Numbers 27:8-
And give the following instructions to the people of Israel: If a man dies and has no son, then give his inheritance to his daughters.
This is an interesting chapter with two distinct subjects. One is the claims of inheritance and the other is assigning Joshua as the successor to Moses. I honestly was going to take on Moses not getting to enjoy the promised lands in 12-14, but decided that was too “heavy” of a subject today. So we will dive into inheritance and how it applies today.
Mosaic Law gives a man’s inheritance to his sons, but in this case Zelophehad only had daughters. The 5 daughters petitioned Moses to give them their fathers “portion” of land. God replied accepting their petition and allowed the women their fathers “portion” of land. They also expanded who was to get their inheritance if there were no sons or daughters. It’s an interesting read since after the daughters, the next in sequence are brothers. There is no more mention of sisters, wives or aunts.
It’s easy to see how many women today get offended in reading the Old Testament in today’s society. Men often take much of the OT and make it an argument for male superiority. It goes back to Adam, the argument goes Eve was tempted first and therefore was weaker. But Adam was actually the weakest; he listened to his wife where she was deceived by the master of deception! Also, society was very male oriented, but God shows here that women hold an important part in society.
Today most brothers and sisters would split the inheritance evenly. Now one must consider then the “inheritance” was most likely a business or a farm and not just money, investments and a house as most are today. If you look at it that way the “inheritance” is actually something that they would most likely be “working” already and therefore would pass more to the males than the females. The accepted practice was the brothers are to care for the sisters until they married. One of the more complex aspects of life is death and what happens to your stuff afterwards, hence why today we need wills!