Numbers 9:1-14--The Passover Celebrated

Numbers 9:1-14
English Standard Version

The Passover Celebrated​
9 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, at twilight, you shall keep it at its appointed time; according to all its statutes and all its rules 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, at twilight, in the wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so the people of Israel did. 6 And there were certain men who were unclean through touching a dead body, so that they could not keep the Passover on that day, and they came before Moses and Aaron on that day. 7 And those men said to him, “We are unclean through touching a dead body. Why are we kept from bringing the Lord's offering at its appointed time among the people of Israel?” 8 And Moses said to them, “Wait, that I may hear what the Lord will command concerning you.”

9 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 10 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, If any one of you or of your descendants is unclean through touching a dead body, or is on a long journey, he shall still keep the Passover to the Lord. 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.”

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So, why stop the story here?  Why is this such a major milestone in the people's history?  Let's give a small recap of where we've been so far.  The people spent about 400 years in bondage and slavery in Egypt.  Before that they were simply "sojourners" living in Egypt away from the land of Canaan with the permission of the Pharaoh--one people living among a people of a different kingdom (much like how we are today as the Church living in the world though we are not of the world).  Skipping ahead in the story, God has prepared Moses to be the one to lead the people out of slavery and God reveals Himself to Moses in a way that He has not revealed Himself to anyone else--by telling Moses His holy Name (I AM, usually translated as "the LORD").  Moses speaks to the Pharaoh for God to tell him that the LORD said, "Let my people go."  God used many plagues to bring judgment against Pharaoh and his people, but He saved the children of Israel from all of them.  The last plague, the tenth plague, was for Egypt the plague where all of their firstborn died, but for Israel, that same event that brought death to Egypt brought redemption and life to them, the children of God.  They received a new identity and were now a nation, and they had a new holiday that not only celebrated their freedom, but God as their Redeemer (a name they had never used for Him before).  The name of this feast which they were commanded to keep every year (a feast which pointed forward to person and work of Jesus Christ) is called Passover, because the angel of death passed over all the houses marked by the blood of a lamb without blemish.  Death and judgment were not for those who were marked by the blood of the Lamb.

From there, the people followed the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire, crossing the Red Sea, and travelling through the Wilderness of Sin to Mount Sinai.  That trip took them roughly two months.  Moses was then on the Mountain for 40 days during which time the people build a golden calf, the original stone tablets containing the Law were broken, and Moses goes up to meet with the LORD again for another 40 days to receive a new copy of the stone tablets.  When he comes down, construction of the Tabernacle begins and takes nearly 7 months to complete (we just saw the end of that construction in the last couple chapters).  It has now been a full year since the people left Egypt as this is their first Passover they will celebrate as free people, and the Tabernacle has just been completed in time for the celebration.  This is the month of Abril, the first month of the Hebrew calendar, and Passover happens on the 15th day of that month (exactly halfway through since all Hebrew months are 30-days long, following the lunar calendar).  The people are almost ready to leave Mount Sinai (that will happen at the end of chapter 10), but even that will be a couple of months time frame as the people will have spent an entire year camped at the foot of Mount Sinai before they break camp to head to the Promised Land.  We don't normally think about their Exodus in those terms.  We typically think they immediately got from the Red Sea to Mount Sinai, and the Law and the Tabernacle just "poofed" into existence somehow for us, and then they wander around for 40 years while a bunch of people other than Joshua and Caleb died (maybe talking about Rahab and the spies as part of this) and the next thing we talk about is them crossing the Jordan River, like somehow they should remember and make the connection to them crossing the Red Sea (though the implication of the 40 years of wandering is that this is a new generation who never saw the plagues or the Passover, or the crossing of the Red Sea--or they were too young to remember it).  The book of Numbers is going to tell us about the end of one generation who had everything revealed to them, but yet failed to live in a way consistent with that revelation, and how they died in rebellion.  They also failed to adequately train up their children, even though holidays like this were given to them to force them to remember and to tell the stories to each generation, and even though the blessings would be given to that next generation, we will see that they would not turn out any better than the fathers because their fathers misunderstood the covenant to be a covenant of works instead of the covenant of grace and faith that it was always meant to be.

To our text today, Moses had to remind the people of what the date was on the calendar and that it was time to keep the Passover as the LORD had commanded.  Already, it seems that they had forgotten the covenant they had made with Him as they were leaving Egypt to always remember and always celebrate the Passover.  The people needed to prepare themselves to be clean and holy to celebrate the Passover, for they were not allowed to participate in it if they were unclean--in this case, some of them had touched a dead body that day and they would not be considered clean in time to take the Passover.  They understood this feast to be a big deal that everyone was supposed to participate in, but they did not understand why their uncleanliness kept them from participating.  God did not really answer the question that they asked (He did not explain Himself to them, because He doesn't have to), but He did make an accommodation for them and for their descendants that if for any reason a person was unclean or was too far away to celebrate the Passover on the 15th day of the 1st month, then they were to make arrangements to celebrate it on the 15th day of the 2nd month, and it would be important for them to make every arrangement to be at the Tabernacle/Temple that day as that was the only "make up day."

God then reminded them how they should keep the Passover and the meaning for them at this time of all the elements they would partake in (though these same elements have new and different meanings to us as Christians as we celebrate what we call the Eucharist, The Lord's Supper, or Communion).  Anyone who fails to keep the Passover is to be cut off from the people as celebration of this holiday was tied directly to the people's identity, and if you didn't celebrate it, then you were not one of God's people.  Even the aliens and sojourners in their land (foreigners who were there for a little while or a long time) were commanded to keep the Passover as well, but everyone who participated in it was to be consecrate themselves and to be pure and holy that day, so as to not eat in an unworthy manner.  We are told that the reason that the person would be cut off is because they didn't bring the sacrifice at the appointed time that would provide atonement for them--so then Passover is not just about redemption, but about atonement as the blood of the Lamb "covered" their sin so that they would not be judged.  If their sins were not atoned for, then God would possibly judge their sins and they would be a danger not just to themselves, but to everyone else around them as God told the people to keep the Passover so that none of the plagues that were visited upon Egypt would be visited upon them.

The stranger and sojourner (people just passing through and permanent residents without citizenship status) were also invited to celebrate the Passover too, but they had to celebrate it in exactly the same way--offering the same sacrifices, eating the same bitter herbs and roasted lamb (eating all of it and burning what was left), eating fully dressed with their sandals on their feet and staff in their hand like the people that were ready to depart at a moment's notice, and of course they had to apply the blood of the Lamb to all three sides of the door leading into their house.  There would be one Law and one Passover for both the citizen and the God-fearing Gentile.  So then in this we already beginning to see that the gospel was to the Jew first, but also to the Gentiles.