Numbers 36:11

Summary

Numbers 36:11 lists the five daughters of Zelophehad — Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah — and states that they married sons of their father's brothers, that is, their paternal cousins. The verse closes the narrative that began with the daughters' legal claim to inherited land, confirming that their marriages kept the inheritance within the tribal clan.

Key words

• tihYeinah ("they belonged/became", H1961) — qal verb, feminine plural, narrative form (with the vav prefix) marking this as the next event in the sequence of the account.
• benot ("daughters of", H1323G) — feminine plural construct noun, linking the five names directly to Tzelafechad as their father.
• dodei ("uncles", H1730I) — masculine plural construct noun, meaning paternal uncles; combined with the suffix it specifies whose uncles are meant.
• hen ("their", H9029) — feminine plural pronominal suffix attached to dodei, marking the uncles as belonging to the daughters themselves.
• nashim ("wives", H0802H) — masculine-form plural noun (used for women/wives), completing the phrase "to wives," i.e., "as wives."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure places the verb tihYeinah at the head, followed by the five daughters' names in sequence: Machlah, Tirtzah, Choglah, Milkah, and No'ah, each joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002) except the first. This chain of proper names, all grammatically feminine subjects of the single verb, is then qualified by benot Tzelafechad ("daughters of Zelophehad"), a construct phrase that identifies their paternal lineage before naming the marriage arrangement.

The second half of the verse uses two nested construct chains: li-vnei ("to the sons of") governs dodei ("uncles of"), which itself carries the suffix hen ("their"). This produces the layered expression "to the sons of their uncles," i.e., sons of their father's brothers — the Hebrew way of expressing "paternal cousins" without a single dedicated word for "cousin." The final word le-nashim ("as/for wives") uses the preposition le to mark the resulting status of the daughters after the marriage, a common Hebrew construction for "became wives to" rather than a verb meaning "to marry."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew, LXX, and Vulgate agree on the substance — five named daughters married cousins on the paternal side — but the LXX lists the names in a different order than the Hebrew: Θερσὰ (Tirzah), Ἑγλὰ (Hoglah), Μελχὰ (Milcah), Νουὰ (Noah), Μααλὰ (Mahlah), whereas the Hebrew and Vulgate both begin with Mahlah/Maala. The Vulgate's filiis patrui sui ("to the sons of his/her paternal uncle," singular patrui) slightly compresses the Hebrew's plural dodei ("uncles," plural) into a singular collective sense, while modern renderings like BSB ("cousins on their father's side") and SBLIBRE ("primos, hijos de los hermanos de su padre") unpack the construct chain explicitly as "cousins," a term absent from the Hebrew itself.