Numbers 36:3
וְהָיוּ לְאֶחָד מִבְּנֵי שִׁבְטֵי בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵל לְנָשִׁים וְנִגְרְעָה נַחֲלָתָן מִנַּחֲלַת אֲבֹתֵינוּ וְנוֹסַף עַל נַחֲלַת הַמַּטֶּה אֲשֶׁר תִּהְיֶינָה לָהֶם וּמִגֹּרַל נַחֲלָתֵנוּ יִגָּרֵֽעַ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְ֠הָיוּ לְאֶחָ֞ד מִבְּנֵ֨י שִׁבְטֵ֥י בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵל֮ לְנָשִׁים֒ וְנִגְרְעָ֤ה נַחֲלָתָן֙ מִנַּחֲלַ֣ת אֲבֹתֵ֔ינוּ וְנוֹסַ֕ף עַ֚ל נַחֲלַ֣ת הַמַּטֶּ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר תִּהְיֶ֖ינָה לָהֶ֑ם וּמִגֹּרַ֥ל נַחֲלָתֵ֖נוּ יִגָּרֵֽעַ׃
καὶ ἔσονται ἑνὶ τῶν φυλῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ γυναῖκες, καὶ ἀφαιρεθήσεται ὁ κλῆρος αὐτῶν ἐκ τῆς κατασχέσεως τῶν πατέρων ἡμῶν, καὶ προστεθήσεται εἰς κληρονομίαν τῆς φυλῆς οἷς ἆν γένωνται γυναῖκες, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ κλήρου τῆς κληρονομίας ἡμῶν ἀφαιρεθήσεται.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
quas si alterius tribus homines uxores acceperint, sequetur possessio sua, et translata ad aliam tribum, de nostra hæreditate minuetur.
Pero, si ellas se casan con hombres de otras tribus de Israel, la tierra que heredaron será restada de nuestra propiedad familiar y pasará a ser parte de la tribu con la que se casen. De esta manera, esa porción desaparecerá de la tierra que nos tocó en suerte.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Las cuales, si se casaren con algunos de los hijos de las otras tribus de los hijos de Israel, la herencia de ellas será así desfalcada de la herencia de nuestros padres, y será añadida á la herencia de la tribu á que serán unidas: y será quitada de la suerte de nuestra heredad.
But if they marry any of the men from the other tribes of Israel, their inheritance will be withdrawn from the portion of our fathers and added to the tribe into which they marry. So our allotted inheritance would be taken away.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse presents the concern of the tribal leaders: if the daughters of Zelophehad marry men from other tribes of Israel, their inherited land will pass out of their father's tribe and into whichever tribe they marry into, reducing the ancestral allotment.
Key words
- nig're'ah ("it will be withdrawn", H1639) — niphal (passive) sequential perfect, feminine singular; the inheritance is the grammatical subject of a passive action, it "gets withdrawn" rather than being withdrawn by a named agent.
- nachalatan ("their inheritance", H5159 + suffix) — feminine singular construct with 3rd person feminine plural suffix, referring back to the daughters; the land is grammatically tied to them as possessors.
- noSaf ("it will be added", H3254) — niphal sequential perfect, masculine singular, paired antithetically with nig're'ah: one tribe's loss is expressed as another tribe's gain, both in passive voice.
- tihYeinah ("they will belong", H1961) — qal imperfect, 3rd feminine plural, referring to the daughters becoming wives; imperfect aspect marks this as a future/ongoing hypothetical condition.
- yigaRea' ("it will be withdrawn", H1639) — niphal imperfect, masculine singular, same root as nig're'ah but now describing the goral ("lot", H1486) of inheritance rather than the inheritance itself, forming a closing frame with the opening verb.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence structure is built on paired sequential perfects (ve-hayu, ve-nig're'ah, ve-nosaf) that narrate a hypothetical chain of consequences: the daughters "become" (hayu) wives to men from other tribes, their inheritance "is withdrawn" (nig're'ah) from the paternal inheritance, and it "is added" (nosaf) to the receiving tribe's inheritance. All three key verbs — nig're'ah, nosaf, and the closing yigare'a' — are niphal forms, meaning the land itself is the grammatical subject undergoing withdrawal or addition; no human agent is named as the one who removes or transfers the land. This passive construction places focus on the land's movement rather than on any person's action.
The verse closes by returning to the same root ga'ar (H1639) used at the start, now in imperfect aspect (yigare'a') applied to goral nachalatenu ("the lot of our inheritance", H1486 + H5159), forming an inclusio that frames the entire hypothetical scenario as a threat specifically to the tribal lot — the allotted portion — not merely to abstract property.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders mibbenei shivtei benei-Yisrael ("from the sons of the tribes of the sons of Israel") more simply as τῶν φυλῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ ("of the tribes of the sons of Israel"), omitting the layered construct chain with benei ("sons of") twice. The Vulgate paraphrases the passive Hebrew verbs (nig're'ah, nosaf) into active/different constructions — "sequetur possessio sua" ("their possession will follow") and "translata ad aliam tribum" ("transferred to another tribe") — shifting from the Hebrew's impersonal passive framing toward a more narrative description of transfer.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.