Numbers 9:2 - Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown

Numbers 9:2

The Second Passover

1 Now the Lord spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying:

2 “Let the children of Israel keep ^athe Passover at its appointed ^btime.

3 On the fourteenth day of this month,¹ at twilight, you shall keep it at its appointed time. According to all its³ rites and ceremonies you shall keep it.”

4 So Moses told the children of Israel that they should keep the Passover.

5 And ^athey kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month, at twilight, in the Wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did.

6 Now there were certain men who were ^adefiled by a human corpse, so that they could not keep the Passover on that day; ^band they came before Moses and Aaron that day.

7 And those men said to him, “We became defiled by a human corpse. Why are we kept from presenting the offering of the Lord at its appointed time among the children of Israel?”

8 And Moses said to them, “Stand still, that ^aI may hear what the Lord will command concerning you.”

9 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,

10 “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If anyone of you or your¹ posterity is unclean because of a corpse, or is far away on a journey, he may still keep the Lord’s Passover.

11 On ^athe fourteenth day of the second month, at twilight, they may keep it. They shall ^beat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

12 ^aThey shall leave none of it until morning, ^bnor break one of its bones. ^cAccording to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it.

13 But the man who is clean and is not on a journey, and ceases to keep the Passover, that same person ^ashall be cut off from among his people, because he ^bdid not bring the offering of the Lord at its appointed time; that man shall ^cbear his sin.

14 ‘And if a stranger¹ dwells among you, and would keep the Lord’s Passover, he must do so according to the rite of the Passover and according to its ceremony; ^ayou shall have one ordinance, both for the stranger and the native of the land.’ ”

The Cloud and the Fire

15 Now ^aon the day that the tabernacle was raised up, the cloud ^bcovered the tabernacle, the tent of the Testimony; ^cfrom evening until morning it was above the tabernacle like the appearance of fire.

16 So it was always: the cloud covered it by day, and the appearance of fire by night.

Commentaries:

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown

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THE PASSOVER ENJOINED. (Numbers 9:1-5)

Let the children of Israel also keep the passover at his appointed season, etc.—The date of this command to keep the passover in the wilderness was given shortly after the erection and consecration of the tabernacle and preceded the numbering of the people by a month. (Compare Numbers 9:1 with Numbers 1:1-2). But it is narrated after that transaction in order to introduce the notice of a particular case, for which a law was provided to meet the occasion. This was the first observance of the passover since the exodus; and without a positive injunction, the Israelites were under no obligation to keep it till their settlement in the land of Canaan (Exodus 12:25). The anniversary was kept on the exact day of the year on which they, twelve months before, had departed from Egypt; and it was marked by all the peculiar rites—the he lamb and the unleavened bread. The materials would be easily procured—the lambs from their numerous flocks and the meal for the unleavened bread, by the aid of Jethro, from the land of Midian, which was adjoining their camp (Exodus 3:1). But their girded loins, their sandaled feet, and their staff in their hand, being mere circumstances attending a hurried departure and not essential to the rite, were not repeated. It is supposed to have been the only observance of the feast during their forty years' wandering; and Jewish writers say that, as none could eat the passover except they were circumcised (Exodus 12:43-44, Exodus 12:48), and circumcision was not practised in the wilderness [Joshua 5:4-7], there could be no renewal of the paschal solemnity.

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