Daughters of Zelophehad

[1] The biblical text tells little of Zelophehad himself, save that he died during the 40 years when the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, and explicitly that he played no part in Korah's rebellion.

[7] So Moses, at God's bidding, instructed the Israelites that the plea of the tribal leaders was just and that Zelophehad's daughters could marry anyone they wished, but only among the men of the tribe of Manasseh.

[9]Zelophehad's daughters did as God had commanded in the instructions conveyed to Moses, and each married a son of an uncle,[10] first cousin marriages.

When the Israelites entered the land, Zelophehad's daughters appeared before Eleazer the priest, Joshua (who by then had assumed leadership from Moses), and the chieftains, reminding them that God had commanded Moses to grant them a portion among their kinsmen, and Zelophehad's daughters received a portion in the holdings of Manasseh, probably on the east side of the Jordan River.

[11] In the Talmud and the Zohar the reference to Zelophehad having "died in his own sin" is used to equate him with the man executed for gathering sticks on Shabbat,[12][13] but Sifri Zutta says that it cannot be known if he was.

[14] In the Talmud, Rabbi Josiah interpreted that they petitioned first the assembly, then the chieftains, then Eleazar, and finally Moses, but Abba Hanan said in the name of Eliezer ben Hurcanus of Judaea that Zelophehad's daughters stood before all of them as they were sitting together.

Following the reading of the Masoretic Text, some scholars suspect that the name is derived from a Syriac term meaning "first rupture", in the sense of being a first-born son.

[32] Evidently the regulations preferring male descendants may have come to be disregarded in some respects, as the Book of Job, which textual scholars date to the fourth century BCE, states in its epilogue[33] that Job's daughters were given equal inheritance rights to his sons,[32] and the Karaites always gave daughters the same rights as sons.

[35] The narrative continues by stating that Hashem gave Moses a response to give to the elders, namely that the daughters must each marry someone from the Gilead clan, but they are otherwise unrestricted in their choice;[36] the narrative also states that the general case was to be applied - that inheritances cannot pass between tribes, but instead any female that inherits land is compelled to marry someone from the same clan as her father.

[15] The biblical prohibition of heiresses to commit exogamy was repealed by the classical rabbis;[16][39] Rabbah argued that the rule only applied to the period that Canaan had been divided between the tribes, and had therefore become redundant, especially as the laws concerning the territory were in abeyance anyway, owing to the destruction of the Temple.

[16] Thus in all forms of Judaism following the Oral Law, women are allowed to marry whom they wish, including exogamously, whether they have gained an inheritance or not.