🔢WEB · Numbers 9:6
What does Numbers 9:6 mean?
"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."
— Numbers 9:6 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
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.
Those men said to him, “We are unclean because of the dead body of a man. Why are we kept back, that we may not offer the offering of Yahweh in its appointed season among the children of Israel?”
Moses answered them, “Wait, that I may hear what Yahweh will command concerning you.”
Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
Explanation
Numbers 9:6 describes a specific problem that arose among the Israelites in the wilderness. Some men had become ceremonially unclean because they had come into contact with a dead body, and under the law given through Moses, a person in that state of uncleanness was barred from participating in the Passover observance. Because the appointed day for keeping the Passover had arrived, these men found themselves unable to fulfill this important religious duty, so they brought their situation directly to Moses and Aaron for a ruling.
The book of Numbers records the experiences of Israel during their journey from Sinai toward the Promised Land, and Moses is understood to be the human author, writing under divine inspiration to instruct the covenant community. This particular episode takes place shortly after Israel had celebrated the first anniversary of the Passover following their exodus from Egypt, as commanded in Exodus 12. The law required that anyone who touched a corpse be considered unclean for seven days (as later detailed in Numbers 19), and uncleanness disqualified a person from full participation in Israel's worship, including the Passover meal, which required ritual purity. These men were caught between two divine commands: the obligation to keep the Passover and the obligation to avoid uncleanness, and they had no clear instruction on how to resolve the conflict, so they sought guidance from
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