Polyglot Bible: Numbers: Numbers 9

This is a parallel-column scriptural text presenting Numbers 9:1–23 in four traditions simultaneously: the King James Version with embedded Strong's concordance numbers, the Greek Septuagint, the Hebrew Tanakh (Masoretic text), and the Latin Vulgate. The passage covers two distinct legal-narrative units: first, God's instruction to Israel to observe Passover in the Sinai wilderness in the second year after the Exodus, including a special provision allowing those ritually impure or traveling far away to keep a "second Passover" one month later; second, a description of the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night that covered the Tabernacle, which governed when Israel broke camp or rested — they moved only when the cloud lifted, whether the pause lasted a night or a year. The text's most legally notable element is the "second Passover" ruling (vv. 10–13), which establishes that ritual impurity or distance does not exempt one from the obligation, only defers it, while willful neglect without cause carries the penalty of being "cut off" from the people. The inclusion of the resident alien (ger) under the same Passover law (v. 14) is a significant egalitarian legal principle presented without elaboration. The parallel-text format makes this a scholarly or liturgical reference tool rather than a devotional text, inviting direct comparison of translation choices — for instance, the Septuagint's "φυλακὴν τοῦ θεοῦ" ("guard/watch of God") versus the Hebrew "מִשְׁמֶרֶת יְהוָה" and the KJV's "charge of the LORD."

Polyglot Bible: Numbers: Numbers 9

Related pages View as graph →