Numbers 9

## Summary Numbers 9 records the observance of the Passover in the wilderness of Sinai, including a special provision for those who were ritually unclean or traveling, and closes with a description of how the cloud over the tabernacle directed the Israelites' movements and encampments throughout their journey. ## Key words - *Pesach* ("passover", H6453) — appears repeatedly as the technical term for the ritual observance itself, both as the offering and the named event. - *tzimeʾ* / *tame'* ("unclean", H2931) — an adjective describing ritual status due to corpse contact, the condition that triggers the entire legal question of the chapter. - *mo'ed* ("appointed time", H4150G) — construct noun with pronominal suffix ("its appointed time"), stressing that Passover has a fixed, non-negotiable date. - *'anan* ("cloud", H6051) — the recurring subject of the second half of the chapter, always with the definite article, referring to a specific, singular cloud tied to the tabernacle. - *pi* ("mouth of", H6310I) — construct noun used idiomatically in *'al-pi YHWH* ("on the mouth of Yahweh"), an idiom for "at the command of," repeated to emphasize divine control over the camp's movement. ## What the text says The chapter divides into two distinct units joined by a common concern for the correct fulfillment of divine instruction. Verses 1–14 use legal casuistic structure, marked by the repeated phrase *'ish 'ish ki* ("a man, a man if," H0376G + H3588A) — a doubling that signals a general, distributive case ("whoever"). This structure introduces the problem of men *teme'im le-nefesh 'adam* ("unclean to a corpse of a person," H2931 + H5315M + H0120G), who bring their case before Moses and Aaron. The resolution, delivered by Yahweh, creates a second, delayed date — *ba-chodesh ha-sheni be-arba'ah 'asar yom* ("in the second month, on the fourteenth day") — using the same construct pattern as the original date formula in verse 3, showing that the alternate Passover replicates the original's structure exactly except for the month. Verses 15–23 shift to narrative and habitual description, using imperfect verb forms (*yihyeh*, "it was/would be," H1961) to describe repeated, not single, occurrences — the cloud's rising and settling was a recurring pattern, not a one-time event. The idiom *'al-pi YHWH* ("according to the mouth of Yahweh") occurs six times in verses 18–23, an unusually dense repetition that grammatically reinforces the point that every movement, whether the cloud lingered "two days," "a month," or "days" (H3117G used with cardinal and indefinite senses), depended entirely on this cloud-sign rather than on Israelite initiative. ## Differences between versions In verse 22, the Hebrew reads *'o yamim* ("or days," H3117G, plural/indefinite), which the LXX renders simply as *μηνός* ("of a month"), collapsing the Hebrew's triad ("two days, a month, or days") into a shorter phrase; the Vulgate reads "biduo aut uno mense vel longiori tempore" ("two days, a month, or longer"), interpreting the indefinite *yamim* as "longer time" rather than translating it literally as "days." The BSB similarly renders it "two days, a month, or longer."