Numbers 9:1-14
The Second Passover (Exodus 12:1–20)
1 Now the LORD 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: 2 “Let the children of Israel keep the Passover at its appointed time. 3 On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, you shall keep it at its appointed time. According to all its rites and ceremonies you shall keep it.” 4 So Moses told the children of Israel that they should keep the Passover. 5 And they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month, at twilight, in the Wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did.
6 Now there were certain men who were defiled by a human corpse, so that they could not keep the Passover on that day; and they came before Moses and Aaron that day. 7 And those men said to him, “We became defiled by a human corpse. Why are we kept from presenting the offering of the LORD at its appointed time among the children of Israel?”
8 And Moses said to them, “Stand still, that I may hear what the LORD will command concerning you.”
9 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 10 “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If anyone of you or your posterity is unclean because of a corpse, or is far away on a journey, he may still keep the LORD’s Passover. 11 On the fourteenth day of the second month, at twilight, they may keep it. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 12 They shall leave none of it until morning, nor break one of its bones. According to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it. 13 But the man who is clean and is not on a journey, and ceases to keep the Passover, that same person shall be cut off from among his people, because he did not bring the offering of the LORD at its appointed time; that man shall bear his sin.
14 ‘And if a stranger dwells among you, and would keep the LORD’s Passover, he must do so according to the rite of the Passover and according to its ceremony; you shall have one ordinance, both for the stranger and the native of the land.’”
The celebration remembrance of the deliverance from bondage after four hundred years in Egypt was kept again for the second time as they journeyed through the wilderness desert. There they heard the command of God through Moses to remember and keep the rites and ceremonies of the Passover as prescribed on the fourteenth day of the first month anniversary of their being passed over by the destroyer of judgment on all the firstborn who were not protected by the lamb’s blood on the entrance to their houses. We likewise in Christ who is our Passover reflect regularly on His sacrificial death by whose lifeblood we are kept from God’s judgment on our sin. We do this as we share communion with Him together (1 Corinthians 10:16-17) in these temples by participating in the Lord’s Supper and reflecting on His body taking a beating for our punishment and His lifeblood covering our sin (Romans 3:25-26) to keep judgment outside the doors of our lives and the destroyer of the final judgment from an eternal death of suffering in the lake of fire created for the devil and the rebellious angels who followed him. We may be also defiled by our sin as those were ceremonially so by touching a dead body, but we are able to reflect and confess the sin (1 Corinthians 11:28-29, 31-32) and than come to Him together as clean in Christ Jesus, our true Passover Lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7) who takes away our sin permanently. We are not cut off from God’s people if we fail to keep this remembrance, but we are kept at a distance from enjoying His grace and presence if we fail to do so on a regular basis. This is a part of our fellowship with the Lord and one another which we should not take lightly or disregard. May we stand still at His table and hear what the Lord commands us to do therefore in sharing this Passover meal (Psalm 22:26, John 6:51, 54-55) with its true purpose and meaning.
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