Numbers 9:13

Summary

Numbers 9:13 states the legal consequence for a person who is ritually pure and not traveling, yet fails to perform the Passover offering: that person is to be "cut off" from their people, because they did not bring Yehovah's offering at its appointed time, and will bear the responsibility for that failure.

Key words

• tahor ("pure", H2889) — masculine singular adjective describing the ritual status of the ish ("person", H0376G); establishes that the exemption for travelers/impure persons (Numbers 9:10) does not apply here.
• chadal ("he failed / ceased", H2308) — qal perfect, completed action; marks the deliberate or simple omission of the act, contrasted with lo hayah ("he was not", H1961) describing the absence of a travel condition.
• nikhretah ("she will be cut off", H3772I) — niphal (passive) sequential perfect, feminine, agreeing with nefesh ("person/soul", H5315J); the passive voice leaves the agent of the cutting-off unspecified.
• hikriv ("he brought near/offered", H7126H) — hiphil (causative) perfect; the causative stem frames the offering as an action performed by the person toward Yehovah, negated by lo ("not", H3808).
• yisa' ("he will bear", H5375J) — qal imperfect, denoting an ongoing or future consequence, applied to chet'o ("his sin", H2399) with the third-person suffix -o.

What the text says

The verse is structured as a conditional-consequence clause introduced by ve-ha-ish asher ("and the person who", H0376G + H0834A), followed by two descriptive clauses joined by ve ("and", H9002): the person is tahor ("pure", H2889) and be-derekh lo hayah ("was not on a journey", H1870L + H3808 + H1961). These two qualifiers exclude the exemptions mentioned earlier in the chapter. The main verb of failure, chadal ("he failed", H2308), governs the infinitive la'asot ha-pesach ("to observe the passover", H6213A + H6453), meaning the subject did not perform the required rite despite having no valid excuse.

The consequence clause begins with the narrative vav (H9001) attached to nikhretah ("it will be cut off", H3772I), a niphal sequential perfect agreeing grammatically with the feminine noun nefesh ("person", H5315J) rather than the masculine ish. The phrase me-'ammeiha ("from her kinspeople", H5971B + H9024) uses a feminine suffix matching nefesh. The causal clause ki korban YHWH lo hikriv ("for he did not bring near the offering of Yehovah", H3588A + H7133A + H3068G + H3808 + H7126H) explains the reasoning: it repeats the failure using the causative hiphil verb hikriv, tying the ritual omission explicitly to the appointed time, be-mo'ado (H4150G). The closing clause chet'o yisa' ha-ish ha-hu ("his sin he will bear, that person", H2399 + H5375J) places the object chet'o before the verb yisa', a word order that gives prominence to "his sin" as the burden carried.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders be-derekh ("on a journey", H1870L) as ἐν ὁδῷ μακρᾷ ("on a long/distant journey"), adding the qualifier "long" (μακρᾷ) not present in the Hebrew text, which simply says "on a journey." The Hebrew nefesh ("person", feminine, H5315J) is rendered in the LXX with the feminine ψυχή ("soul"), preserving gender agreement, while the Vulgate uses anima ("soul"), also feminine, matching the Hebrew's grammatical gender pattern.