Numbers 9: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

In the first month of the second year after leaving Egypt, the LORD tells Moses that Israel is to keep the Passover at its set time, and they do so in the desert of Sinai. Men who are unclean because of a dead body ask why they should be shut out, and Moses brings the question to the LORD, who gives a second date, the fourteenth day of the second month, for anyone unclean or away on a long journey. The same ruling states the penalty for a clean man at home who refuses to keep it, and says the foreigner living among Israel keeps it by the same rules. The chapter then describes the cloud that covered the tabernacle and looked like fire at night, and how Israel camped and set out according to the cloud, at the LORD's command.

Claim by Claim

1. 9:1
   • The LORD spoke to Moses.
   • The LORD spoke to him in the wilderness of Sinai.
   • This was in the second year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt.
   • This was in the first month.
   • The LORD spoke saying the following.
2. 9:2
   • The children of Israel are to keep the passover.
   • They are to keep it at its appointed time.
3. 9:3
   • The passover is to be kept on the fourteenth day of this month.
   • It is to be kept at twilight, between the evenings.
   • It is to be kept at its appointed time.
   • It is to be kept according to all its statutes.
   • It is to be kept according to all its ordinances.
4. 9:4
   • Moses spoke to the children of Israel.
   • Moses told them to keep the passover.
5. 9:5
   • They kept the passover in the first month.
   • They kept it on the fourteenth day of the month.
   • They kept it at twilight, between the evenings.
   • They kept it in the wilderness of Sinai.
   • The LORD had commanded Moses concerning it.
   • The children of Israel did according to all that the LORD commanded Moses.
6. 9:6
   • There were certain men who were unclean because of a human corpse.
   • Those men could not keep the passover on that day.
   • Those men came before Moses and before Aaron on that day.
7. 9:7
   • Those men spoke to him.
   • They said they were unclean because of a human corpse.
   • They asked why they should be held back from presenting the offering of the LORD at its appointed time among the children of Israel.
8. 9:8
   • Moses said to them to stand still.
   • Moses said he would hear what the LORD would command concerning them.
9. 9:9
   • The LORD spoke to Moses.
   • The LORD spoke saying the following.
10. 9:10
    • Moses is to speak to the children of Israel.
    • The case concerns any man who is unclean because of a dead body.
    • The case also concerns any man who is on a distant journey.
    • This applies to them and to their generations after them.
    • Such a man shall still keep the passover to the LORD.
11. 9:11
    • Such people are to keep it in the second month.
    • They are to keep it on the fourteenth day, at twilight.
    • They are to eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
12. 9:12
    • They shall leave none of it until morning.
    • They shall not break a bone of it.
    • They shall keep it according to all the statute of the passover.
13. 9:13
    • The case concerns a man who is clean.
    • The case concerns a man who is not on a journey.
    • That man fails to keep the passover.
    • That person shall be cut off from his people.
    • The reason is that he did not present the offering of the LORD at its appointed time.
    • That man shall bear his sin.
14. 9:14
    • A foreigner may sojourn among them.
    • That foreigner may keep the passover to the LORD.
    • He shall do so according to the statute of the passover and according to its ordinance.
    • There shall be one statute for them, for the foreigner, and for the native of the land.
15. 9:15
    • On the day the tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the tabernacle.
    • The tabernacle is the tent of the testimony.
    • In the evening there was upon the tabernacle what looked like fire.
    • The appearance of fire lasted until morning.
16. 9:16
    • It was so continually.
    • The cloud covered it by day.
    • There was the appearance of fire by night.
17. 9:17
    • Whenever the cloud was lifted from over the tent, the children of Israel set out afterward.
    • In the place where the cloud settled, there the children of Israel camped.
18. 9:18
    • At the command of the LORD the children of Israel set out.
    • At the command of the LORD they camped.
    • All the days the cloud remained over the tabernacle they stayed camped.
19. 9:19
    • Sometimes the cloud lingered over the tabernacle many days.
    • In that case the children of Israel kept the charge of the LORD.
    • In that case they did not set out.
20. 9:20
    • Sometimes the cloud was over the tabernacle only a few days.
    • At the command of the LORD they camped.
    • At the command of the LORD they set out.
21. 9:21
    • Sometimes the cloud remained only from evening until morning.
    • When the cloud was lifted in the morning, they set out.
    • Whether the cloud was lifted by day or by night, they set out.
22. 9:22
    • The cloud might remain two days, or a month, or a longer stretch of days.
    • The length stated as 'days' is unspecified and may mean either an extended period or a full year.
    • As long as the cloud lingered over the tabernacle, resting upon it, the children of Israel camped.
    • As long as it lingered they did not set out.
    • When the cloud was lifted, they set out.
23. 9:23
    • At the command of the LORD they camped.
    • At the command of the LORD they set out.
    • They kept the charge of the LORD.
    • They did so at the command of the LORD given through Moses.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

9:1

The first month of the Hebrew year (later called Abib or Nisan) falls in our March–April. This date puts the chapter about a month earlier than the events of Numbers 1, which are dated to the second month of the same year; the account here is placed out of chronological order.

9:2

The Passover was the yearly festival held on the anniversary of Israel's departure from Egypt. Each household killed and roasted a lamb, as they had on the night described in Exodus 12, when the blood on the doorposts marked out the houses that were passed over while the firstborn of Egypt died.

9:3

"Twilight" translates a Hebrew phrase meaning literally "between the two evenings", the stretch from late afternoon to nightfall. Because the Hebrew day began at sunset, this meal fell at the boundary between the fourteenth day and the fifteenth.

9:6

"Unclean" here is not about dirt or wrongdoing. Contact with a corpse put a person into a ritual state that barred them from sacred meals and offerings; under the rules set out in Numbers 19 it lasted seven days and was ended by a set washing procedure.

9:7

The Passover lamb counted as an offering brought to the sanctuary, not simply a family meal, which is why ritual uncleanness kept these men from taking part.

9:10

"A long journey" translates "on a distant road." The text does not define how far is far enough, and later Jewish interpreters argued over the distance.

9:11

Bread made without yeast has no time to rise, and was linked to the haste of the departure from Egypt. Bitter herbs were sharp-tasting greens eaten with the meal as a reminder of the bitterness of slavery there.

9:12

Under the rules of Exodus 12 the lamb was roasted and eaten whole in one night; leftovers were burned rather than kept, and the carcass was not to be cut apart at the joints.

9:13

"Cut off from his people" is a set legal phrase whose exact force is disputed: it may mean expulsion from the community, death, or the ending of a person's family line. "Bear the guilt of his sin" is an idiom meaning to carry the liability for it himself, rather than having it dealt with on his behalf.

9:14

The word translated "foreigner" means a resident outsider, someone of non-Israelite descent settled long-term among the people, not a passing traveler. Such people were not normally required to keep Israel's festivals, and this rule sets the terms if they choose to.

9:15

The tabernacle was a portable tent shrine that was taken down and re-erected at each new camp. "The tent of the testimony" refers to the stone tablets of the covenant law, called the testimony, which were kept in a chest inside it.

9:17

The people were traveling to a new land. They lived in tents and moved many times along the way. The cloud told them when to pack up and when to stop.

9:19

"Kept the charge of the LORD" means they carried out the duty assigned to them. "Charge" here has its older sense of an obligation put in someone's keeping, not an accusation or a fee.

9:22

The Hebrew here reads literally "or days," which can mean a full year or simply "a long stretch of time"; translations differ on which is meant.