An Inheritance Secured and a Shepherd Appointed

“Then came” is vattiqravnah, “they drew near”, the verb used for approaching the sanctuary. Their pedigree runs six generations back to Joseph, a full lineage given to prove the claim before they speak. It is the same list of five names as 26:33, in the same order.

The door of the tabernacle is where Korah’s two hundred and fifty stood with their censers in 16:18. The same ground now hears a different kind of challenge. The women address five audiences at once, Moses, Eleazar, the princes and the whole congregation, and leave no one unaware of the case.

“Died in his own sin” most likely means the death shared by the whole generation sentenced at Kadesh in 14:29–35, not a crime of his own; that is how most commentators read it. The phrase for Korah’s men, “gathered themselves together”, is the verb of 16:11.

“Be done away” is the Hebrew gara, to be diminished or withheld. It is the verb the unclean men used in 9:7, “wherefore are we kept back”, when they asked about the Passover. Both petitions in Numbers that begin “why should we lose out” end in a new law.

In Hebrew manuscripts the last letter of mishpatan, “their cause”, is written oversized, one of the enlarged letters the scribes preserved. Moses has taken a case to the LORD this way before: the blasphemer in Leviticus 24:12, the unclean men in 9:8, the wood gatherer in 15:34.

The answer comes to Moses alone, although Eleazar the priest stood beside him in verse 2. No lot is cast and no Urim is consulted; this ruling arrives as speech, the same way the laws of Sinai did.

“A possession of an inheritance” stacks two land words, achuzzah and nachalah, a holding and a heritage. The land is to lie “among their father’s brethren”, inside the clan’s own ground, which is exactly what chapter 36 will need to protect.

For the daughter the verb is “cause to pass”, ha’avarta. For the brothers and uncles in the next three verses it is plain “give”. The Talmud (Bava Batra 147a) noticed the difference; in the text itself the daughter carries her father’s holding on, while the others simply receive it.

The order leaves out the widow entirely, and the man’s sisters, and his mother. Israel’s land is kept with the male line of the father’s house, and the daughter is placed ahead of every male relative only because she is his own child.

The father of the dead man is passed over and his brothers named. Rabbinic law (Bava Batra 108a) reasoned that the father must come first, since the brothers inherit through him, but that is an inference; the verse moves straight to the uncles.

“A statute of judgment”, chuqqat mishpat, is a rare pairing that recurs only at 35:29, closing the laws of the cities of refuge. The ruling has passed from a single household’s hearing into the permanent law of Israel, still under the words “as the LORD commanded Moses”.

Abarim means “the regions beyond” or “the crossings”, the range above the plains of Moab. Deuteronomy 32:49 names the peak within it: “this mountain Abarim, unto mount Nebo”. The land is described as already given, in the past tense.

“Gathered unto thy people” is said of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who were buried with kin. Moses will be buried by the LORD in a valley of Moab, and “no man knoweth of his sepulchre” (Deuteronomy 34:6). The phrase means more than a family grave.

The verse puns twice. Meribah means strife, and “the strife of the congregation” is merivat, the same root. “Sanctify me” is lehaqdisheni, and the place is Kadesh, “holy”. The words of 20:13 play on both names, and here the pun turns into a verdict.

Numbers records no protest. Deuteronomy 3:23–26 tells what Moses left out: he pleaded to cross over and see “that goodly mountain, and Lebanon”, and was told, “speak no more unto me of this matter.” In Numbers his first words after the sentence concern someone else.

“The God of the spirits of all flesh” appears in the Bible only here and in 16:22, where Moses and Aaron fell on their faces and used it to plead for the congregation during Korah’s revolt. The one who knows every spirit is asked to pick the right man.

“To go out and to come in” is the idiom of a commander on campaign: said of David leading Saul’s troops (1 Samuel 18:13) and of Caleb, still strong at eighty five (Joshua 14:11). Micaiah will use the shepherdless sheep for a king about to die (1 Kings 22:17).

Laying on the hand, semikhah, is the gesture of Leviticus 1:4, where the worshipper leans a hand on his offering, and of 8:10, where Israel lays hands on the Levites. Joshua has been Moses’ attendant since his youth (11:28) and led the fight against Amalek in Exodus 17.

“In their sight” is literally “before their eyes”, the phrase of verse 14, where Moses failed to sanctify the LORD “before their eyes”. The failure and the handover both happen in public. “Give him a charge” is the verb from which mitsvah, commandment, is formed.

“Honour” is hod, splendour or majesty, a word often used of kings. The Hebrew says “of thine honour”, a share and not the whole. A rabbinic saying (Bava Batra 75a) put it that the face of Moses was like the sun and Joshua’s like the moon.

In the Pentateuch the Urim always comes with the Thummim (Exodus 28:30; Leviticus 8:8; Deuteronomy 33:8), except here, where it stands alone. “At his word” is left open: it may be Eleazar’s word, or the word of the LORD given through him.

Joshua does nothing and says nothing in the chapter. Every verb in his commissioning has Moses as its subject: took, set, laid, charged. The one who will lead Israel across the Jordan receives his office without a line.

The LORD said “thine hand” in verse 18, singular. Moses lays on “his hands”, both of them. Deuteronomy 34:9 remembers it the same way: Joshua “was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands upon him.”