Husbands Inherit, Wives Do Not: A Legitimate Biblical Exegesis?

In the modern world, when a person dies, the most common heir is the spouse. Yet in the Torah, spouses do not even appear in the succession order for inherited property. The laws of inheritance are found in the case story of Zelophehad, who dies in the wilderness without a son to inherit from him. His daughters ask Moses to name them as the heirs, and God rules in their favor. He then adds:

‏^{במדבר כז:ח} וְאֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל תְּדַבֵּר לֵאמֹר אִישׁ כִּי יָמוּת וּבֵן אֵין לוֹ וְהַעֲבַרְתֶּם אֶת נַחֲלָתוֹ לְבִתּוֹ. ^כז:ט וְאִם אֵין לוֹ בַּת וּנְתַתֶּם אֶת נַחֲלָתוֹ לְאֶחָיו. ^כז:י וְאִם אֵין לוֹ אַחִים וּנְתַתֶּם אֶת נַחֲלָתוֹ לַאֲחֵי אָבִיו.

^{Num 27:8} “Further, speak to the Israelite people as follows: ‘When a man dies without leaving a son, then you shall transfer his property to his daughter.^{[1] 27:9} If he has no daughter, then you shall assign his property to his brothers. ^27:10 If he has no brothers, then you shall assign his property to his father’s brothers.’”^[2]

The Talmud makes clear that this list hardly covers all possibilities. For example, since the deceased’s father’s brothers are potential heirs, obviously the deceased’s father has the right to inherit, even though he is not explicitly mentioned:

^{בבלי בבא בתרא קט.} אַחֵי הָאָב מִכֹּחַ מַאן קָא אָתוּ? מִכֹּחַ אָב. קָאֵי אָב קָא יָרְתִי אַחֵי הָאָב?

^{b. Baba Batra 109a} By what power do the father’s brothers inherit? Through the power of the father. If the father were alive, would his brothers be the heirs?

Through a very close midrashic reading of the text of these verses,^[3] the Talmud rules that when a man dies, the order of inheritance is:

1. his son(s);
2. his daughter(s);
3. his grandchild(ren);
4. his father;
5. his brother(s);
6. his paternal uncle(s).^[4]

The story of Zelophehad’s daughters makes clear that women, both single and married, could own property, but the Torah only lists blood relatives as potential heirs. What about spouses?

How Do We Know that a Husband Inherits?

In the Torah, if the deceased has neither daughters nor brothers nor paternal uncles, then his שְׁאֵר הַקָּרֹב אֵלָיו, the closest blood relative, should inherit:

^{במדבר כז:יא} וְאִם אֵין אַחִים לְאָבִיו וּנְתַתֶּם אֶת נַחֲלָתוֹ לִשְׁאֵרוֹ הַקָּרֹב אֵלָיו מִמִּשְׁפַּחְתּוֹ וְיָרַשׁ אֹתָהּ וְהָיְתָה לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְחֻקַּת מִשְׁפָּט כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְ־הוָה אֶת מֹשֶׁה.

^{Num 27:11} “‘If his father had no brothers, then you shall assign his property to his nearest relative in his own clan, who shall inherit it.’ This shall be the law of procedure for the Israelites, in accordance with YHWH’s command to Moses.”

The Talmud, however, interprets the word שְׁאֵרוֹ, “his relative,” as meaning “his wife” and, even though this approach does not yield a coherent reading of the verse, it understands that a husband is first to inherit from his wife:^[5]

^{בבלי בבא בתרא קיא:} "וְהָאִישׁ [יוֹרֵשׁ] אֶת אִשְׁתּוֹ" וְכוּ׳. מְנָהָנֵי מִילֵּי דְּתָנוּ רַבָּנַן "שְׁאֵרוֹ" זוֹ אִשְׁתּוֹ מְלַמֵּד שֶׁהַבַּעַל יוֹרֵשׁ אֶת אִשְׁתּוֹ ; יָכוֹל אַף הִיא תִּירָשֶׁנּוּ תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר "וְיָרַשׁ אוֹתָהּ" הוּא יוֹרֵשׁ אוֹתָהּ וְאֵין הִיא יוֹרֶשֶׁת אוֹתוֹ.

^{b. Baba Batra 111b} “A man [inherits] from his wife”: How do we know this? As the rabbis taught: שְׁאֵרוֹ means “his wife,” teaching us that a husband inherits from his [deceased] wife. Could it be that she [a wife] also inherits from him [her deceased husband]? That is why the text says וְיָרַשׁ אוֹתָהּ [understanding אוֹתָהּ as meaning “he shall inherit from her,” i.e. his wife, and not “he shall inherit it,” i.e. the property (Hebrew נחלה is feminine)]; he inherits from her, but she does not inherit from him.

The Talmud recognizes that if a wife is שְׁאֵר, then a husband should be as well, but it reads the phrase, וְיָרַשׁ אֹתָהּ, to exclude the wife; only a man inherits from his שְׁאֵר, that is, his wife.^[6] The rabbis instead initiated the ketubbah^[7] as a guaranteed payment to all widows, defining it as a debt of the dead husband to be paid to the widow from the estate before any heir gets a share.

Nothing about this reading is straightforward. Even in the Babylonian Talmud itself, the rabbis scratch their heads about the claim that this verse could be the source for the rule that a husband inherits. They wonder:

^{בבלי בבא בתרא קיא:} וְהָא קְרָאֵי לָאו הָכִי כְּתִיבִי.

^{b. Baba Batra 111b} But that is not what the verses say!

שְׁאֵר refers to blood kin, not to a wife.^[8] In addition, reading the phrase וְיָרַשׁ אוֹתָהּ in context, אוֹתָהּ must mean he shall inherit “it,” not “her.” (The pronoun “her” makes sense only following a noun that refers to some woman. No woman is mentioned in verses 10–11.)

And when one rabbi proposes reading the words in a different order to make them mean what the Talmud says they mean, his colleague objects:

^{בבלי בבא בתרא קיא:} סַכִּינָא חֲרִיפָא מַפְסְקָא קְרָאֵי.

^{b. Baba Batra 111b} You are chopping up the verses with a sharp knife!

Verses Have More than One Interpretation: Rashi

It is hard to dispute the sages’ criticism—“That is not what the verses say!” Rashi (1040–1105), the great Northern French Talmudist and Bible commentator, however, explains the Talmud’s exegesis. He begins by identifying the source for the rabbis’ assertion that the law is biblical:

^{רש״י בבלי כתובות פג.} ...ירושת הבעל דאורייתא ובבבא בתרא נפקא לן מהאי קרא לשארו הקרוב אליו ממשפחתו וירש אותה

^{Rashi b. Ket 83a} ...according to Torah law, a husband inherits from his wife. In Baba Batra, we learn this from the verse, לשארו הקרוב אליו ממשפחתו וירש אותה [“to his nearest relative in his own clan, who shall inherit it”].

האי וירש אותה יתירא הוא לדרשא שהאיש יורש את שארו ושארו זו אשתו

The words וירש אותה [“who shall inherit it”] are superfluous. They are [written in the verse] to teach us that a man inherits from his שְׁאֵר, i.e., his wife.

Rashi here is pointing out that if we compare the apodoses (the “then clauses”) of the four verses that provide the Torah’s succession order for heirs (Num 27:8–11), our verse contains one added phrase, וְיָרַשׁ אֹתָהּ, “who shall inherit it,” that serves no apparent purpose:

^{במדבר כז:ח} כִּי...וְהַעֲבַרְתֶּם אֶת נַחֲלָתוֹ לְבִתּוֹ.

^{Num 27:8} when..., then you shall transfer his property to his daughter.

^כז:ט וְאִם...וּנְתַתֶּם אֶת נַחֲלָתוֹ לְאֶחָיו.

^27:9 if..., then you shall assign his property to his brothers.

^כז:י וְאִם...וּנְתַתֶּם אֶת נַחֲלָתוֹ לַאֲחֵי אָבִיו.

^27:10 if..., then you shall assign his property to his father’s brothers.

^כז:יא וְאִם...וּנְתַתֶּם אֶת נַחֲלָתוֹ לִשְׁאֵרוֹ הַקָּרֹב אֵלָיו מִמִּשְׁפַּחְתּוֹ וְיָרַשׁ אֹתָהּ.

^27:11 if..., then you shall assign his property to his nearest relative in his own clan, who shall inherit it.

Rashi then continues:

^{רש״י בבלי כתובות פג.} ואע"ג דשארו דקרא לאו אשתו היא...מיהו גבי קרא יתירא דוירש אותה דרשינן הכי ונתתם את נחלתו לקרוב אליו ממשפחתו שארו וירש אותה האיש יורש את אשתו.

^{Rashi b. Ket 83a} Even though שְׁאֵר in the Bible does not mean wife..., nevertheless, because the verse contains the superfluous words וירש אותה, we explain the verse as follows: “give the inheritance to the closest relative from his family. And as for שארו, he inherits from her,” [teaching us that] a man inherits from his wife.

By admitting that, in principle, שְׁאֵר does not mean wife in the Bible and then saying that it does mean wife in the Talmud’s explanation of the text, Rashi demonstrates an essential principle of his exegetical approach, that a text can mean two different unrelated things. A midrash sometimes yields conclusions that are unconnected with peshat. Professor Sara Japhet (1934–2024) explains:

המתודולוגיה הפרשנית שאנו מכנים 'דרש' מאופיינת בהנחה המוקדמת של רב-משמעיות.... הדרשן יכול לוותר על הרצף התחבירי...הוא יכול לנתק כל רכיב של הטקסט מהקשרו ולהעבירו להקשר אחר.

The exegetical methodology that we call derash is premised on the assumption that the text has multiple meanings.... The author of a midrash may ignore the flow of the syntax...and may remove any element of the text from its context and attach it to another context.^[9]

For Rashi, then, even though midrash is not peshat, it is textual exegesis, because it pays attention to unnecessary words in the text and interprets them.

The presence of this superfluous phrase is a signal in the minds of Rashi and of his readers who accept the midrashic principle of omnisignificance—that every word in the Torah must teach something.^[10] For Rashi, this justifies reading the verse as saying two different unrelated ideas: 1. following the peshat, generally an estate is given to the closest living blood relative (שְׁאֵר); and 2. following the midrash, when a wife (שְׁאֵר) dies, her husband inherits from her.

Ibn Ezra: The Exegesis Does Not Work but the Law Is Valid

In both commentaries that he wrote on the Torah, Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra (c. 1089–c. 1164) used the Talmudic reading of the verse (to prove that a husband inherits from his wife) as an example of a teaching that has the structure of an interpretation of a biblical verse but is not. In his first commentary on the Torah, written in Italy in the 1140s, he wrote:

^{אבן עזרא (פירוש ראשון) שמות כא:ח} כל ישראל ידע פירוש הפסוק שהוא כמשמעו ופשוטו. כי לא יתכן שיאמר אדם: תנו את נחלת ראובן לשמעון, והוא רוצה הפך הדבר, לתת נחלת שמעון לראובן.

^{Ibn Ezra (First Commentary) Exod 21:8} Every Jew understands that this verse should be interpreted according to the plain meaning. No one would ever say “Give Reuven’s property to Shimon” when he meant to say, “Give Shimon’s property to Reuven.” [Thus if the verse says to give the property to the שְׁאֵר, even were we to concede that שְׁאֵר could mean wife, how could we say that a man inherits from his שְׁאֵר?]^[11]

In his second commentary on the Torah, written in France in the 1150s, Ibn Ezra considered this criticism so crucial that he made it part of his introduction to the commentary.^[12]

Nevertheless, Ibn Ezra viewed the law that a husband inherits his wife’s estate as binding; it is part of the Oral Torah. But he argues that this rabbinic midrash is not an interpretation of the text, but an asmakhta—a law that the rabbis attached to a verse artificially—something that supports tradition and has the look of a textual interpretation but is not:

^{אבן עזרא (פירוש שני) הקדמה} כאשר דרשו: וירש אותה שהאיש יורש את אשתו, כי היתה קבלה גמורה בידם מפי הנביאים, ושמו זה הכתוב לזכר ולסימן לקוראים.

^{Ibn Ezra (Second Commentary) Introduction} When they [the Talmudic rabbis] composed the midrash, “‘he shall inherit אותה’ a man inherits from his wife,” [it was] because they had a reliable tradition that dated back to the prophets [that a husband inherits from his wife], and they turned this biblical phrase into a mnemonic device, and a signpost for readers.^[13]

In other words, the Talmudic rabbis wanted Jews who study Torah to remember the rule that a husband inherits from his wife. Since this rule is not written anywhere in the Torah, they attached it to the biblical words וירש אותה, even though they knew it was not what the words mean.^[14]

Ibn Ezra: There Is Only One Meaning to the Text

Ibn Ezra was committed to halakhah. In his two excurses on these verses (Num 27:8–11), he upholds the Talmudic law that a husband inherits from his wife. Ibn Ezra was also committed to peshat, and that commitment is so strong that he cannot accept the Talmud’s explanation of verse 11 as exegesis.

But his argument goes farther—he rejects the assumption that the text has multiple meanings. For him, every biblical verse has only one proper explanation. He writes this several times, most clearly in his grammatical work, Yesod Diqduq, where he describes meeting another (unnamed) Bible commentator:

ובאומרו "יש לפסוק עשרה טעמים" יתהלל בנפשו...ושמע השומע ונוספה גדולת מעלת חכמת המפרש. והדבר הפך! כי בשומו טעמים רבים לפסוק לא יידע אי זה יכשר הזה או זה. גם יתכן שלא יחבר בפירושיו פירוש האמת. כי כל מחבר ספר, נביא היה או חכם, טעם אחד לדבריו.

When [this scholar] said “this verse has ten possible interpretations,” he was so proud of himself!... When people heard this, they respected this exegete’s wisdom even more. But it is the opposite! He offers many interpretations of the verse because he does not know which one is correct.^[15] And perhaps the true interpretation is not even one of the ones he recorded. For there is only one [correct] explanation of the words of any author—whether a prophet or a sage.^[16]

Thus, Ibn Ezra holds that when we find two interpretations of a verse that deals with law—the rabbis’ interpretation and the peshat—we cannot accept them both as exegesis. As he writes in the introduction to his second Torah commentary:

^{אבן עזרא (פירוש שני) הקדמה} וככה נעשה אם מצאנו בדברי הקבלה דבר שיכחיש הכתוב, נבקש איזה מהם הוא האמת לבדו, ונתקן את השני העומד כנגדו.

^{Ibn Ezra (Second Commentary) Introduction} This is what we do when we find in the words of tradition an explanation [of a biblical verse] that contradicts the [plain sense] of Scripture: we determine which of the two is true, and we adjust the other one.

For Ibn Ezra, the adjustment can take two forms. At times, he accepts the rabbinic explanation of the verse as true, saying that what we might consider the peshat explanation must be abandoned.^[17] But for our verse (Num 27:11), his adjustment is that the peshat explanation is the only valid explanation of the verse. What looks like the Talmudic “explanation” of the verse, is not; it is just a mnemonic device.

Are There Seventy Interpretations of the Torah?

Modern readers sometimes celebrate the idea that biblical verses can have more than one legitimate meaning, often by citing the saying שבעים פנים לתורה, “the Torah has seventy faces [or facets].” As Hananel Mack has shown, this saying is only around 1000 years old, appearing for the first time in Numbers Rabba (13:15), and it may not have even meant originally that an individual verse has more than one meaning.^[18]

The idea that biblical verses have more than one legitimate meaning is not the universal view of the traditional Jewish Bible commentators. The Talmud often offers more than one interpretation of a verse and, from time to time, Rashi does as well.^[19] But for Ibn Ezra, “there is only one correct explanation for the words of any author,” including the Author of the Torah.