Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/1295

 before the death of the high priest, by the payment of a money compensation.

Verse 33
The Israelites were not to desecrate their land by sparing the murderer; as blood, i.e., bloodshed or murder, desecrated the land, and there was no expiation (יכפּר) to the land for the blood that was shed in it, except through the blood of the man who had shed it, i.e., through the execution of the murderer, by which justice would be satisfied.

Verse 34
And they were not to desecrate the land in which they dwelt by tolerating murderers, because Jehovah, the Holy One, dwelt in it, among the children of Israel (cf. Lev 18:25.). =Chap. 36=

verses 1-3
The occasion for this law was a representation made to Moses and the princes of the congregation by the heads of the fathers' houses (האבות for בּית־האבות, as in Exo 6:25, etc.) of the family of Gilead the Manassite, to which Zelophehad (Num 26:33) belonged, to the effect that, by allotting an hereditary possession to the daughters of Zelophehad, the tribe-territory assigned to the Manassites would be diminished if they should marry into another tribe. They founded their appeal upon the command of Jehovah, that the land was to be distributed by lot among the Israelites for an inheritance (Num 36:2 compared with Num 26:55-56, and Num 33:54); and although it is not expressly stated, yet on the ground of the promise of the everlasting possession of Canaan (Gen 17:8), and the provision made by the law, that an inheritance was not to be alienated (Lev 25:10, Lev 25:13, Lev 25:23.), they understood it as signifying that the portion assigned to each tribe was to continue unchanged to all generations. (The singular pronoun, my Lord, in Num 36:2, refers to the speaker, as in Num 32:27.) Now, as the inheritance of their brother, i.e., their tribe-mate Zelophehad, had been given to his daughters (Num 27:1), if they should be chosen as wives by any of the children of the (other) tribes of Israel, i.e., should marry into another tribe, their inheritance would be taken away from the tribe-territory of Manasseh, and would be added to that of the tribe into which they were received. The suffix להם (Num 36:3) refers ad sensum to מטּה, the tribe regarded according to its members.

Verse 4
And when the year of jubilee came round (see Lev 25:10), their inheritance would be entirely withdrawn from the tribe of Manasseh. Strictly speaking, the hereditary property would pass at once, when the marriage took