You shall speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘If a man dies, and has no son, then you shall cause his inheritance to pass to his daughter.
To adjudicate the laws of inheritance and the order of heirs
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
וְאֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל תְּדַבֵּר לֵאמֹר אִישׁ כִּי־יָמוּת וּבֵן אֵין לוֹ וְהַעֲבַרְתֶּם אֶת־נַחֲלָתוֹ לְבִתּוֹ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שהורנו בדיני נחלות. והוא אמרו יתעלה איש כי ימות ובן אין לו, ומכלל דין זה בלא ספק היות הבכור יורש פי שנים שזה משפט ממשפטי הירושות. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בח' וט' מבתרא. (פינחס, בי"א פרקים בנחלות):
That is that He instructed us about the laws of inheritance. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "‘If a man dies and he has no son" (Numbers 27:8). And included in this law without a doubt is that the first born [son] inherits double, as this is one of the regulations of inheritances. And all the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in [Chapter] 8 and 9 of [Bava] Batra. (See Parashat Pinchas; Mishneh Torah, Inheritances 1-11.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a case law — "if X, then Y"
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Recorded as practiced today
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding
- Conservative Binding, with modification
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite As the catalog records it: binding with divergence
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Sifre Numbers 133 expanded it homiletically
- Numbers Rabbah 21:11-12 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Vita Mosis 2.234-245 The catalog describes this reception as: paraphrase
- De Specialibus Legibus 2.124-139 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 4.7.5 §§174-178 affirmed it
The New Testament
- Galatians 4:1-7 read it allegorically Paul reworks heir/inheritance imagery (klēronomia) into adoption-as-sons soteriology, abstracting the legal institution
- Luke 12:13-14 reinterpreted it Jesus declines to act as inheritance-arbiter (judge/divider), turning the dispute toward a teaching against greed
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 4:11-12 carried a parallel, with divergence
- Q 4:176 carried a parallel, with divergence
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- code of hammurabi inheritance distribution among sons, dowries for daughters, provision for children of concubines Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §§162-184 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- middle assyrian laws widow's and daughter's claims on estate property Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence A §§25-26 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
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Article 15 (equality before law) and Article 16(1)(h) (equal property rights)
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
The Numbers 27:8-11 succession order places daughters in the second tier of inheritance — inheriting only when there are no sons — establishing a sex-based hierarchy of property succession. CEDAW Articles 15 and 16(1)(h) require states to ensure women equal legal capacity and equal rights with respect to ownership and acquisition of property, obligations the sex-stratified succession order directly contests.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
The commandment mandates courts to enforce a succession order in which biological sex determines priority of inheritance; sons categorically precede daughters regardless of individual circumstances. Modern gender-equality norms reject sex as a ground for differential property rights, making the biblical succession hierarchy structurally incompatible with equal-treatment principles even though the Zelophehad ruling extended limited inheritance rights to daughters.