NOTES for Num 27:1-23
The land promised by God to Israel is the pledge that its possessors belong to God's people. Therefore the ancestral portion must not pass into foreign hands. Yet this very land, toward which Moses has been striving all these forty years, turns out to be inaccessible to him: he will not enter it and must appoint a successor for himself. This sad fact reminds us once again of the incompatibility of the Kingdom of God and disobedience to God, who requires from us the fruit of our life and in return grants Himself.