Numbers 9:10

10 “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel: If any of the people now or in future generations are ceremonially unclean at Passover time because of touching a dead body, or if they are on a journey and cannot be present at the ceremony, they may still celebrate the LORD ’s Passover.

Numbers 9:10 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 9:10

Speak unto the children of Israel, saying
Not to the men only that came to Moses for advice, but to the body of the people; for the answer of the Lord concerned them all, and carried in it a rule to be observed in the like case, and others mentioned, in all succeeding ages, as long as the passover was an ordinance of God:

if any man of you;
or "a man, a man", or any private man; for, according to the Jewish writers, this law only respects private persons, as those were who were the occasion of its being made:

or of your posterity;
or "in your generations" ^F2, or "ages"; which shows that this law respected future times, and not the present case only:

shall be unclean by reason of a dead body;
see ( Numbers 9:6 ) ; Maimonides

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FOOTNOTES:

F3 says, this only respects uncleanness by a dead body, and not uncleanness by any creeping thing; for such as were unclean by them might sacrifice, though a private person, and eat the passover at evening with purity, when he had been cleansed: yet he says elsewhere {d}, that such that had issues, and menstruous women, and those that lay with them, and women in childbed, were unclean, and were put off to the second passover; and so the Targum of Jonathan here adds,

``or that has an issue, or a leprous person:''

or [be] in a journey afar off;
which, according to Ben Gersom, was fifteen miles; so in the Misnah ^F5, and the commentators on it:

yet he shall keep the passover of the Lord;
not the first, but second, according to the directions given in ( Numbers 9:11-14 ) .

F2 (Mkytrdl) "generationibus vestris", Pagninus, Montanus; "in aetatibus vestris", Drusius.
F3 In Misn. ut supra, (c. 7. sect. 6.) T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 93. 2.
F4 Hilchot Corban Pesach, c. 6. sect. 1.
F5 Pesachim, c. 9. sect. 2. Maimon. & Bartenora in ib.

Numbers 9:10 In-Context

8 Moses answered, “Wait here until I have received instructions for you from the LORD .”

9 This was the LORD ’s reply to Moses.

10 “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel: If any of the people now or in future generations are ceremonially unclean at Passover time because of touching a dead body, or if they are on a journey and cannot be present at the ceremony, they may still celebrate the LORD ’s Passover.

11 They must offer the Passover sacrifice one month later, at twilight on the fourteenth day of the second month. They must eat the Passover lamb at that time with bitter salad greens and bread made without yeast.

12 They must not leave any of the lamb until the next morning, and they must not break any of its bones. They must follow all the normal regulations concerning the Passover.