Bilangan 9:6-13

9:6 It happened that some men ¹  who were ceremonially defiled ²  by the dead body of a man ³  could not keep ⁴  the Passover on that day, so they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day. 9:7 And those men said to him, “We are ceremonially defiled by the dead body of a man; why are we kept back from offering the Lord’s offering at its appointed time among the Israelites?” 9:8 So Moses said to them, “Remain ⁵  here and I will hear ⁶  what the Lord will command concerning you.”

9:9 The Lord spoke to Moses: 9:10 “Tell the Israelites, ‘If any ⁷  of you or of your posterity become ceremonially defiled by touching a dead body, or are on a journey far away, then he may ⁸  observe the Passover to the Lord. 9:11 They may observe it on the fourteenth day of the second month ⁹  at twilight; they are to eat it with bread made without yeast and with bitter herbs. 9:12 They must not leave any of it until morning, nor break any of its bones; they must observe it in accordance with every statute of the Passover.

9:13 But ¹⁰  the man who is ceremonially clean, and was not on a journey, and fails ¹¹  to keep the Passover, that person must be cut off from his people. ¹²  Because he did not bring the Lord’s offering at its appointed time, that man must bear his sin. ¹³ 

Bilangan 9:2

9:2 “The Israelites are to observe ¹⁴  the Passover ¹⁵  at its appointed time. ¹⁶ 

1 Tawarikh 29:1

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29:1 King David said to the entire assembly: “My son Solomon, the one whom God has chosen, is just an inexperienced young man, ¹⁷  and the task is great, for this palace is not for man, but for the Lord God.

[9:6]  ¹ tn In the Hebrew text the noun has no definite article, and so it signifies “some” or “certain” men.

[9:6]  ² tn The meaning, of course, is to be ceremonially unclean, and therefore disqualified from entering the sanctuary.

[9:6]  ³ tn Or “a human corpse” (so NAB, NKJV). So also in v.7; cf. v. 10.

[9:6]  ⁴ tn This clause begins with the vav (ו) conjunction and negative before the perfect tense. Here is the main verb of the sentence: They were not able to observe the Passover. The first part of the verse provides the explanation for their problem.

[9:8]  ⁵ tn The verb is simply “stand,” but in the more general sense of waiting to hear the answer.

[9:8]  ⁶ tn The cohortative may be subordinated to the imperative: “stand…[that I] may hear.”

[9:10]  ⁷ tn This sense is conveyed by the repetition of “man” – “if a man, a man becomes unclean.”

[9:10]  ⁸ tn The perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive functions as the equivalent of an imperfect tense. In the apodosis of this conditional sentence, the permission nuance fits well.

[9:11]  ⁹ sn The delay of four weeks for such people would have permitted enough time for them to return from their journey, or to recover from any short termed defilement such as is mentioned here. Apart from this provision, the Passover was to be kept precisely at the proper time.

[9:13]  ¹⁰ tn The disjunctive vav (ו) signals a contrastive clause here: “but the man” on the other hand….

[9:13]  ¹¹ tn The verb חָדַל (khadal) means “to cease; to leave off; to fail.” The implication here is that it is a person who simply neglects to do it. It does not indicate that he forgot, but more likely that he made the decision to leave it undone.

[9:13]  ¹² sn The pronouncement of such a person’s penalty is that his life will be cut off from his people. There are at least three possible interpretations for this: physical death at the hand of the community (G. B. Gray, Numbers [ICC], 84-85), physical and/or spiritual death at the hand of God (J. Milgrom, “A Prolegomenon to Lev 17:11,” JBL 90 [1971]: 154-55), or excommunication or separation from the community (R. A. Cole, Exodus [TOTC], 109). The direct intervention of God seem to be the most likely in view of the lack of directions for the community to follow. Excommunication from the camp in the wilderness would have been tantamount to a death sentence by the community, and so there really are just two views.

[9:13]  ¹³ tn The word for “sin” here should be interpreted to mean the consequences of his sin (so a metonymy of effect). Whoever willingly violates the Law will have to pay the consequences.

[9:2]  ¹⁴ tn The verb is simply “to do; to make” (עָשָׂה [’asah] in the jussive). It must have the idea here of “to perform; to keep; to observe” the ritual of the Passover.

[9:2]  ¹⁵ sn For a detailed study note on the Passover, see the discussion with the original institution in Exod 12. The word פֶּסַח (pesakh) – here in pause and with the article – has become the technical name for the spring festival of Israel. In Exod 12 the name is explained by the use of the verb “to pass over” (עָבַר, ’avar), indicating that the angel of death would pass over the house with the blood applied. Many scholarly attempts have been made to supply the etymology of the word, but none has been compelling enough to be accepted by a large number of biblical scholars. For general literature on the Passover, see J. B. Segal, The Hebrew Passover, as well as the Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias.

[9:2]  ¹⁶ tc The Greek text uses a plural here but the singular in vv. 7 and 13; the Smr uses the plural in all three places.

[29:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “a young man and tender.”