Numbers 9:10, commentary and pictures

Those prevented by contact with the dead or by being on a distant journey were still to keep the Passover unto the Lord, a month later on the fourteenth day of the second month. This was the sole exception allowed by necessity to keeping the feasts only when due, permitted one month later and not even a day early. The wording for defilement by the dead uses the Hebrew word for soul, showing that a dead person can be called a dead soul just as a living person is called a living soul. Here soul means the person himself, not a deathless or immaterial part of him.

Soul Means Dead Person

In Hebrew the wording for being unclean by a dead body uses nephesh, literally soul, where English renderings put it as body or dead body. The phrase is a shortened expression for contracting defilement by contact with a dead person, which is spoken of as being defiled by a dead soul. As receiving the breath of life makes a person a living soul, so one whose breath has departed can be called a dead soul, showing that soul is used for a dead person and not only for a living one. In this place soul therefore denotes the person himself, not an immortal, deathless, or immaterial part of a person.

Second-Month Passover Provision

If any man was ceremonially unclean by contact with a dead body or was away on a journey afar off, he was still to keep the Passover unto the LORD, postponing it to the fourteenth day of the second month when necessity prevented its observance at the appointed time in the first month. The feasts God gave Israel occurred annually and were to be observed only at the time when they were due, and the Passover was the one exception to that rule, since those unable to keep it in the first month on account of ceremonial uncleanness were allowed to keep it on the same day of the month in the second month. The postponement was allowed only from necessity and only one month later, with ceremonial defilement the only circumstance warranting a change in the time of eating the Passover, not one day before. Therefore Jesus did not eat his last Passover the evening before the regular time.

Those made unclean by contact with a dead body had to undergo the prescribed purification rites before keeping the Passover. Avoiding defilement by the dead was a restriction to be observed in connection with the feast, a rule the people were expected to observe during the feast. This limited second-month provision later grew into the Jewish practice of observing two days for each great feast instead of keeping only the first and last days as a sabbath. The verse belongs to the Passover law cited as evidence that Israel observed the Passover in the wilderness only once, in the year after leaving Egypt, and did not observe it again until entering Canaan.