Bible Commentaries

The passover kept in the wilderness on the fourteenth day of the first month, Numbers 9:1-5. By those who were then unclean or journeying, the fourteenth day of the second month, Numbers 9:6-12. They who otherwise neglect it to be put to death, Numbers 9:13. Proselytes are to observe the same, Numbers 9:14. God manifests himself to Israel in a cloud by day, and fire by night, by which they knew when and where to camp, Numbers 9:15-23.

In the first month; and therefore before the numbering of the people, which was not till the second month, Numbers 1:1,2. But it is placed after it, because of a special case relating to the passover, which happened after it, and which is here related, upon occasion whereof he mentions the command of God for the keeping of the passover in the wilderness, which was done but once, and without this command they had not been obliged to keep it at all till they came to the land of Canaan. See Exodus 12:25.

No text from Poole on this verse.

So far as concerned the lamb and the unleavened bread, &c., for there were some things peculiar to the first passover in Egypt, as that they were to eat it in haste, with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, and their staff in their hand, which were not properly rites or ceremonies of the passover, but circumstances of their present condition being the travellers and ready to depart, &c.

Quest. Whence had they meal to make unleavened bread

Answ. They were not now in haste, and so had time enough to procure it out of the land of Midian by the help of Moses’s father-in-law, who lived there, which land was not far from Horeb or Sinai, as appears from Exodus 3:1.

No text from Poole on this verse.

No text from Poole on this verse.

By the dead body of a man; by the touch of a dead body, or something belonging to it; {see Numbers 19:11} because unclean persons were prohibited to eat of holy things. See Leviticus 8:20 22:3.

They came before Moses, for resolution of their difficulty.

Which if we neglect, we must be cut off; and if we keep it in these circumstances, we must also be cut off. What shall we do? The passover is called

an offering of the Lord, because it was both killed and eaten in obedience to God’s command, and to God’s honour, and as a thank-offering to God for his great mercies.

God having promised to answer and direct him upon his address to him in difficult cases.