🔢WEB · Numbers 9:3
What does Numbers 9:3 mean?
"On the fourteenth day of this month, at evening, you shall keep it in its appointed season—according to all its statutes, and according to all its ordinances, you shall keep it.”"
— Numbers 9:3 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Yahweh 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,
“Moreover let the children of Israel keep the Passover in its appointed season.
On the fourteenth day of this month, at evening, you shall keep it in its appointed season—according to all its statutes, and according to all its ordinances, you shall keep it.”
Moses spoke to the children of Israel, that they should keep the Passover.
They kept the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at evening, in the wilderness of Sinai. According to all that Yahweh commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did.
There were certain men, who were unclean because of the dead body of a man, so that they could not keep the Passover on that day, and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day.
Explanation
Numbers 9:3 records God's instruction, given through Moses, about the timing and manner of observing the Passover. In plain language, the verse commands the Israelites to celebrate Passover on the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, and to do so precisely according to all the statutes and ordinances God had already established for it. It is a call to careful, faithful obedience in both timing and detail.
The context is important. This command comes in the wilderness of Sinai, in the second year after Israel left Egypt, exactly one year after the first Passover was instituted in Exodus 12. Moses is leading a newly freed but still forming nation, and God reminds them to keep this feast at its "appointed season" — a phrase indicating a fixed, sacred time set by God himself, not something the people could adjust to their own convenience. The chapter goes on to address a practical complication: some men were ceremonially unclean and couldn't observe Passover on that date, so God provides a gracious provision for a "second Passover" a month later (Numbers 9:9-13). But verse 3 establishes the baseline expectation: the ordinary observance is to happen on the fourteenth day, at evening, exactly as commanded before.
Theologically, this verse highlights God's concern for both remembrance and obedience. Passover commemorated the night God spared Israel's firstborn and delivered them from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 12:12-13). By commanding its repetition "according to all its statutes and ordinances," God ensures that his saving acts are not forgotten but are ritually re
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