Kommentar zu Bamidbar 36:11

מחלה תרצה וגו׳ MAHLA, TIRZA etc., — Here it enumerates them according to their superiority over one another in years for they were married in the order in which they were born. But everywhere else in the Bible it enumerates them according to their intelligence: This tells us that they were all equal (cf. Bava Batra 120a; Rashi on Numbers 27:1).

מחלה, תרצה, “Machlah, Tirtzah;” earlier the Torah mentioned the names of these girls in the chronological order of their births, whereas here the Torah mentions them in the order of their getting married. When the Torah describes their husbands as “sons of their uncles,” this does not mean that the husbands were all brothers of one another (Ibn Ezra).

And they were married. Rashi is answering the question: In Parshas Pinchas (27:1) Scripture mentioned Sirtzah at the end, while here she is mentioned second. He answers that here they are listed in the order of seniority [i.e., age], meaning that here it is written, “They were…wives to their cousins” and it is customary for sisters to marry in order of their birth, first the oldest and afterward the younger ones in order of their age, as it is written [referring to marrying the younger daughter before the older] (Bereishis 29:26), “Such is not done in our place…”

Throughout Scripture. [You might ask why] Rashi did not make any comment in Parshas Pinchas (26:33) in the section dealing with the order of the families and the counting of the tribes, where the daughters of Tzelofchad were mentioned. You cannot say that it was because Rashi had no difficulty until now that the order has been changed, for if so, why in Parshas Pinchas did Rashi comment on the verse, “And the daughters of Tzelofchad approached” (27:1), given that there was not [yet] any change [in their order]. Yet Rashi there wrote, “Below it says, ‘Machlah and Sirtzah were…’” Thus, with regards to [order of Tzelofchad’s daughters] in the count of the generations of the tribes he should also have said “below…” There is an additional difficulty that regarding, “They approached” Rashi only explained, “This teaches that they were all equal,” while here he elaborates, commenting, “According to their wisdom, this teaches that they were all equal” meaning that [they were equal] in righteousness and in performing good deeds. It appears that initially in Parshas Pinchas, regarding the order in the counting of the tribes, it would have been incongruous to comment, “Below it changes [the order] in order to teach that they were all equal.” For there would have been the difficulty as to how we could know that they were equal, since perhaps Scripture changed the order and listed them in order of their wisdom. However, regarding “they approached” Scripture still had not changed the original order. Thus, we would have said that since it was not changed in those two cases, we cannot say that below [i.e., here] it was changed on account of their wisdom. For if so, Scripture should have changed the order in the verse “they approached” given that there their wisdom was demonstrated, as Rashi explains (27:4), “[This teaches] that they were learned.” Now, since it was not changed there, one can say it is certain that the change in the order of their listing below [i.e., here] teaches that they were equal [and is not in order of their wisdom]. At this stage, we would have said that on the first two occasions they were listed in order of their birth. However, here it is clear that this is the order of their birth, since they married in order [of their age], if so, in on the first two occasions the order was changed. Rather, [the answer is that] this was to demonstrate that there are listed in accordance with two reasons, “According to their wisdom” and “Teaches that they were equal,” given that the order was changed twice. R.Yaakov Triosh.