Numbers 27:7

Summary

Numbers 27:7 records the divine response affirming the claim of Zelophehad's daughters: their request is declared correct, and an explicit command follows that they be given a landed inheritance among their father's brothers, with their father's portion transferred to them.

Key words

• Ken ("right", H3651A) — an adjective standing alone at the head of the sentence, functioning as a verdict: the daughters' prior speech is judged correct.
• doverot ("speaking", H1696G) — feminine plural qal participle, describing the daughters as ongoing agents of speech ("the ones speaking"), linking the judgment ken directly to their words.
• Naton titten ("certainly / you will give", H5414G) — infinitive absolute + imperfect of the same root, a construction that intensifies the verb: not merely "you will give" but "you shall surely give."
• ha'avarta ("you will make pass over", H5674A) — hiphil sequential perfect (causative), continuing the command chain begun by titten, describing the causative act of transferring property.
• avihem / avihen ("their father", H0001G with H9038 masc. vs. H9029/H9039 fem. suffixes) — the same noun "father" appears twice with different gender suffixes, once attached to the brothers (masculine referent) and once attached to the daughters (feminine referent).

What the text says

The verse opens with the single adjective ken ("right", H3651A) placed before its subject, functioning almost as an interjection of approval, followed by benot Tzelofchad doverot — "the daughters of Zelophehad [are] speaking" — using a participle rather than a finite verb, which frames their claim as an ongoing, valid statement rather than a completed past act. The command that follows uses the infinitive absolute plus imperfect pattern (naton titten), a common Hebrew device that adds emphasis to the verb "to give" (H5414G), rendered in the English versions as "certainly must give" or "surely give." The sequential perfect ha'avarta ("you will make pass over", H5674A) then continues the instruction as a second, causative action: not just granting new possession but transferring an existing inheritance. Notably, the noun "father" (H0001G) occurs twice with different pronominal suffixes — masculine -hem when referring to "their father" in relation to the brothers, and feminine -hen when referring to "their father" in relation to the daughters — reflecting grammatical agreement with the differing referents in each clause.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint text supplied (δόμα δώσεις αὐταῖς κληρονομίας…) mirrors the Hebrew's infinitive-absolute-plus-verb intensification (δόμα δώσεις, "a gift you will give") but the excerpt given does not include a rendering corresponding to ken ("right") and doverot ("speaking"), the clause affirming the daughters' correctness. The Vulgate text provided ("Ad filios autem Israël loqueris hæc") does not correspond in content to the Hebrew of this verse.