Numbers 36 - Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible

The Law Regarding Heiresses

According to Numbers 27:1-11 it was decided that, if a man left no sons, his daughters might inherit his property. But if the daughters married into another tribe, the property would go with them, and so be alienated from the tribe to which they formerly belonged. If it were sold after their marriage, it would revert at the year of Jubilee, not to the original tribe, but to that into which it had been transferred by marriage. To obviate this diminution of the lands originally assigned to each tribe, it is here enacted that no heiress shall marry outside the tribe of her father.