Original Douay–Rheims AnnotationsNumbers 36

Distribution of lots.

^◦ By reason of two former laws, the one (Levit. 25.) providing that inheritance of lands should not be sold, nor otherwise alienated, but until the Jubilee year, and then return to him, or his heirs, to whom it pertained before; the other (Num. 27.) ordaining that for lack of a son, daughters should inherit; this difficulty did rise, in case an inheritrix did marry a man of another tribe, her lands by that means should pass from tribe to tribe, and not be restored in the Jubilee year. For avoiding of which inconvenience a further law is made, that none shall marry out of their own tribe.

Nevertheless the tribe of Levi made marriage with the tribe of Juda: as appeareth by that Zachary the Priest married Elizabeth cousin to our B. Lady of the tribe of Juda ^[1]; though in the old Testament there is no such express dispensation, nor explication of the law, but by ^[2] tradition was holden for lawful and practised by so holy a man as Zachary. And not without mystery (as S. Augustin noteth li. 2. c. 2. de consen. Evang. ) for that Christ the Anointed of God, was prefigured by the anointing of kings and Priests ^[3], and born of the royal and priestly tribes, being both a King and a Priest.

• 1 Luc. 1. v. 36.
• 2 Tradition.
• 3 Christ a King and a Priest.
• ◦ Restraint in Marriages also for a temporal cause.