6-7==
There were certain men who were defiled by human corpses (see Lev 19:28), and could not eat the Passover on the day appointed. These men came to Moses, and asked, “Why are we diminished (prevented) from offering the sacrificial gift of Jehovah at its season in the midst of the children of Israel (i.e., in common with the rest of the Israelites)?” The exclusion of persons defiled from offering the Passover followed from the law, that only clean persons were to participate in a sacrificial meal (Lev 7:21), and that no one could offer any sacrifice in an unclean state.
Verse 8
Moses told them to wait (stand), and he would hear what the Lord, of whom he would inquire, would command.
verses 9-14
Jehovah gave these general instructions: “Every one who is defiled by a corpse or upon a distant[1]journey, of you and your future families, shall keep the Passover in the second month on the fourteenth, between the two evenings,” and that in all respects according to the statute of this feast, the three leading points of which - viz., eating the lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, leaving nothing till the next day, and not breaking a bone (Exo 12:8, Exo 12:10, Exo 12:46), - are repeated
- ↑ The רחקה is marked as suspicious by puncta extraordinaria, probably first of all simply on the ground that the more exact definition is not found in Num 9:13. The Rabbins suppose the marks to indicate that rechokah is not to be taken here in its literal sense, but denotes merely distance from Jerusalem, or from the threshold of the outer court of the temple. See Mishnah Pesach ix. 2, with the commentaries of Bartenora and Maimonides, and the conjectures of the Pesikta on the ten passages in the Pentateuch with punctis extraordinariis, in Drusii notae uberiores ad h. v.
