yibum concerns the married man who dies without leaving any sons. If his widow would be free to marry into another family, the children born of that marriage would adopt the family name of the new husband and would not perpetuate the family name of the widow’s deceased husband. The deceased’s family name would go to the grave with the deceased. Accordingly, in these circumstances, the Torah requires the brother of the deceased to marry the widow so that the children of this marriage will continue to carry the deceased’s family name and the deceased would not be forgotten.
Deftly, the daughters of Zelophechad put their question to Moshe just as he happened to be studying the laws of yibum with his students. “If we are considered like sons for the purpose of yibum, thereby absolving our mother from marrying our uncle, then we should also be considered sons for the purpose of inheriting our father’s property. And if we are not considered sons for the purpose of inheriting our father’s property, then neither should we be considered sons for the purpose of yibum and our mother should be obliged to marry our uncle. But it is inconceivable to maintain that we are considered like sons for one purpose, the purpose of yibum, and not like sons for another purpose, the purpose of inheritance.”
The question was also respectful, for unlike Korach, who took issue with and challenged the authority of Moshe, the daughters of Zelophechad did not accuse Moshe of inventing the laws himself. Neither did they accuse him, or God’s law, of discrimination against women. The way they posed their question demonstrated they accepted the boundaries of the law and were not out to undermine them. First, they pointed out that their father, Zelophechad, was not among the rebel rousers of Korach who lost their right to a portion of the land. Second, they pointed out that Zelophechad had no sons. Thereby, they accepted rather than challenged the Divine law, however unpalatable to them, that if sons had survived Zelophechad, they would have had no case.
And with equal deference, Moshe forwarded their question to God for His consideration.
The answer was quick in coming “The daughters of Zelophechad are right.” And then the Torah proceeds to set forth all the Jewish laws of inheritance in their name.
The daughters of Zelophechad created the precedent that in the absence of sons, daughters inherit the estate of the deceased rather than the deceased’s father or the deceased’s brothers.
One slight problem remained. As we have seen, each tribe’s portion in the land was distributed among its members in accordance with the number of males over twenty that left Egypt. There was a danger, therefore, that this equilibrium would be disturbed if a daughter, who inherited land from her father in the absence of brothers, would pass on the land to her husband or sons who were members of another tribe.
The Torah addresses this problem in three ways. First it tells us that its paramount concern is that daughters should be free to marry spouses of their own choosing, without restricting them to marrying partners from their father’s tribe. Accordingly, with the exception of the generation that entered the land of Israel, in the future daughters who, in the absence of surviving sons, inherit their fathers’ property would be allowed to marry husbands from any tribe.
Second, with the exception of the daughters of Zelophechad, those daughters who in the absence of surviving sons inherited property from their fathers and who belonged to the generation that actually entered the Land of Israel from the desert, were restricted to husbands from the tribes of their fathers. This was so that the soldiers who had to fight for the land of Israel would not be discouraged out of fear that the land they had so valiantly fought for would be lost to other tribes when daughters married out. As for the daughters of Zelophechad themselves, although they were not prohibited from marrying out, they did in fact marry members of their own tribe.