Numbers 9:3

3 On the fourteenth day of this month, in the evening, you shall keep it at its appointed time; according to all its statutes and all its ordinances you shall keep it."

Numbers 9:3 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 9:3

In the fourteenth day of this month
The first month, the month Nisan or Abib, answering to part of our March: at even ye shall keep it, in his appointed season:
between the two evenings, ( Exodus 12:6 ) ; and even if it fall on the sabbath day, as Jarchi; and this was a sabbath day, according to the Jewish writers F25: according to all the rites of it, and according to all the ceremonies
thereof shall ye keep it;
the former of these, according to Jarchi, respects the lamb, and the requisites of it, that it should be without blemish, a male, and of the first year; and the latter, according to him and others, the removal of the leaven, and the seven days of unleavened bread, and the eating of the lamb with bitter herbs: they take in no doubt all that were prescribed by the original law, except the sprinkling of the blood on the doorposts, and also eating the passover in haste, with their loins girt, and shoes on their feet, and staves in their hands; though some think these latter might be observed at this time, when they were unsettled.


FOOTNOTES:

F25 Seder Olam Rabba. c. 7.

Numbers 9:3 In-Context

1 And the LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying,
2 "Let the people of Israel keep the passover at its appointed time.
3 On the fourteenth day of this month, in the evening, you shall keep it at its appointed time; according to all its statutes and all its ordinances you shall keep it."
4 So Moses told the people of Israel that they should keep the passover.
5 And they kept the passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, in the wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so the people of Israel did.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.