Passover & Clouds - Numbers 9

At the point of the beginning of chapter 9, Israel had been out of Egypt for about 13 months, “and the Lord spake unto Moses in thew wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying, Let the children of Israel also keep the Passover at his appointed season.” I guess I had just assume that Egypt knew that they were going to observe the Passover every year after they left Egypt but maybe they didn’t know that and this was the first time the people were hearing about it. At this point, God told Moses to observe the Passover, the people observed the Passover, and then they did it from then on “on the fourteenth day of the first month.”

I don’t know if it was just because of the short notice or if this was going to be a rule from that point on, but there were “certain men, who were defiled by the dead body of a man, that they could not keep the Passover on that day.” I don’t know if it was because they dealt with dead bodies as a profession, or if it just happened that someone they knew had died and they had to deal with the body, but they were considered unclean and therefore couldn’t participate in the Passover, so they went to Moses to ask what to do in that situation. Moses went to ask God what they should do and God answered that if someone is unclean because of dealing with a dead body or the Lord also stipulates if they “be in a journey afar off,” they should keep the Passover but on the 14th day of the second month instead. TB notes that the distance that is considered “afar off” came to be understood to be about 18 miles, which plays into the traveling to Jerusalem from Galilee and Nazareth at the time of Christ because those places are more than 18 miles away from the temple in Jerusalem.

The last part of chapter 9 deals with the cloud of the Lord descending on the people of Israel again. From what I understand, after the original Passover and the people of Israel left Egypt, the cloud of the Lord surrounded, protected, and guided the people through the desert and then when they got to Mount Sinai, the cloud went up into the mountains and stayed there until now, “on the day that the tabernacle was reared up the cloud covered the tabernacle.” So the cloud moved back down from Mount Sinai to cover the tabernacle now that it was dedicated. The cloud was just a regular covering during the day but had “the appearance of fire by night.”

Because this was the time that the camp of Israel needed to start moving away from Mount Sinai toward the promised land (eventually) the cloud was to be their guide. It appears that they basically woke up each morning to see if they were going to move that day or not, “and when the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, then after that the children of Israel journeyed: and in that place where the cloud abode, there the children of Israel pitched their tents… and as long as the cloud abode upon the tabernacle they rested in their tents…and so it was, when the cloud abode from even until the morning, and that the cloud was taken up in the morning, then they journeyed: whether it was by day or by night that the cloud was taken up, they journeyed. Or whether it were two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, remaining thereon, the children of Israel abode in their tents, and journeyed not: but when it was taken up they journeyed. At the commandment of the Lord they rested in the tents, and at the commandment of the Lord they journeyed.”

It just occurred to me that at this point the people were probably still being fed by manna, in fact ye ole google search confirmed that the Israelites ate manna for the whole 40 years that they wandered in the wilderness until they “reached the border of the Promised Land, Canaan, at which point it stopped appearing as they entered a settled area.” So they didn’t have to worry about obtaining food where they went which would have played a heavy emphasis on just how long the people were willing to “wander” around waiting until God’s cloud moved. Additionally, it didn’t occur to me that the cloud sitting on the tabernacle was important because they indicated that the tabernacle was probably set up whenever they were in a spot for more than a couple of days. We know that the tabernacle wasn’t, and couldn’t have been, moved from place to place as one whole unit because they got the wagons as offerings from the people and there are very explicit instructions on how to move the tabernacle. This indicates to me that the Levites had to set the tabernacle up pretty often and my guess is that it took a couple of days just like tear down did and that it was a pretty physically arduous process. So it’s just interesting to consider that they spent all this time and energy setting up the tabernacle just to wait and see if they had to tear it down again, depending on what the cloud of the Lord told them.