Numberschapter 9

23 verses · ASV

This chapter sends 184 cross-references outward and receives 100 — heaviest partner: Numbers.

Chapter summary

The second Passover. Some men defiled by a dead body ask whether they may keep the feast; Moses inquires of the LORD; the answer is the second Passover — the fourteenth day of the second month — for the defiled, the traveller far off. The strict rule: any clean man at home who neglects the feast is cut off. Then the cloud: ‘the cloud covered the tabernacle … the appearance of fire by night’. When the cloud tarried long, Israel camped; when it rose, they journeyed. ‘At the commandment of the LORD they journeyed, and at the commandment of the LORD they pitched.’ The camp's rhythm is obedience to a moving sign.

Drafted from Matthew Henry, Calvin, Gill, Clarke, JFB, and Barnes.

Context

Law · Moses — see the Numbers overview for the book's full setting.

1 And Jehovah spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying,

2 Moreover let the children of Israel keep the passover in its appointed season.

3 In the fourteenth day of this month, at even, ye shall keep it in its appointed season: according to all the statutes of it, and according to all the ordinances thereof, shall ye keep it.

4 And Moses spake unto the children of Israel, that they should keep the passover.

5 And they kept the passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at even, in the wilderness of Sinai: according to all that Jehovah commanded Moses, so did the children of Israel.

6 And there were certain men, who were unclean by reason of the dead body of a man, so that they could not keep the passover on that day: and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day:

7 and those men said unto him, We are unclean by reason of the dead body of a man: wherefore are we kept back, that we may not offer the oblation of Jehovah in its appointed season among the children of Israel?

8 And Moses said unto them, Stay ye, that I may hear what Jehovah will command concerning you.

9 And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying,