The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 96

CH.APTER IX. mentioned below (vers. 11, 12). It is singular that no mention is made of the THE PASSOVER AT SINAI (vers. 1-14). considerable departure which circumstances Ver. 1.-In the :first month of the second necessitated from the original institution. It year. Before the census, and all the other was not possible, e. g., to strike the blood of events recorded in this book, except in part the lamb upon the lint.el and the side-posts the offerings of the princes (see eh. vii 1). of the doors, because in the wildemess they There was, however, an obvious reason for had no doors. In after ages this rite (which mentioning together the two passovers, the was of the essenoe of the institution) was second of which immediately preceded the represented by the sprinkling of the blood of departure from Sinai. the lambs on the altar (2 Ohron. lLll, 16), Ver. 2.-Let the children of Israel also but no command is on reoord which expressly keep the passover at hie appointed season. authorised the change. In Levit. :xvii. 8-6 Septuagint, 1fO<E<TW<Tav TO 1ra<Txa, Cf. there is indeed a general direction, applying Matt. =,i. 18, ,ro,w TO ,ra<Txa, and Luke apparently to all domestic animals slain for xxi.i 19, TOVTO 1f0tttTE Eir; r,ji, <Jl~" ai,aµi,IJ• food, that they be brought to the tabernacle <T<V. They may have been in doubt as to to be slain, and that the priest sprinkle the whether they were to keep it in the wilder- blood upon the altar ; and in Deut. xvi. 5- ness, and indeed they do not seem to have 7 there is an order that in futuro times the attempted to keep it again until they reached passover was only to be slain at the place the promised land (see on Josh. v. 5, 6). which the Lord should choose. The actual The passover had indeed been made an practice in later ages seems to have been "ordinance for ever," Lut only when they founded partly upon the command in Deu- were come to the land which the Lord teronomy, which restricted the killing of should give them (Exod. xii. 24, 25 ; xiii. the passover to Jerusalem (not, however, t.o 5). Apart, therefore, from express command, the temple), and partly on the command in it would have been doubtful whether the Leviticus, which really applied (at any rate in feast should not at least be postponed. Inas- the letter) to the time of wandering only. much, however, as they had been detained at As the celebration of the paschal fee.at had Sinai by Dirine direction (albeit partly in apparently been neglected from the time of coruequence of their own idolatry, but for Joshua until that of the later kings (Josh. which they might already have been "at v. 10; 2 Kings :xxiii. 22), they were no home"), it pleased God that they should doubt guided in the obsorvanco of it by the not lack the blessing and support of the analogy of other sacrifices in the absence of passover at its proper season. express commands. It would, however, be Ver. 3.-At even. See on Exod. :xii 6. an obvious source of error to assume that the According to all the ritea of it, and accord- practice of the ago of Josiah or Hezekiah was ing to all the ceremoniea thereof. This the practice of the earliest passovers ; so for must Le understood only of the esee!ltial as these necessarily differed from the original rite& and ceremonies of the pa.B80ver, as institution, it is absolutely uncort11i.i1 how ea. 1x. 1-14.J THt BOOK OF NUMBlRS. 13