Numbers 9 · a question people ask
Numbers began in the second month. Why is a first-month Passover told in chapter 9?
The dates are in the text. Numbers 1 opens "on the first day of the second month, in the second year" (1:1). This Passover is "in the first month of the second year" (9:1), on the fourteenth day (9:5): earlier than the date of 1:1. The cloud section goes back further, to "the day that the tabernacle was raised up" (9:15), which Exodus dates to the first day of the first month (Exodus 40:17). Numbers 7 also opens on a day, "On the day that Moses had finished setting up the tabernacle" (7:1). The next date Numbers gives is "In the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth day of the month", when "the cloud was taken up" (10:11). Numbers doesn't say why it tells these events in this order, so any reason given goes beyond the text.
The verses
“The LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying,”
“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,”
“They kept the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, in the wilderness of Sinai. According to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did.”
“On the day that the tabernacle was raised up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, even the Tent of the Testimony. At evening it was over the tabernacle, as it were the appearance of fire, until morning.”