The Daughters of Zelophehad: Biblical Women’s Rights Activists (?)

Some scholars have looked to the daughters of Zelophehad as “proto-feminists,” the first women to take an active role in suing for women’s rights.¹ But as Jacob Milgrom expresses it, what needs to be explained is why the Hebrew Bible should prove anomalous in having failed to include inheritance rights for women, thereby requiring the story of Zelophehad’s daughters.² It might have been assumed that inheritance rights for women, like so many other legal principles, were part of an “oral legal tradition” — in effect even though never recorded in writing. But if that had been the case, the contentious character of these Numbers passages would have been altogether unnecessary. Consequently, a dominant scholarly trend concludes, on the basis of Numbers 27 and 36, that neither oral nor written legal dicta were sufficient to resolve this conflict.

This passage is a powerful example of leadership. God stated clearly that the plea of the daughters is just and requires an addendum to the law of inheritance promulgated in the Torah. Yet, far from being limited only to Zelophehad and his daughters, this expanded law would now apply to all of Israel. Granted, sons would still be considered the natural heirs, but if the deceased did not have sons, the daughters would become the heirs, empowered to perpetuate the name of the deceased for generations to come.

Background

A major portion of an ancient Near Eastern estate consisted of real property,³ the inheritance of which generally contained several common elements. The estate of the deceased was initially held in common by the heirs, designated either according to custom or to a testament.⁴ The heirs had the option to either continue holding the estate in common or to distribute it, a process accomplished by casting lots.⁵ In a number of cultures, the “heir of first rank,” usually the eldest son, would inherit a double portion.⁶

Widows did not traditionally inherit, but at times could benefit from pre-death bequests, stipulations in marriage contracts, or the deceased’s testament; this inheritance generally passed to the children of her deceased spouse upon her death. In some cases she was given the authority to designate the recipient(s) or otherwise disinherit an heir (Num. 27:5–10).⁷

Some ancient Near Eastern laws provide for a woman’s inheritance. The Laws of Hammurabi (178, 181) stipulate arrangements for a daughter to receive support from her father’s estate through her brothers when no explicit right of disposal was granted her. Under certain circumstances the children of a concubine could also inherit, generally only if the lawful wife had not provided descendants (Laws of Lipit Ishtar 25, 27; Assyrian Laws 41; Laws of Hammurabi 170-71).⁸

Land was a family’s most important economic asset. It could be bought and sold, but inherited land was special: if a family sold inherited land for its full price, ownership passed permanently to the buyer, but if sold at a lower price due to hardship, family members were generally allowed to redeem it at a similarly low price (see, for example, the story of Naomi’s land in Ruth 4).

As I have written elsewhere,⁹ the only inheritance right given to women in the Bible is when there are no sons — but these rights were anticipated in Mesopotamia by a millennium.¹⁰ Since Mesopotamian women could own property, there was no bar to a woman inheriting; various passages in the Laws of Hammurabi imply that daughters at times shared in the paternal estate along with sons.¹¹

The differences in the laws seem to reflect a difference in the makeup of the respective societies. The Bible, in its earliest stages, presumes a tightly knit clan structure whose foremost goal was the preservation of the clan. Biblical law rests upon a strict patrilineal principle of inheritance that prevents the transfer of land via the daughter to the clan of her husband. By contrast, Israel’s neighbors were already centralized urban societies even when their earliest laws were promulgated, and the clan structure, if it had once existed, seems to have disappeared.

There are some biblical narrative exceptions to patrilineal inheritance: Micah inherited from his widowed mother (Judg. 17:1–4); Naomi was permitted to sell the property of her deceased husband (Ruth 4:3); and Job’s daughters inherited along with his sons (Job 42:15) — though strictly speaking this last is not a case of inheritance at all, since Job gave his daughters estates during his lifetime.

The Elephantine Papyri, a cache of texts from the Nile-island settlement of Elephantine dating from the mid-third millennium BCE to the tenth century CE, offer a close look at women’s inheritance rights in a post-exilic Jewish community. One document, the “Mibtahiah archive,” concerns a wealthy fifth-century BCE Elephantine woman who received property directly from her father as dowry at the time of her marriages — bypassing the biblical ruling that daughters could not inherit if there were sons.¹² Her second marriage contract, a “document of wifehood,” stipulated that the surviving spouse would inherit the property upon either party’s death, and that either party could initiate divorce — a right documented in several ancient Near Eastern laws but not in the Bible.¹³

Zelophehad’s Daughters’ Contribution to Inheritance Laws

The story of the daughters of Zelophehad and their request for equal rights of inheritance in the patriarchal society of biblical Israel has stimulated a great deal of discussion among modern biblical scholars.¹⁴ It provides legitimation of a limited right of Israelite women to inherit land, encapsulates the challenges women faced in affirming their rights with dignity, and places specific marriage restrictions upon any women who inherit under this right. The story presumes a culture that recognizes a connection between landholding and preservation of a male name in a family lineage, while simultaneously offering relief to men who have the misfortune, from the Bible’s perspective, of having no sons.

Biblical women, heirs to Egyptian slavery and then bound by law that frequently favored men, usually reacted by keeping silent and accepting as natural the rule decreed for them to follow. So how and why did Zelophehad’s daughters write a new chapter in history? First, they dared to “go out” from their living place, from their social space, from the destiny imposed on them.

Second, they approached Moses. The way in which the daughters approached Moses and the chieftains is significant. Rather than expressing rage and aggression, as Korah’s group did, their language is nuanced: they come close (Num. 27:1) and stand before (Num. 27:2) the leaders of Israel. Once before these elders, they explain their case, first defusing any residual tension related to Korah’s uprising (stating clearly that their father was not involved) and second, stating their cause in a convincing and evenhanded way: Our father died in the wilderness. He was not one of the faction, Korah’s faction, which banded together against God but died for his own sin; and he has left no sons. Let not our father’s name be lost to his clan just because he had no son! Give us a holding among our father’s kinsmen! (Num. 27:3-4).

As a result, the following general rules of inheritance were laid down by Moses: If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter. And if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren . . . (Num. 27:8-11). Brief though this law is, it allowed sufficient latitude for interpretation, establishing four degrees of hereditary succession: son, daughter, brother, and father’s brother. In the case of the daughter, it is stated that when she becomes heir of her father’s estate, she shall marry within her own clan (Num. 36:6-7) — a restriction later repealed by the Rabbis (TB Ta’anit 30b; TB Baba Batra 120a).

These women knew their law and history. They used the fact that their father was not involved in Korah’s rebellion as evidence to support their claim to the land, and they recognized that the current law did not account for the unusual circumstance of a man without sons. Moses consulted with God, and their request established an official precedent that when a father leaves no male progeny, daughters should inherit the family portion.

The story continues in Numbers 36:1-12, when the Gileadites expressed concern that when these women married, their husbands and sons would inherit the land, transferring it to another tribe’s territory. Moses accepted this concern and added a requirement that the daughters of Zelophehad marry men from their own tribe, so that the tribal land would stay in the same tribe — an arrangement paralleled by the story of Achsah (I Chron. 2:49; Josh. 15:16-19; Judg. 1:9-15).

The daughters did marry within their clan and eventually received their inheritance (Josh. 17:3-6), appearing before Joshua and Eleazar the priest after the conquest to claim their promised portion.

The Talmud holds that Zelophehad’s daughters were wise (chachamot), astute interpreters (darshaniyot), and pious (rachmaniyot): wise, because they spoke at the precise moment the decision was issued; interpreters, because they in essence argued that had their father had a son, they would not have spoken, since he would have inherited; and pious, because they refused to marry men who were unworthy (TB Baba Batra 119b). The Talmud cites two rabbinic opinions as to the nature of Zelophehad’s own sin — that he was among the ma’apilim who tried to storm the land after the sin of the spies, or that he was the unnamed man executed for gathering wood on Shabbat (Num. 15:32–36) — both agreeing that his intentions, however mistaken, were good (TB Shabbat 96b; TB Baba Batra 119b).

Conclusion

The easier path for the daughters would have been to shy away from confrontation, resigning themselves to being collateral damage of a patriarchal law and their parents’ inability to have sons. Rather, a sense of injustice enabled them to confront both divine and human leadership. Moses, too, could have simply restated the existing law rather than acknowledging a gap in his own knowledge; instead, he recognized his shortcomings and placed the matter in God’s hands. As British biblical scholar Philip Budd writes, “Theologically, the section presses the rights of women to a clear and recognized legal position within the sphere of property law. They are seen as a proper channel through which the threads of possession and inheritance may properly be traced.”¹⁵ God’s decision inspires hope for a better future, not only for the daughters but for all who will come after them and find themselves in the same position.