John Gill Commentary Numbers 9

And the Lord spoke unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai. While the people of Israel were encamped there, before they took their journey from there:

in the first month of the second year, after they were come out of the land of Egypt: the following order was given some time in the first month of the second year of Israel's departure out of Egypt; the precise day is not mentioned, it must be in the beginning of the month before the fourteenth day of it, in which the passover is ordered to be kept, according to the first institution of it; very probably immediately after the setting up of the tabernacle, and the consecration of Aaron and his sons; and it must be before the numbering of the people, the fixing of their standards, the appointment of the Levites, and the dedication of them;

since the order for the numbering of the people was on the first day of the second month, (Numbers 1:1), but the account of them was postponed to this time, in order to give a relation of an affair which was not finished until the second month, and therefore the whole is laid together here:

saying, as follows.

Let the children of Israel also keep the passover
Though this ordinance was enjoined the people of Israel, and observed by them at the time of their coming out of Egypt, and had been since repeated, (Leviticus 23:5) ; yet without a fresh precept, or an explanation of the former, they seemed not to be obliged, or might not be sensible that they were obliged to keep it, until they came into the land of Canaan, (Exodus 12:25) ; and therefore a new order is given them to observe it: at his appointed season ;
and what that season is is next declared.

In the fourteenth day of this month, the first month, the month Nisan or Abib, answering to part of our March: at even you shall keep it, in his appointed season, between the two evenings, (Exodus 12:6) ; and even if it fall on the sabbath day, as Jarchi; and this was a sabbath day, according to the Jewish writers ^F25.

according to all the rites of it, and according to all the ceremonies thereof shall you keep it; the former of these, according to Jarchi, respects the lamb, and the requisites of it, that it should be without blemish, a male, and of the first year; and the latter, according to him and others, the removal of the leaven, and the seven days of unleavened bread, and the eating of the lamb with bitter herbs:

they take in no doubt all that were prescribed by the original law, except the sprinkling of the blood on the doorposts, and also eating the passover in haste, with their loins girt, and shoes on their feet, and staves in their hands; though some think these latter might be observed at this time, when they were unsettled.

FOOTNOTES:

• F25: Seder Olam Rabba. c. 7.

And Moses spoke unto the children of Israel, that they should
keep the passover .
] The time now drawing nigh for the observation of it, it being now almost a year since their coming out of Egypt.

And they kept the passover on the fourteenth, day of the first
month at even in the wilderness of Sinai
No mention is made of keeping the feast of unleavened bread seven days, only of the passover, which indeed was only enjoined at this time, though the feast of unleavened bread used to follow it, and did in later times;

but perhaps it would not have been an easy matter to have got the flour to make it of, sufficient for so large a body of people, for seven days together in the wilderness; though they might be able to furnish themselves with what was enough for one meal from the neighbouring countries, and especially from Midian, where Jethro, Moses's father, lived, and which was not very far from Sinai, where the Israelites now were:

according to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so did the children of
Israel ;
which is observed to their honour; though Jarchi gives this as a reason why this book does not begin with this account, as the order of things seems to require, because it was to the reproach of the Israelites, that all the forty years they were in the wilderness they kept but this passover only; the reason of which was, because of the omission of circumcision during that time, through the inconveniences of travelling, and the danger of circumcision in it, without which their children could not eat of the passover, (Exodus 12:48) .