Numbers 9:10

10 Speak thou to the sons of Israel, A man of your folk that is unclean upon a soul, either is in the way far (off) , make he pask to the Lord (Say thou to the Israelites, Anyone of your people who is made unclean from contact with a dead body, or is on the way afar off, shall observe the Passover to the Lord)

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 To which Moses answered, Stand ye aside, or abideth, that I take counsel, what the Lord commandeth of you. (To whom Moses answered, Wait ye here, until I take counsel, what the Lord commandeth of you.)

9 And the Lord spake to Moses, and said,

10 Speak thou to the sons of Israel, A man of your folk that is unclean upon a soul, either is in the way far (off) , make he pask to the Lord (Say thou to the Israelites, Anyone of your people who is made unclean from contact with a dead body, or is on the way afar off, shall observe the Passover to the Lord)

11 in the second month, in the fourteenth day of the month, at eventide; with therf loaves and lettuces of the field he shall eat it. (in the second month, on the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening; yea, they shall eat it with unleavened bread and field lettuce, or bitter herbs.)

12 They shall not leave anything thereof till to the morrowtide, and they shall not break a bone thereof; they shall keep all the custom of pask (they shall follow all the customs, or all the rites, of the Passover).