Heir

Heir [BIRTHRIGHT; INHERITANCE]

Heir. The Hebrew institutions relative to inheritance were of a very simple character.

Under the patriarchal system, the property was divided among the sons, of the legitimate wives, Gen 21:10; Gen 24:36; Gen 25:5, a larger portion being assigned to one, generally the eldest, on whom devolved the duty of maintaining the females of the family.

The sons of concubines were portioned off with presents. Gen 25:6.

At a later period, the exclusion of the sons of concubines was rigidly enforced. Jdg 11:1. Ff.

Daughters had no share in the patrimony, Gen 21:14, but received a marriage portion.

The Mosaic law regulated the succession to real property thus: it has to be divided among the sons, the eldest receiving a double portion, Deu 21:17, the others equal shares;

if there were no sons, it went to the daughters, Num 27:8, on the condition that they did not marry out of their own tribe, Num 36:6, ff.; otherwise the patrimony was forfeited.

If there were no daughters, it went to the brother of the deceased;

if no brother, to the paternal uncle; and,

failing these, to the next of kin. Num 27:9-11.

(Heir, (See BIRTHRIGHT; INHERITANCE,) refers exclusively to land.) The Mosaic law enforced a strict entail; the property was divided among the sons, the oldest receiving a double portion (the father not having the right, as the patriarchs had, of giving a special portion to a favorite son: Gen 48:22), the rest equal shares (Deu 21:17). If there were no sons it went to the daughters, on condition that they married in their own tribe; otherwise they forfeited the inheritance (Num 27:8 ff; Num 36:6 ff). The son of an heiress, as with the Athenians, bore the name not of his father but of his maternal grandfather. If there were no daughters the property went to the brother; if no brother, to the paternal uncle; lastly, to the next of kin. The aim was to keep the land in the family and tribe. Succession thus was a matter of right, not of favor; the Hebrew yarash, "to inherit," means possession and even forcible possession (Deu 2:12; Jdg 11:24).

A distribution of goods ("personal", ousia) was sometimes made in the father’s lifetime (Luk 15:11-13); the land ("real property", kleeronomia) could only be divided after the father’s death (Luk 12:13). If a brother died childless the surviving brother should wed his widow and raise seed to his brother. The Mosaic law herein adopted existing usages, which also prevail still in S. Africa, Arabia, among the Druses and tribes of the Caucasus (Gen 38:8-9; Deu 25:5-10; Mat 22:23-25). Childlessness was regarded as such a calamity that the ordinary laws of forbidden degrees of affinity in marriage (Lev 18:16) were set aside.

Moses allowed the obligation to be evaded, if the brother-in-law preferred the indignity of the widow loosing his shoe off his foot, in token of forfeiting all right over the wife and property of the deceased, as casting the shoe over a place implies taking possession of it (Psa 60:8; Psa 108:9); also the indignity of her spitting in his face, so that his name becomes a byword as the barefooted one, implying abject meanness. The office then devolved on the nearest kinsman (Rth 2:20; Rth 3:9-13; Rth 4:1-12). Naomi, being past age of marriage, Boaz takes Ruth her daughter-in-law, and has also to redeem the sold inheritance of Elimelech, Naomi’s husband. The child born is reckoned that of Naomi and Elimelech (Rth 4:17), Chilion being passed over. Naomi, not Ruth, sells the land (Rth 4:3). A Jew could never wholly alienate his land by sale (Lev 25:23-24).

A kinsman, or the owner, could at any time redeem it at a regulated charge (Lev 25:23-27). At the year of Jubilee it reverted without charge (Lev 25:28). Jer 32:6-9; Elimelech’s nearest kinsman would not exercise his right of redemption, lest he should mar his own inheritance; namely, if he should have but one son by her, that son would be Elimelech’s legal son, not his; so the succession of his own name would be endangered. The inalienability of land made Naboth reject as impious Ahab’s proposal (1Ki 21:3); typifying Christ’s inalienable inheritance of a name more excellent than that of the angels (Heb 1:4). Houses in walled towns (not in unwalled villages, as being connected with the land) and movables could be alienated for ever; a wise law, essential to progress and marking the superiority of Jewish legislation to that of most nations.

Wills were unknown among the Jews until Herod made one. The subdivision of land by the absence of the law of primogeniture, and the equal division among sons except double to the oldest, suited a country like Palestine of hills and valleys, not admitting much horse labour and agricultural machinery on the large scale which large farms require. Small farms suited the hand labour required for the terraces reaching to the tops of the hills. The numerous towns in Galilee, moreover, had their wants best supplied by numerous petty farms. Subdivision tends also to the multiplication of population, and so to repairing the waste of life caused by wars. It attaches large numbers to their country, as proprietors, eager to defend the soil which is their own, and on which each ate of his own vine and fig tree (Isa 36:16).

This is used in various applications as of one coming into a possession. It is applied to the Lord when He came to Israel seeking fruit. They said in effect, "This is the heir: come let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours." Mar 12:7. Christ is appointed by God to be heir of all things. Heb 1:2. Believers are by grace made sons through Christ, hence heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. Rom 8:17; Gal 4:7; cf. Joh 17:22.

HEIR.—The heir (κληρονόμος) is one who enters on a position of privilege different from that of servants (Mat 21:38), through no personal exertion of his own, but as the result of filial relationship. This position is a thoroughly right and legal one, and absolutely valid. The thought of succession to a title upon the death of the present holder is not insisted upon. The son is naturally the heir, and the title is one of present privilege as well as the assurance of fuller possession in the future.

Christ, the Son, is the heir of all things (Heb 1:2; cf. our Lord’s application of the term to Himself in the parable of the Wicked Husbandman, Mat 21:38). The complete lordship over Creation was given to Adam (Gen 1:28, Psa 8:6). The land of Canaan, again, was promised to Abraham and his seed (Gen 13:14-15). These assurances given to Adam and to Abraham were absolutely fulfilled in Christ, who, as the firstborn of all creation, Himself both the Agent of the Creator’s work and summing up in His own Person all created objects (Col 1:15-17), enjoys an eternal and incorruptible inheritance. ‘The heirship of the Son was realised in the Incarnation, and in its essence is independent of the Fall (Westcott on Heb 1:2), though conditioned by it as to its circumstances.’ It was the sin of man which caused the suffering and humiliation through which Christ, after the work of redemption was complete, won a name which is above every name (Php 2:9). He had inherited in the eternal purpose of God (ἕθηκεν, Heb 1:2) a name more excellent than the angels (Heb 1:4).

The title of ‘heir,’ then, passes on to those who have obtained the blessing of Divine sonship in Baptism or Regeneration, corresponding spiritually to the promise made to Abraham. The Old Covenant (Testament) could not make men perfect, therefore God provided them with more strength, and in place of a worldly inheritance gave them a spiritual and eternal one. This title of heirship may be forfeited, if those who are called to it are not worthy of their inheritance. So Christ speaks in the Apocalypse: ‘He that overcometh shall inherit these things; and I will he his God, and he shall be my son’ (Rev 21:7). We, then, being made children of God through faith in Christ, are heirs according to the promise made to Abraham, who was accepted through faith in God’s word against all appearances. No longer servants, but heirs, we are entitled to the Divine privilege of sonship through adoption. We are called to inherit a blessing as all true servants of God through Baptism.

It remains to be seen who are specially mentioned in the Gospels as heirs to this privilege: (1) ‘The meek shall inherit the earth’ (Mat 5:5). (2) Those who have given up houses, lands, earthly relationships, etc., shall receive an hundred-fold and inherit eternal life, Mat 19:29, Mar 10:17, Luk 18:18. (3) The sheep in the parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Mat 25:34), i.e. those who have shown mercy to the weak and suffering, and whose service has been accepted by Christ as done to Himself, shall inherit the Kingdom prepared for them from the beginning of the world. But, on the other hand, no fornicator or unclean person or covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of God and of Christ (Eph 5:5). See also Inheritance.

C. H. Prichard.

See INHERITANCE

("yerusbah," "naḥalah").

HEIR.—See Inheritance.

âr:

1. The Word “Heir”

In the New Testament “heir” is the invariable translation of κληρόνομος, klērónomos (15 times), the technical equivalent in Greek, and of the compound συνκληρόνομος, sunklērónomos, “co-heir,” in Rom 8:17; Eph 3:6; Heb 11:9; 1Pe 3:7 (in Gal 4:30; Heb 1:14, contrast the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American)). In the Old Testament “heir” and “to be heir” both represent some form of the common verb ירשׁ, yārash, “possess,” and the particular rendition of the verb as “to be heir” is given only by the context (compare e.g. the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) in Jer 49:2; Mic 1:15). Exactly the same is true of the words translated “inherit,” “inheritance,” which in by far the great majority of cases would have been represented better by “possess,” “possession” (see INHERITANCE and OHL on נחל). Consequently, when God is said, for instance, to have given Palestine to Israel as an ’inheritance’ (Lev 20:24, etc.), nothing more need be meant than ’given as a possession.’ The Septuagint, however, for the sake of variety in its rendition of Hebrew words, used klēronoméō in many such cases (especially Gen 15:7, Gen 15:8; Gen 22:17), and thereby fixed on ’heir’ the sense of ’recipient of a gift from God.’ And so the word passed in this sense into New Testament Greek - Rom 4:13, Rom 4:14; Gal 3:29; Tit 3:7; Heb 6:17; Heb 11:7; Jas 2:5; compare Eph 3:6; Heb 11:9; 1Pe 3:7. On the other hand, the literal meaning of the word is found in Mar 12:7 (and parallels and Gal 4:1 - in the latter case being suggested by the transferred meaning in Gal 3:29 - while in Rom 8:17; Gal 4:7, the literal and transferred meanings are blended. This blending has produced the phrase “heirs of God,” which, literally, is meaningless and which doubtless was formed without much deliberation, although it is perfectly clear. A similar blending has applied “heir” to Christ in Heb 1:2 (compare Rom 8:17 and perhaps Mar 12:7) as the recipient of all things in their totality. But apart from these “blended” passages, it would be a mistake to think that sonship is always consciously thought of where “heir” is mentioned, and hence, too much theological implication should not be assigned the latter word.

2. Heir in Old Testament Law

The heirs of property in the Old Testament were normally the sons and, chief among these, the firstborn.

(1) Deu 21:15-17 provides that the firstborn shall inherit a “double portion,” whence it would appear that all the other sons shared equally. (It should be noted that in this law the firstborn is the eldest son of the father, not of the mother as in Exo 13:2.) Uncertain, however, is what Deu 21:15-17 means by “wife,” and the practice must have varied. In Gen 21:10 the son of the handmaid was not to be heir with Isaac, but in Gen 30:1-13 the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah are reckoned as legitimate children of Jacob. See MARRIAGE. Nor is it clear that Deu 21:15-17 forbids setting aside the eldest son because of his own sin - compare the case of Reuben (Gen 49:3, Gen 49:1; 1Ch 5:1), although the son of a regular wife (Gen 29:32). The very existence of Deu 21:15-17, moreover, shows that in spite of the absence of formal wills, a man could control to some extent the disposition of his property after his death and that the right of the firstborn could be set aside by the father (1Ch 26:10). That the royal dignity went by primogeniture is asserted only (in a particular case) in 2Ch 21:3, and both David (1Ki 1:11-13) and Rehoboam (2Ch 11:21-23) chose younger sons as their successors. A single payment in the father’s lifetime could be given in lieu of heritage (Gen 25:6; Luk 15:12), and it was possible for two brothers to make a bargain as to the disposition of the property after the father’s death (Gen 25:31-34).

(2) When there were sons alive, the daughters had no right of inheritance, and married daughters had no such right in any case. (Job 42:15 describes an altogether exceptional procedure.) Probably unmarried daughters passed under the charge of the firstborn, as the new head of the family, and he took the responsibility of finding them husbands. Num 27:1-11; Num 36:1-12 treat of the case where there were no sons - the daughters inherited the estate, but they could marry only within the tribe, lest the tribal possessions be confused. This right of the daughters, however, is definitely stated to be a new thing, and in earlier times the property probably passed to the nearest male relatives, to whom it went in later times if there were no daughters. In extreme cases, where no other heirs could be found, the property went to the slaves (Gen 15:3; Pro 30:23, noting that the meaning of the latter verse is uncertain), but this could have happened only at the rarest intervals. A curious instance is that of 1Ch 2:34, 1Ch 2:35, where property is preserved in the family by marrying the daughter to an Egyptian slave belonging to the father; perhaps some adoption-idea underlies this.

(3) The wife had no claim on the inheritance, though the disposition made of her dowry is not explained, and it may have been returned to her. If she was childless she resorted to the Levirate marriage (Deu 25:5-10). If this was impracticable or was without issue she returned to her own family and might marry another husband (Gen 38:11; Lev 22:13; Rth 1:8). The inferior wives (concubines) were part of the estate and went to the heir; indeed, possession of the father’s concubines was proof of possession of his dignities (2Sa 16:21, 2Sa 16:22; 1Ki 2:13-25). At least, such was the custom in the time of David and Solomon, but at a later period nothing is heard of the practice.

(4) The disposition of land is a very obscure question. Num 36:4 states explicitly that each heir had a share, but the continual splittin up of an estate through successive generations would have produced an impossible state of affairs. Possibly the land went to the eldest born as part of his portion, possibly in some cases it was held in common by the members of the family, possibly some member bought the shares of the others, possibly the practice differed at different times. But our ignorance of the facts is complete.

NOTE. - The dates assigned by different scholars to the passages cited have an important bearing on the discussion.

See INHERITANCE.