1And the LORD spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai in the second year of their going out from the land of Egypt in the first month, saying, 2“Let the Israelites do the Passover offering at its fixed time. 3On the fourteenth day in this month at twilight you shall do it at its fixed time, according to all its statutes and according to all its laws you shall do it.” 4And Moses spoke to the Israelites to do the Passover offering. 5And they did the Passover offering in the first month on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight in the Wilderness of Sinai, as all that the LORD had charged Moses, thus did the Israelites do.
6And it happened that there were men who were defiled by human corpse and could not do the Passover offering on that day, and they drew near before Moses and before Aaron on that day. 7And these men said to him, “We are defiled by human corpse. Why should we be withheld from offering the LORD’s sacrifice at its fixed time in the midst of the Israelites?” 8And Moses said to them, “Stand by, that I may hear what the LORD will charge you.” 9And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 10“Speak to the Israelites, saying, ‘Any man who may be defiled by corpse or on a distant journey, of you or of your generations to come, and would do the Passover offering to the LORD, 11in the second month on the fourteenth day at twilight they shall do it, with flatcakes and bitter herbs they shall eat it. 12They shall leave nothing of it till morning, and no bone shall they break in it, according to all the statutes of the Passover offering they shall do it. 13And the man who is pure and was not on a journey and fails to do the Passover offering, that person shall be cut off from his kin, for he did not offer the LORD’s sacrifice at its fixed time. 14That man will bear his punishment. And should a stranger sojourn with you and do the Passover offering to the LORD, according to the statute of the Passover offering and according to its law, thus shall he do. One statute shall you have, both for the stranger and for the native of the land.’”
15And on the day the Tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the Tabernacle of the Tent of the Covenant, and in the evening it would be over the Tabernacle like a semblance of fire until morning. 16Thus it would be perpetually: the cloud would cover it, and a semblance of fire at night. 17And as the cloud lifted from the tent, then the Israelites would journey onward, and in the place where the cloud would abide, there would the Israelites camp. 18By the LORD’s word the Israelites would journey onward and by the LORD’s word they would camp, all the days that the cloud would abide over the Tabernacle they would camp. 19And when the cloud lingered over the Tabernacle many days, the Israelites would keep the LORD’s watch and would not journey onward. 20And sometimes the cloud would be but a few days over the Tabernacle. By the LORD’s word they would camp and by the LORD’s word they would journey onward. 21And sometimes the cloud would be from evening till morning and the cloud would lift in the morning and they would journey onward, or a day and a night and the cloud would lift and they would journey onward. 22Or two days or a month or a year, when the cloud lingered over the Tabernacle to abide over it, the Israelites would camp and would not journey onward, and when it lifted, they would journey onward. 23By the LORD’s word they would camp and by the LORD’s word they would journey onward. The LORD’s watch did they keep by the LORD’s word in the hand of Moses.
CHAPTER 9 NOTES
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2. Let the Israelites do the Passover offering. The reiteration here of the instructions for the Passover offering picks up the first injunction about the Passover offering on the eve of the departure from Egypt (Exodus 12:43–51). There is narrative symmetry in the reiteration: the first Passover was celebrated just before the Israelites set out on their journey from Egypt. Now they are about to move onward from the Sinai encampment in their Wilderness itinerary—a topic to which verses 15–23 alert us—and again the departure is marked by the Passover offering.
6. And it happened that there were men who were defiled by human corpse. The injunction to offer the Passover sacrifice at its fixed time is followed by a piece of case law. What is to be done for Israelites who find themselves in a state of ritual impurity and hence excluded from the sacrificial ceremony?
7. Why should we be withheld from offering the LORD’s sacrifice at its fixed time in the midst of the Israelites? The partaking in the Passover sacrifice is the primary act of affirming membership in the community of Israel, and so the people in question are distressed that a mere accident, contact with a corpse (or perhaps another source of ritual pollution), should exclude them from the community. Conversely, a person who deliberately neglects to perform the Passover offering is “cut off from his kin.”
10. or on a distant journey. This is another circumstance, not that of the men who come to petition Moses, that would prevent someone from participating in the Passover offering. Baruch Levine plausibly infers that the stipulation of a distant journey presupposes the Deuteronomic requirement of a centralized cult. (The initial Passover sacrifice was performed in each household, and a person on a journey could presumably have participated with a household where he was a guest.)
14. should a stranger sojourn with you. This provision for the resident alien (ger) reflects a prevalent ancient Near Eastern practice of allowing such residents to adopt the local cult. No formal ceremony of “conversion,” as in later times, was required, though the law in Exodus stipulates that the stranger must be circumcised before he can partake in the Passover offering. That requirement is presumably implied here in “according to the statute of the Passover offering and according to its law” but it is not expressly stated.
15–23. This literary unit nicely sets the stage for the peregrinations and perturbations that will make up much of the Book of Numbers from chapter 10 onward. Until this point, the forward drive of narrative has been abandoned for tabulation—census and military roster—and legislation in a long stasis in the Wilderness of Sinai. Now the Israelites prepare to move on, and their order of march, dictated by the descent upon the Tabernacle and the ascent from the Tabernacle of the divine cloud, is reported in a series of verbs in the iterative tense. The indication of the varying time periods during which the cloud “abides” (or “tents,” “dwells,” a verb cognate with the noun mishkan, “Tabernacle”) over the Tabernacle may seem repetitious but in fact constitutes a grand rhetorical flourish: all of Israel’s movements through the wilderness are prompted by the divine sign, with the duration of encampment varying from a night or two to a month to a year. Yitzhak Avishur neatly confirms the purposeful rhetorical organization of the passage by pointing to its studied use of numerically formulaic repetitions: the phrase “by the LORD’s word” (literally, “by the LORD’s mouth”) occurs seven times—three times in conjunction with “they would journey onward,” three times in conjunction with “they would camp,” and at the very end of the passage, in conjunction with neither. “Tabernacle” occurs seven times; the root sh-k-n from which it derives, ten times; and, if one follows the Septuagint rather than the Masoretic Text, “cloud” also appears ten times. The carefully measured repetitions thus yield a tight thematic interweave of cloud, Tabernacle, camping, journeying, and God’s word or direction.