Numbers 36:12

Summary

The verse concludes the narrative of Zelophehad's daughters, stating that they married within the clans of the descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph, and that as a result their inheritance remained attached to their father's tribe and clan.

Key words

• mishpechot ("clans of", H4940) — feminine plural construct, opening a chain of nested genitives (clans of the descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph) that identifies precisely which group the women married into.
• hayu ("they became", H1961) — qal perfect, combined with the preposition le ("into", H9005) before nashim ("wives", H0802H); this construction hayu le- functions as an idiom meaning "became [as] wives," i.e., "were married."
• tehi ("it was", H1961) — same root as hayu but in narrative (wayyiqtol) form, marking the logical/temporal consequence: because they married within the clan, "then" the inheritance stayed put.
• nachalatan ("their inheritance", H5159) — feminine singular construct with the 3rd person feminine plural suffix -n (H9029), grammatically tying the inheritance directly to "them" (the daughters).
• matteh mishpachat avihen ("tribe of the clan of their father") — another construct chain (matteh construct + mishpachat construct + avi construct + suffix -hen), stacking tribe, clan, and father into one phrase to specify the exact ancestral unit that retained the land.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built almost entirely from construct chains, a feature that concentrates genealogical precision into a small space. The first half of the verse — mi-mishpechot benei-Menasheh ven-Yosef — links four terms in sequence (clans / descendants / Manasseh / son of Joseph) to specify not just any marriage but marriage within the paternal clan structure. The verb pair hayu le-nashim ("they became as wives") is a common Hebrew idiom for marrying, distinct from a verb meaning simply "to marry"; it frames the women as entering a state (becoming wives) rather than performing an action.

The second clause uses the narrative wayyiqtol form tehi to present the outcome as a direct sequel to the marriages: because the daughters married within their father's clan, "their inheritance" (nachalatan, with the feminine plural suffix agreeing with the daughters) stayed al-matteh mishpachat avihen — "with/upon the tribe of the clan of their father." This final construct chain again nests tribe within clan within father, reinforcing that the land remained inside the smallest and most specific ancestral unit, not merely within Manasseh's tribe broadly.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew uses the plural mishpechot ("clans") for the group they married into, while both the LXX (tou dēmou, singular "clan/people") and the Vulgate (de familia, singular "family") render this as singular. The Vulgate also adds an explanatory clause, "quæ illis fuerat attributa" ("which had been assigned to them"), specifying that the inheritance had previously been allotted — a clarification not present as a separate clause in the Hebrew wording of this verse.