Numberschapter 9
23 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
They shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break any bone of it: according to all the ordinances of the passover they shall keep it.
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Numbers Overview.
Numbers 9 steps back a month to the first Passover kept after Egypt. It was set down for families who had eaten the first one in haste on the night they left, and who now kept it as free people at Sinai. A case brought by a few men who were shut out becomes a law for later generations. Listen for the question they ask and for the way the answer comes. The second half describes the signal the whole camp lived by. It prepares the reader for the march that begins in the next chapter.
Context
- Who
- Families keeping the Exodus meal for the first time as free people, and a camp waiting for the signal to move
- What
- The first anniversary of the Passover at Sinai, a second date allowed for those unclean or away from home, and the cloud over the tabernacle that told Israel when to move and when to stay.
- Where
- The camp in the Wilderness of Sinai at Passover, and the tabernacle under the cloud.
- When
- The first month of the second year after the Exodus, about 1445 BC, a month before the census of Numbers 1.
- Why
- To keep the Passover at the heart of Israel's life and to teach the camp to move only at the LORD's command.
Historical context
The command comes to Moses, and the case that follows is brought by men the text leaves unnamed, a few who were unclean from contact with a dead body.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The date is given in the first verse, the first month of the second year after Israel came out of Egypt. That is a month earlier than Numbers 1:1, so the chapter is set here by its subject rather than by the calendar, which Albert Barnes and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown both state. The place is the Wilderness of Sinai, named twice in the first five verses, so Israel kept the feast of coming out of Egypt while still camped at the mountain.
The occasion is the first anniversary of the Passover, since a year earlier they had eaten it in Egypt on the night they left. A first hearer knew what being cut off from the feast meant, since Leviticus 7:20 shuts the unclean man out of the sacrifice, and these men came asking to be let in. The answer given here opened a second date, the fourteenth day of the second month, for the man who was unclean and for the man away from home. The man who was clean and at home and let the feast go was cut off from his people.
The second half of the chapter describes the signal the camp lived by, since the cloud covered the tabernacle by day and looked like fire by night. Israel moved when it lifted and stayed when it settled, for a night, a few days, a month or longer, so everything had to stay packed and ready.
Significance
For a people about to march, the cloud was the whole doctrine of guidance in visible form. It could only be watched, and the camp had to be ready when it lifted.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
The second date said something about the God who gave the calendar, since a man who missed the appointed day through no fault of his own had room made for him.
The one statute for the foreigner and the native told Israel that the table it had just been given was open on terms rather than by birth. Exodus 12:48 had already set the condition, which was circumcision for every male of his house.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The provision of this chapter is still marked in Jewish life. A man who was unclean or on a far road at Passover keeps it one month later, on the fourteenth of the second month, and Jewish tradition calls that day Pesach Sheni, the Second Passover. It is kept lightly now, with some eating a piece of matzah on the day. Israel's own kings used the provision at national scale, since Hezekiah held his great Passover in the second month on this ground at 2 Chronicles 30. This site sets out the day and its ruling at Mishnah Pesachim 9:1 in its own chapter context for these verses (src/lib/hebraic/feasts.ts, the entry "The make-up Passover"). The classical reading adds the rules that mark the day off from the first Passover. Rashi records the rules that mark it off. A man may keep unleavened and leavened bread together in his house, and no festival day is attached to the date. Leaven is forbidden only while the sacrifice itself is being eaten (Rashi on Numbers 9:10:1, citing Pesachim 95a).
How it is read
The first thing the commentators notice is the date. This chapter stands in the first month, and the opening of the book stands in the second, so Rashi draws the rule that "there is no earlier or later in the Torah". He then asks why the book did not begin here, and gives an answer that spares Israel nothing. The section "implies something disparaging to Israel", because in all their forty years in the wilderness they kept this one Passover and no other (Rashi on Numbers 9:1:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 64:1). Rashi is quoted in this row from the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, which the corpus marks public domain. Sforno reads the same displacement as praise rather than reproach. He holds that the Torah delayed these events to gather Israel's merits in one place. His words: "in order to demonstrate that had it not been for the disastrous mission of the spies everything would have been in place for an immediate ascent to the Holy Land". He counts four. The altar was consecrated and the offerings accepted, and the Levites were consecrated. The people kept the Passover eagerly in hard conditions, and they followed God into the wilderness with no notice of when the cloud would lift. He names Sotah 11 and 31 for the merits. He ends on the same principle Rashi states, that order in the Torah means something other than chronological sequence (Sforno on Numbers 9:1:1, Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash).
The law of the appointed time is read strictly. The Passover is kept at its season even on the Sabbath, and even when the congregation is unclean through contact with a corpse (Rashi on Numbers 9:2:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 65). The rites named are the rules for the animal itself while alive (Rashi on Numbers 9:3:1). Rashi asks why Moses had to speak at all, since he had already declared the appointed festivals. The answer is that he taught each festival when he heard it at Sinai, and warned them again at the time of keeping it (Rashi on Numbers 9:4:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 66). Sforno notices that the people kept this Passover two days after a long run of consecration rites. He sets that beside the dispensation Solomon is said to have given at the dedication of the Temple in Moed Katan 9 (Sforno on Numbers 9:2:1).
The scene of the unclean men asking for a way in is read closely, and warmly. Rashi holds that they came while Moses and Aaron were sitting together in the House of Study. He reasons that they cannot have come one after the other, since what Moses could not answer Aaron could not answer either (Rashi on Numbers 9:6:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 68 and Bava Batra 119b). He then reconstructs the exchange. Moses told them that an unclean man may bring no offering, and they answered by proposing that clean priests sprinkle the blood for them and clean men eat the flesh. Moses told them to wait while he heard what God would command. Rashi reads that confidence as its own wonder. His words: "Happy, indeed, is a human being who may so confidently rely that at any time when he wishes to do so he may speak with the Shechinah!" (Rashi on Numbers 9:7:1). He adds that this section could have come through Moses like the rest. It came through these men because "meritorious deeds are brought about by worthy men". The measure of the far road is then read off a scribal mark. A dot stands over one letter of the word. Rashi takes it to mean that the road need be no long one. A man merely outside the threshold of the court while the Passover was being slaughtered already falls under the rule (Pesachim 93b; Sifrei Bamidbar 69:2). The stranger who keeps the Passover keeps it on the fourteenth like the native rather than at once upon his circumcision (Rashi on Numbers 9:14:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 71). A Christian reader should notice what the chapter and its commentators hold in common with him here. The law is opened rather than relaxed, and the men who were shut out are given a date of their own without the standard being lowered.
The cloud over the Tabernacle closes the chapter, and Rashi reads its movements as orders. He fixes the verb as departure rather than rising, and proves it from the little cloud of 1 Kings 18:44 (Rashi on Numbers 9:17:1). From the Baraita on the structure of the Tabernacle he carries the sequence of a march. The pillar of cloud drew itself in and stretched out over the camp of Judah like a beam, and the trumpets sounded a tekiah, a teruah and a tekiah. The cloud stayed until Moses said the words of Numbers 10:35, after which Judah's banner moved off (Rashi on Numbers 9:18:1, citing Sifrei Bamidbar 84:5). The long halts are measured from the word for days, which he takes as a full year on the strength of Leviticus 25:29 (Rashi on Numbers 9:22:1). Ibn Ezra comments at 9:8:1, 9:13:1, 9:19:1, 9:21:1 and 9:23:1, and Malbim at 9:5:1, 9:9:1, 9:11:1 and 9:16:1. The corpus carries no English text for either under its licence, so both stand here cited and unquoted.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited here and never quoted. The Talmudic ones are eleven. Gittin 60 stands on the first verse with the entry the corpus prints as Introductions to Tanaitic Literature, Introduction to Halakhic Midrashim, Mekhilta of Rashbi 58. On the keeping of the Passover stand Jerusalem Talmud Pesachim 6:1:2 and the entry printed as Introductions to Tanaitic Literature, Introductions to Tractates of the Mishnah, Pesachim 48. On the Second Passover stand Jerusalem Talmud Horayot 1:6:2 and Nazir 8:1:9 over the section, Avot DeRabbi Natan 34:5 and 34:6 on the tenth verse, and Jerusalem Talmud Bikkurim 3:4:10 on the eleventh. Two stand on the cloud, Eruvin 55b:17 and Megillah 20a:10.
The midrashic locators run to twenty-nine. Midrash Lekach Tov carries nine, at Numbers 9:4:1, 9:5:1, 9:7:1, 9:8:1, 9:12:1, 9:14:1, 9:16:1, 9:17:1 and 9:17:2. Midrash Aggadah carries five, at Numbers 9:7:1, 9:8:1, 9:12:1 and 9:23:1, with Numbers 2:2:11 beside them. Ein Yaakov carries five, at Pesakhim 6:1 in two editions, Sukkah 2:3, and Shevuot 2:3 in two editions. Eikhah Rabbah stands twice, at 3:5 and 1:23. Eight more stand alone. They are Sifrei Bamidbar 66:1, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Pischa 5:12, Aggadat Bereshit 61:3, and Bereshit Rabbah 48:16. Beside them stand Otzar Midrashim, Sefer Tagin 23:8, Bamidbar Rabbah 17:3 on the whole passage of the cloud, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 13:21:5, and Sifra, Emor, Section 3 4. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Numbers 9:1:1 to 9:22:1, the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, public domain; Sforno, Sforno on Numbers 9:1:1 and 9:2:1, Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Numbers 9:8:1 to 9:23:1, cited by ref because the licence Sefaria reports does not permit the text here; Malbim, Malbim on Numbers 9:5:1, 9:9:1, 9:11:1 and 9:16:1, cited by ref because Sefaria holds no English version; MannaFest, the chapter context for Numbers 9:1 to 14, src/lib/hebraic/feasts.ts, the entry "The make-up Passover", citing Mishnah Pesachim 9:1, 2026; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/numbers/9.json, the 11 Talmud and 29 Midrash locators of this chapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Keeping Passover in the wilderness of Sinai
Numbers 9:1-3
in the first month of the second year: The date puts this Passover a month before the census, which Numbers 1:1 sets on the first day of the second month. Albert Barnes and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the chapter as placed here to introduce the case of verses 6 to 14. This is Israel’s second Passover, a year after Exodus 12, though Exodus 12:25 had tied the ordinance to a land they had not reached.
Two readings of the command stand side by side. John Gill and John Wesley hold that Exodus 12:25 tied the feast to the land, so Israel needed a fresh order to keep it in the wilderness. John Calvin took the reminder as a sign of the people's forgetfulness within a single year.
Numbers 9:2
“Let the children of Israel also keep the passover,.... Though this ordinance was enjoined the people of Israel, and observed by them at the time of their coming out of Egypt, and had been since repeated, Lev 23:5; yet without a fresh precept, or an explanation of the former, they seemed not to be obliged, or might not be sensible that they were obliged to keep it, until they came into the land of Canaan, Exo 12:25; and therefore a new order is given them to observe it: at his appointed season; and what that season is is next declared.”
It fell on the anniversary of the night out of Egypt. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hold that the lamb and the unleavened bread were kept, while the girded loins, sandals and staff of the first night belonged to a hurried departure and were dropped. Adam Clarke points to Exodus 12 for its statutes and ordinances.
Numbers 9:3
“According to all the rites of it - See all those rites and ceremonies largely explained in the notes on Exodus 12 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Numbers 9:4-5
Moses passes the command on, and the obedience is recorded in the formula that closed Exodus, “just as the LORD had commanded Moses”. The place is named again as “the Wilderness of Sinai”, so Israel keeps the feast of leaving Egypt while still camped at the mountain. Scripture records no Passover after this one until Joshua 5:10 at Gilgal, after the forty years.
Numbers 9:4
“And Moses spake unto the children of Israel, that they should keep the passover. The time now drawing nigh for the observation of it, it being now almost a year since their coming out of Egypt.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 9:4
“Thus Paul delivered to the churches what he received of the Lord concerning the gospel passover, 1 Cor. xi. Note, Magistrates must be monitors, and ministers must stir up men's minds by way of remembrance to that which is good.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
in the wilderness of Sinai: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown suppose the lambs came from Israel's own flocks and the grain from nearby Midian. They pass on the Jewish view that circumcision lapsed in the wilderness, as Joshua 5:5 records, so the feast lapsed with it. Matthew Henry notes it followed the dedication gifts of chapter 7.
A second chance in the second month
Numbers 9:6-7
These men come asking to be let in, which sets them apart from nearly every other approach to Moses in this book. Leviticus 7:20 shuts them out, since an unclean man who eats a sacrifice is cut off from his people. Albert Barnes suggests they were Mishael and Elzaphan, who carried out the bodies of Nadab and Abihu at Leviticus 10:4-5, though the text names nobody.
Numbers 9:6
“Certain men - Probably Mishael and Elizaphan, who buried their cousins, Nadab and Abihu, within a week of this Passover Lev 10:4-5.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 9:6
“Hence arose a kind of discrepancy; because, whilst the unclean were not permitted to approach the sacred feast, it was sinful to neglect this exercise of religion. Even Moses confessed that he was perplexed as to this matter, since he sought for time to inquire of God.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
The men stood between two laws, since skipping the Passover brought a penalty and eating it unclean brought another. John Wesley frames their question as that dilemma, and Matthew Henry notes that they grieved at their situation and accepted the law as just. Adam Clarke supposes they had buried someone, a work of mercy.
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 Num 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.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Moses gives no ruling of his own, and his reply sets the pattern for every case in Numbers that the law had not covered. The sabbath-breaker at 15:32-36 and the daughters of Zelophehad at 27:1-11 and 36:1-12 are handled this way, and Leviticus 24:12 had already held a man in custody for the LORD’s decision. The petitioners are told to “Wait here” while the answer comes.
Numbers 9:8
“We have no such oracle to consult as Moses had, but we must have recourse to the law and the testimony, and speak according to that rule; and if, in difficult cases, we take time to spread the matter in particular before God by humble believing prayer, we have reason to hope that the Spirit who is promised to lead us into all truth will enable us to direct others in the good and right way.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Numbers 9:9-10
The answer covers the men who asked and adds a case nobody had raised, the man who is far from home. It reaches “any one of you or your descendants”, so a question brought by a few men on one day becomes standing law. Older commentators read the two cases as examples of a class, and Adam Clarke notes that the Passover may now be held on either of two dates.
Numbers 9:9
“And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... From between the cherubim, after he had laid the case before him, and he gave him an answer: saying; as follows.”
Albert Barnes notes that a month's delay gave the unclean time to purify and most travellers time to come home. Matthew Henry reads the rule as allowing a duty to be postponed for good cause while the duty itself still stood, and compares Matthew 5:23-24. The traveller had a second date.
Numbers 9:10
“Unclean or in a journey - Under these two instances the Hebrews think that other hindrances of like nature are comprehended; as if one be hindered by a disease, or by any other such kind of uncleanness; which may seem probable both from the nature of the thing, and the reason of the law which is the same in other cases.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 9:10
“This secondary passover was to be kept on the same day of the month with the first, because the ordinance was a memorial of their deliverance on that day of the month.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Numbers 9:11-12
The fourteenth day of the second month: The month moves and the day holds, and nothing else is relaxed, down to the rule that they may not “break any of its bones”. Exodus 12:46 gave that rule first, and John 19:36 applies it to the body of Christ. Hezekiah kept a national Passover in the second month under this provision at 2 Chronicles 30:2-3, and Albert Barnes notes later Jewish writers named it the little Passover.
Numbers 9:11
“The later Jews speak of this as the “little Passover.” Coming, as it did, a month after the proper Passover, it afforded ample time for a man to purify himself from legal defilement, as also to return from any but a very distant journey. Compare Hezekiah’s act 2Ch 30:1-3.”
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 9:11
“IN great tenderness God permitted the Passover to be kept a second time, that those who had unavoidably been defiled at the first observance might not be shut out from the memorable and symbolical rite. But, although He altered the date of the Passover, He never changed the form of it—the Paschal feast was to be the same whenever it was celebrated and by whomever it was observed. Whether one family, or an Israelite who happened to be a stranger and visitor in the house, whoever it might be—kept the Passover—the same regulations were to be carefully followed.”
Charles Spurgeon · written before 1892 · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2407: “Feeding on a Whole Christ” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
Albert Barnes limits its statutes to the rites of the lamb, since Jewish teaching kept the second Passover to one day and left the leaven in the houses. Matthew Henry notes that only the date was relaxed. Charles Spurgeon drew from the unchanged form that Christ is received the same way by every sinner.
Numbers 9:12
“According to all the ordinances - i. e. those relating to the Passover lamb, not those concerning the feast, for the Little Passover lasted, according to the Jews, only one day; nor was it held to be needful that at it leaven should be put away out of the houses.”
Numbers 9:13-14
The concession has its limit in the same paragraph, for the clean man who simply fails to keep the Passover “must be cut off from his people”. The foreigner may keep it under “the same statute” as the native, and Exodus 12:48 sets circumcision as the condition, which Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hold indispensable. Matthew Henry reads the one statute forward to Acts 10 and the household of Cornelius.
John Wesley takes the foreigner here as a proselyte, a man who had joined himself to Israel's God. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown add that such a man carried the same liability as a native Israelite, so neglecting the feast cut him off too. One statute bound both.
Numbers 9:14
“As then there was one law, so in the days of the Messiah there should be one gospel, for the stranger and for him that was born in the land; for in every nation he that fears God and works righteousness is accepted of him, and this was a truth before Peter perceived it, Acts x.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Numbers 9:14
“But circumcision was an indispensable condition; and whoever did not submit to that rite, was prohibited, under the sternest penalties, from eating the passover.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
They moved when the cloud moved
Numbers 9:15-16
on the day that the tabernacle: The account returns to the day the tabernacle was set up, where Exodus closed at 40:34-38, so the same fact ends one book and heads the march that begins at 10:11. The cloud had gone before Israel since Exodus 13:21-22, and here it covers “the Tent of the Testimony”, named for the ark inside. It shows as cloud by day and fire by night, one presence in two appearances.
Numbers 9:15
“This was an evident token of God's special presence with, and providence over them. And this cloud was easily distinguished from other clouds, both by its peculiar figure and by its constant residence in that place.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
John Wesley and Matthew Henry give the reason for the two forms, since a cloud alone would vanish in the dark and a fire alone would fade in daylight. The sign stayed visible at every hour. Henry also reads the cloud as the darkness of the old covenant and the fire as its terror.
Numbers 9:17-19
The cloud governs the going and the staying alike, and verse 19 gives the harder half of it, the long halts that ran to many days together. What the text calls that waiting is keeping the charge of the Lord, so a camp sitting still under orders is doing the thing it was commanded. Henry makes the point that no time is lost while God's time is being waited for.
The verse calls the cloud's movement the LORD's command, which John Wesley explains as the sign by which God showed His will and their duty. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown picture the cloud as a throne from which the order was given. Each march began with a sign above the tent.
Matthew Henry supposes that men were posted day and night within sight of the cloud to warn the camp when it stirred, and he reads keeping the charge in that sense. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note how hard the long halts were for a people eager to reach Canaan. The waiting was the harder test.
Numbers 9:20-21
The halts shorten here to a few days, and verse 21 gives the shortest, the cloud remaining “only from evening until morning”. The signal could come “by day or by night”, so no pattern held. Adam Clarke observes that marching after dark was seldom attempted there, so the camp order of Numbers 2 and the Levite loads of Numbers 4 answered a signal at any hour.
Numbers 9:20
“And so it was, when the cloud was a few days upon the tabernacle,.... Or "days of number", which were so few that they might be easily numbered: the Targum of Jonathan interprets them of the seven days of the week, as if the sense was, when the cloud rested a week on the tabernacle: according to the commandment of the Lord they abode in their tents; during these few days, be they a week, or more, or less: and according to the commandment of the Lord they journeyed; when it removed from the tabernacle.”
Matthew Henry draws a lesson from the one-night halt. Each camp was pitched with no known end, and Henry compares the uncertain hour of a believer's death, which keeps him ready to move at the LORD's command. John Wesley reads the repeated wording as marking a constant miracle.
Numbers 9:21
“Whether - by day or by night - As the heat of the day is very severe in that same desert, the night season is sometimes chosen for the performance of a journey; though it is very likely that in the case of the Israelites this was seldom resorted to.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Numbers 9:22-23
The halts named run from two days to a month or longer, and the wilderness would hold this people thirty-eight more years after Kadesh. Verse 23 closes with “His command through Moses”, so the cloud overhead and the word given through a man stand together. Psalm 105:39 and Nehemiah 9:19 both look back on the cloud and the fire as one mercy.
Numbers 9:22
“Two days - a month - a year - It was by the Divine counsel alone that they were directed in all their peregrinations: and from the above words we see that their times of tarrying at different stations were very unequal.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Numbers 9:22
“Note, He that believeth doth not make haste. There is no time lost while we are waiting God's time. It is as acceptable a piece of submission to the will of God to sit still contentedly when our lot requires it as to work for him when we are called to it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Numbers 9:22
“A year - literally, “days,” idiomatically a year Lev 25:29, an expression equivalent to “a full period,” though not necessarily the period of a year.”
Adam Clarke finds it remarkable that a people so bent on its own way followed the cloud so closely. He argues that the cloud lay beyond any trick Moses could have staged. Numbers 11:1 records the complaining that soon followed.
Numbers 9:23
“Kept the charge of the Lord - When we consider the strong disposition which this people ever testified to follow their own will in all things, we may be well surprised to find them, in these journeyings, so implicitly following the directions of God. There could be no trick or imposture here. Moses, had he been the most cunning of men, never could have imitated the appearances referred to in this chapter. The cloud, and every thing in its motion, was so evidently supernatural, that the people had no doubt of its being the symbol of the Divine presence.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Case law given in answer to a question brought to Moses, set before the narrative of the cloud that moved the camp, as Barnes classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The command of the LORD named at every move | Verses 18 to 23 repeat that the camp settled and set out at the LORD's command. The phrase the LORD's command stands six times in those six verses in the Berean text, and verse 23 adds His command through Moses. The published exposition of Numbers 9 counts seven in the wording it quotes and calls it the chapter making its case by repetition.This site's published exposition of Numbers 9, the note on Numbers 9:22 to 23. | Numbers 9:18, Numbers 9:20, Numbers 9:23 |
| The lengths of the halt listed from a night to a year | Verses 19 to 22 name the terms one after another, many days, a few days, from evening until morning, two days, a month, or longer. The published exposition of Numbers 9 states that the terms named reach from two days to a year. Listing them is how the text takes away any pattern the camp could have planned around.This site's published exposition of Numbers 9, the notes on Numbers 9:20 to 21 and on Numbers 9:22 to 23. | Numbers 9:19, Numbers 9:20, Numbers 9:21, Numbers 9:22 |
| The case put as a question and answered as standing law | The chapter turns on speech. The unclean men put their question to Moses at verse 7, Moses tells them to wait at verse 8, and the LORD answers at verses 9 to 14. John Calvin reads the difficulty plainly, that Moses confessed himself perplexed and sought time to inquire of God. The published exposition of Numbers 9 marks the same shape at the sabbath-breaker of 15:32 to 36 and at the daughters of Zelophehad in chapters 27 and 36.John Calvin, Commentaries, 1554, on Numbers 9:6. | Numbers 9:7, Numbers 9:8, Numbers 9:9, Numbers 9:10 |
The second date
15 more paragraphs on the patterns
The month moves and the day of the month holds. The published exposition of Numbers 9 gives the reason, that the ordinance marks the day Israel came out. Nothing else in the rite is relaxed. The unleavened bread and the bitter herbs stand, and so does the rule that no bone of it be broken.
Albert Barnes reports that the later Jews called this the little Passover. He notes that a month's grace gave a man time to purify himself from legal defilement, and time to return from all but a very distant absence. He reads the ordinances of verse 12 as those relating to the lamb rather than to the feast. The Jews, he reports, held the little Passover to last one day and left the leaven in the houses.
The historical value
The provision was used. Hezekiah kept a national Passover in the second month, recorded at 2 Chronicles 30:2 to 3. Both the published exposition of Numbers 9 and Albert Barnes name that act as resting on this rule. Scripture records no Passover between this one and Joshua 5:10 at Gilgal, on the far side of the forty years, which the published exposition marks at verses 4 and 5.
Adam Clarke brings the desert itself into verse 21. Marching after dark was seldom resorted to in that desert, he observes, because of the heat of the day and the hours it pushed travel into. The published exposition sets that against Numbers 2 and Numbers 4. A fixed camp order and a fixed load for each Levite family are what let a camp answer a signal given at any hour.
The debated points
Who the unclean men were is left open by the text. Albert Barnes suggests Mishael and Elizaphan, who carried the bodies of Nadab and Abihu out of the camp at Leviticus 10:4 to 5, within a week of this Passover. Adam Clarke suggests instead that the defilement came from assisting at a burial, which he calls a work of necessity and mercy. The published exposition of Numbers 9 states the limit on both suggestions, that the text names nobody.
Whether the two grounds are a closed list is also read two ways. John Wesley reports the Hebrews' reading, that other hindrances of like kind are taken in, such as a man kept back by disease or by another uncleanness. He grounds it on the nature of the case and on the reason of the law being the same. The published exposition of Numbers 9 carries the same reading from the older commentators, and notes Adam Clarke's result, a Passover that may be held at either of two dates. The narrower reading takes the two examples the text gives as the whole of the concession.
What the foreigner had to do first is settled elsewhere and carried in here. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hold circumcision to be the indispensable condition, and read Exodus 12:48 as prohibiting any man who had not submitted to it. The published exposition of Numbers 9 sets the same verse beside verse 14 as the condition on the one ordinance for the stranger and for the native.
Where the New Testament takes it up
John 19:36 applies the rule that no bone of the lamb be broken to the body of Christ at the cross. The published exposition of Numbers 9 marks that Exodus 12:46 gave the rule first and that verse 12 here repeats it. Matthew Henry reads the one ordinance for the stranger and the native forward to Acts 10 and the household of Cornelius. He puts it that as there was one law then, so in the days of the Messiah there should be one gospel.
The cloud and what it taught
The cloud governs the going and the staying alike. The published exposition of Numbers 9 gives the harder half of it at verse 19, the long halts that ran to many days together. The text calls that waiting the keeping of the LORD's charge, so a camp that sat still under orders was obeying as much as one on the march. Matthew Henry states the lesson in one line, that no time is lost while God's time is being waited for.
Adam Clarke reads verse 23 as evidence rather than as a lesson. He holds that no trick or imposture could stand here, since Moses could not have imitated the appearances the chapter describes. The people, he adds, had no doubt the cloud was the symbol of the divine presence. Psalm 105:39 and Nehemiah 9:19 each look back at the cloud and the fire together and name them a single mercy, which the published exposition marks. John Wesley adds that the cloud was easily told from other clouds by its shape and by its constant residence in that place.
No feature page stands for the second Passover or for the cloud, so both are carried here in full and both are listed as owed in docs/lanes/FEATURE-PAGES-OWED.md.
Keep studying
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on Numbers 9:1, where he states the chapter is recorded here as introductory to the ordinance of verses 6 to 14; John Calvin, Commentaries, 1554, on Numbers 9:6; This site's published book sections, src/lib/bible/book-sections.ts, line 53, the entry "Numbers": "law" and This site's published exposition of Numbers 9, the note on Numbers 9:15 to 16.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2407: Feeding on a Whole Christ; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentary on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.