Numbers 9:7

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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.

Commentaries:

Adam Clarke

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Numbers 9:7

We are defiled by the dead body of a man - It is probable that the defilement mentioned here was occasioned by assisting at the burial of some person - a work both of necessity and mercy. This circumstance however gave rise to the ordinance delivered in Numbers 9:10-14, so that on particular occasions the passover might be twice celebrated:

1.At its regular time, the 14th of the first month;

2.An extra time, the 14th of the second month.

But the man who had no legal hinderance, and did not celebrate it on one or other of these times, was to be cut off from the people of God; and the reason given for this cutting off is, that he brought not the offering of God in his appointed season - therefore that man shall bear his sin, Numbers 9:13.

We have already seen, from the authority of St. Paul, that Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us; and that it was his sacrifice that was pointed out by the paschal lamb: on this, therefore, we may observe, that those who do not sooner or later eat the true Passover, and get the salvation procured by the sprinkling of his blood, shall be cut off from among those that shall enter into the rest prepared for the people of God; and for the same reason too; they bring not the offering of God in its appointed season, and therefore they shall bear their sin.

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