Bava Batra 108B

ועוד, כדכתיב: ״איש כי ימות ובן אין לו״⁠ –

And furthermore, the verse first states that a son inherits from his father, as it is written in the portion concerning inheritance: “If a man dies, and has no son, then you should pass his inheritance to his daughter” (Numbers 27:8).

ותנא, איידי דאתיא ליה מדרשא ⁠– חביבא ליה!

The Talmud answers: And as for the tanna of the Mishnah who listed the father inheriting first, since the halakha that a father inherits from his son is learned through a derivation and is not explicitly mentioned in the verse, this halakha is dear to him; therefore, he listed it first.

ומאי דרשא? דתניא: ״שארו״⁠ – זה האב; מלמד שהאב קודם לאחין. יכול יהא קודם לבן? תלמוד לומר: ״הקרוב״⁠ – קרוב קרוב קודם.

And what is the derivation? As it is taught in a baraita concerning the verse: “And if his father has no brothers, then you should give his inheritance to his kinsman who is next to him of his family, and he should inherit it” (Numbers 27:11): “His kinsman”; this is referring to the father, and the Torah teaches that the father precedes the brothers of the deceased in inheriting from him. One might have thought that the father of the deceased should precede the son of the deceased in inheriting from him; the verse therefore states: “Next [hakkarov] to him,” teaching that the closer [karov] one is to the deceased, the earlier one is in the order of inheritance, and a son of the deceased is considered to be a closer relative to the deceased than the father of the deceased.

ומה ראית לרבות את הבן, ולהוציא את האח? מרבה אני את הבן ⁠– שכן קם תחת אביו ליעדה ולשדה אחוזה.

The Talmud asks: And what did you see to include the son as the closer relative than the father and to exclude the brother? The Talmud answers: I include the son, as he stands in place of his father to designate a Hebrew female slave as a wife for himself, which a brother cannot do. And similarly, he stands in place of his father with regard to an ancestral field. If a son redeems a field consecrated by his father, it is considered as though the father himself redeemed it and the field returns to the family in the Jubilee Year. By contrast, if the brother of the one who consecrated it redeems the field, it does not return to the family (see Leviticus 27:16–21).