John Calvin Complete Commentary - Numbers 36:2 - 36:2

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John Calvin Complete Commentary - Numbers 36:2 - 36:2


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2.And they said, The Lord commanded my lord. They here allege a kind of discrepancy, in that the tribes had had the land allotted to them agreeably to God’ command, but now their lots would be thrown into confusion, when the inheritance should pass over to another tribe. They assume it, however, to be an acknowledged impossibility, that God should be inconsistent with Himself: hence it was necessary that an interpretation should be delivered in order to remove the legal contradiction ( ἀντινομίαν The Law of God, say they, which ought to remain inviolable, enjoins that the land should be distxibuted by lot; how, then, will it accord that women should carry elsewhere the inheritance of their own tribe? Thus, in seeking a remedy for this evil, they submit themselves to God’ governance, and reverently accept what He had prescribed. And further, they enlarge upon the absurdity which would arisen from hence; viz., that in the fiftieth year, when they were to return to their original lots, so much would be withdrawn from the portion of the tribe of Manasseh as the daughters of Zelophehad had taken away with them. Reasonably, therefore, do they demand that a decree should be given to reconcile the two former laws, which otherwise appeared to be at variance with each other.