Seventh-day Adventist Bible CommentaryNumbers 36

The children of Gilead. These people represented the other half of the tribe of Manasseh, who had not been settled on the east side of Jordan, in the land of Gilead, but who were to receive their inheritance in the land of Canaan. Spake before Moses. This was a meeting with Moses in a large assembly (see ch. 27:2).

By lot. See ch. 26:52–55.

Taken from the inheritance of our fathers. This was a desire to prevent constant change in tribal boundaries, owing to the possessions of the women passing to their children through husbands of another tribe.

Jubile. Literally, “a ram’s horn,” because such a horn was blown on the tenth day of the seventh month, to inaugurate the year of jubilee (see Lev. 25:10–15, 28, 30–33, 40, 50–54; Joshua 6:4–13).

Only to the family. Two limitations were given. Women without brothers were not to marry men of other tribes, nor men of another branch of the same tribe. These two precautions would preserve the families and the inheritances, so important in the Israelite economy.

Father’s brothers’ sons. That is, their cousins, the sons of their paternal uncles (see 1 Chron. 23:22).

These are the commandments. This subscription probably refers to the whole book of Numbers (see Lev. 27:34), including particularly its precepts of worship (chs. 28 to 30) and its civil regulations (chs. 27:11; 35:29).