Comentario citado sobre Números 36:11

מחלה נעה וגו׳ MAHLAH, NOAH, etc. — But further on (Numbers 36:11) states, “And Mahlah, Tirzah were” (changing the position of the names within the verse): this is to tell you that they all were of equal worth one with another, and on this account it is that it changed their order (i.e. the order of their names) (Sifrei Bamidbar 133:2).

In order to understand what the Torah had in mind with its phraseology it pays to observe that the names of the daughters do not appear in the same sequence on the various occasions when the Torah mentions them. In Numbers 36,11 the order is different from the order in which the Torah lists these names here. Baba Batra 120 states that whereas in Numbers 36 the names appear in chronological order, here in Pinchas they appear in order of their relative intelligence. Rashbam explains the reason for this as being that when they married, i.e. in chapter 36, it was appropriate to list their names chronologically; here where they had to face Moses in negotiations it was appropriate to list their names in order of their relative intelligence. I do not agree with Rashbam for a number of reasons. 1) How do we know that just because the Torah tells us who these girls were married to that they were married in chronological order? 2) If the reason they were listed in a different order in our Parshah is that we were to be informed who was the more intelligent, why did the Torah not list their names in 26,33 in chronological order just like in 36,11? Surely in the context in which the Torah mentions their names in chapter 26 their relative intelligence was quite irrelevant! 3) The wording of the Talmud itself presents a difficulty. The Talmud speaks first about the order in which these names are listed להלן, i.e. in chapter 36, whereas it then speaks about the order in which they are listed כאן, i.e. "in our context in Parshat Pinchas." The fact is that the word להלן which means "there" may just as easily refer to the previous time the Torah listed these names, i.e. in chapter 26 where the marriages of these girls is not an issue so that there is no compelling reason to believe that the list is in chronological order.

This will also enable us to solve the problem we had as to why the Torah had to write ואלה שמות בנותם. In this instance the Torah used the stratagem of naming them in the order of their birth. If the Torah had merely written ואלה שמותם and I would have looked at the list, I would have assumed that here they were listed in order of their intelligence, something that was simply not so. By repeating ואלה שמות בנותיו the Torah reminded us that they are listed in order of their births. You will find a similar extra word in chapter 26,33 where the Torah wrote: ושם בנות צלפחד, "and the names of the daughters of Tzelofchod" although there was no need to repeat the name of their father whose name had appeared earlier in the same verse. While it is true that also in 36,11 the Torah bothered to mention the name of Tzelofchod apparently needlessly, his name appearing at the end of verse 10, the difference is that in 36,11 the name of their father appears after their names, whereas both in chapter 26 and chapter 27 the name of the father appears before that of his daughters. I have already explained in connection with Genesis 6,10 about the three sons of Noach that when the name of the father appears before the names of his children we are entitled to assume that the names of the children are listed in order of their births.