Numbers 9:13

13 But if anyone who is clean and is not on a journey fails to keep the Passover, 1that person shall be cut off from his people because he did not bring the LORD's 2offering at its appointed time; that man shall bear his sin.

Numbers 9:13 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 9:13

But the man that [is] clean
Free from any pollution by a dead body, or the like:

and is not in a journey;
in a distant country; for if he was on a journey in his own nation, he ought to return and attend the passover, which all the males from the several parts of the land were obliged unto; wherefore the Vulgate Latin version of ( Numbers 9:10 ) ; is a wrong one; "or in a way afar off in your nation"; for at whatsoever distance they were in their own nation, they were bound to appear:

and forbeareth to keep the passover;
the first passover in the first month, the month Nisan, wilfully, through negligence, or not caring to be at the expense and trouble of it, or on any pretence whatsoever: Ben Gersom interprets it of one that will not keep neither the first nor the second passover:

even the same soul shall be cut off from his people;
either be excommunicated from them, or cut off by death by the immediate hand of God:

because he brought not the offering of the Lord in his appointed
season:
this is the ground and reason of the resentment; it was a breach of the divine command, which required this offering; ingratitude to God, being a thank offering for a singular deliverance; and this aggravated by its not being brought at the appointed time, which was the fit ti me for it:

that man shall bear his sin;
be chargeable with the guilt of it, and bear the punishment of it; he on himself, as Aben Ezra notes, he, and he only; not his wife and family, for he being the head and master of the family, it lay upon him to provide the passover lamb for himself and his house.

Numbers 9:13 In-Context

11 In the second month on the fourteenth day at twilight they shall keep it. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
12 They shall leave none of it until the morning, nor break any of its bones; according to all the statute for the Passover they shall keep it.
13 But if anyone who is clean and is not on a journey fails to keep the Passover, that person shall be cut off from his people because he did not bring the LORD's offering at its appointed time; that man shall bear his sin.
14 And if a stranger sojourns among you and would keep the Passover to the LORD, according to the statute of the Passover and according to its rule, so shall he do. You shall have one statute, both for the sojourner and for the native."
15 On the day that the tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony. And at evening it was over the tabernacle like the appearance of fire until morning.

Cross References 2

  • 1. Exodus 12:15; [Genesis 17:14]
  • 2. ver. 7
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.