Numbers 9:9

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man of you or of your generation shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be on a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the Passover unto Jehovah. In the second month on the fourteenth day at even shall they keep it; they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs: they shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break a bone thereof: according to all the statute of the Passover they shall keep it. But the man that is clean, and is not on a journey, and forbeareth to keep the Passover, that soul shall be cut off from his people; because he offered not the oblation of Jehovah in its appointed season, that man shall bear his sin. And if a stranger shall sojourn among you, and will keep the Passover unto Jehovah; according to the statute of the Passover, and according to the ordinance thereof, so shall he do: ye shall have one statute, both for the sojourner, and for him that is born in the land."

The instructions God gave covered more than the case that occasioned them, including also the case of strangers who wished to participate, and the instance of a traveler on a long journey. The word strangers, as used here, does not refer to itinerant strangers, but to a sojourner who was already a member of the community. The very term "stranger" in time came to mean "proselyte," reflecting the invariable condition of circumcision from which no participant in the Passover could be exempted.

Although, as we have seen, there may have been some of the original conditions that Israel observed in the first Passover that did not apply in subsequent observances of it, it is of significance that here a number of the prime requirements are enumerated again. "Four of the chief regulations governing the ordinance are here specified as governing also this supplementary Passover:

(1) observe it on the fourteenth day of the month (Numbers 9:11)

(2) eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs (Numbers 9:12)

(3) leave none of it until morning (Numbers 9:12) and

(4) nor break a bone thereof."[12]

Added to this was the requirement that "all of the statute and all of the ordinance of the Passover" were to be observed. (For the magnificent symbolism of all of this, see a full discussion of it in Exodus 12 in this series.)

This mention of an Israelite on a far journey affords another incidental proof that the "times of the exile" had no connection with the writing of this passage. "Note that it is assumed that the absentee would return, so that the exile is not in view."[13]

"Nor break a bone thereof ..." (Numbers 9:12). The Jews no doubt considered this a very minor part of the regulations, for it is mentioned nowhere else in the O.T. (except in Exodus 12:46). "The very insignificance of this rule gives force to its fulfillment as an evidence that Christ was truly the Passover Lamb of God."[14]