ותקרבנה בנות צלפחד בן חפר, “The daughters of Tz’lofchod son of Chefer, approached; when they realised that only the males were being counted preparatory to the division of the land in the Land of Israel, including those of the family of Chefer, but not including them, and Tz’lofchod their father had also not been included.

והוא לא היה בתוך העדה, “and he had not been among the rebels in the uprising of Korach against Moses;” neither had he been twenty years of age when the debacle with the spies had occurred, so that he could not have been included in the Israelites that G-d had vowed that they would not live to take part in the conquest on the land of Canaan at the appointed time. He had died as the result of a very personal sin, none that would result in his being denied a claim to ancestral land in the Land lof Israel.

ויקרב משה את משפטן, “he submitted their legal claim to G-d;” Moses knew that women are entitled to inherit. What he did not know or agreed with, was if people such as Tz’lofchod had only a potential claim to such land, and that seeing that he never set foot on the land that he was still entitled to pass on that claim to his daughters.

נתון תתן להם נחלה, “you are certainly to give them ancestral land as their inheritance.” It was really the inheritance of their father.

בתוך אחי אביהם, “among the inheritance of their father’s brothers, i.e. this was all a part of their grandfather’s inheritance.

להם אחוזת נחלה בתוך אחי אביהם, this is already thefourth time that the Torah refers to the daughters of Tz’lofchod with the masculine pronoun instead of the feminine one. [Note that Moses does not refer to them with the masculine pronoun ending. Ed.

עלה אל הר העברים, “ascend the Mount Avarim!;” what is missing before this verse is that Moses had prayed to cross the Jordan in order to see the Holy and, and that G-d had told him that he would see it only from afar, i.e. from the top of Mount Avarim. [Compare Deuteronomy 3,23, Ed.]

כאשר נאסף אהרן אחיך, “just as your brother Aaron has been gathered.” G-d refers to the reason of their dying before entering the Holy Land, not to the manner of their death, [seeing that Moses had buried his brother Aaron, whereas no one was present at his own death.] Their “premature” death had been due to their having failed to exploit an opportunity to sanctify the Holy Name of Hashem. (Numbers 20,12). This is what Rashi comments on our verse. He adds that this verse is really not at the place where we would have expected it. It really belonged to the portion of Haazinu, where the Torah describes the sin of Moses and Aaron in different terms, [i.e. violating a negative commandment not just failing to observe a positive commandment. (Compare Deuteronomy 32,51)] According to the commentary in Sifri, the verse is appropriate here as the sin Moses and Aaron had been guilty of occurred in the desert of Tzin, immediately after Miriam had died and been buried, not in the fields of Moav where Moses made his final speech to the nation. Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar is on record as saying that both Moses and Aaron died prematurely as a result of failing to sanctify the name of G-d as stated in Numbers 20. It is possible that out of deference to the image of Moses and Aaron, Rashi preferred not to mention the statement of Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar. He only quoted the last item in that comment by Sifri.

ה' אלוקי הרוחות לכל בשר, “Lord, G-d of the spirits of all flesh;” compare Ezekiel 1,12 for a better understanding of this expression; Moses describes G-d as inspiring the spirit in man to proceed with any worthwhile undertaking and to persevere in pursuing it undaunted.

ונתתה מהודן עליו, “and you shall divert part of your majesty to him;” we find a similar formulation to this in Daniel 11,21: ולא נתנו עליו הוד מלכות, “upon whom they did not confer the majesty of kingship.” Moses is asked by G-d to honour Joshua publicly as his successor, so that the people will accept him as such and will obey his instructions.

ולפני אלעזר הכהן יעמוד, “and he will stand in the presence of the High Priest Elazar;” so that he will not consider himself as superior to him and become boastful.

ויסמוך את ידיו, “he laid his hands upon him.” This was similar to people offering animal sacrifices placing their hands and weight on these animals prior to their being slaughtered. The owner of the animals symbolically transferred his essence to the animal which would take his place instead, seeing that he really should have been the sacrifice. From this action it became clear that Moses transferred his authority to Joshua willingly, as instead of placing only one hand on him as G-d had commanded him, he did so with both of his hands. [Army commanders in the future would also be appointed by their superiors placing their hands on their juniors when promoting them. Compare author on Numbers 2,2.]