בחודש הראשון, after he had taken a census of the males fit for service in the army according to their ages. Moses was to make all the preparations necessary to arrange for the orderly entrance of the Israelites into the land of Canaan. This involved first and foremost that the inhabitants of the camps of the Israelites be ritually pure in conformity with the Torah’s imperative that the army of the Jewish people when assembled must be holy (Deuteronomy 23,15). Needless to say that it must not contain people who had not cleansed themselves of their ritual impurity. They also had to be certain that no members of the Israelite camp was the product of an illegal union between people whose incestuous relationship carried the karet penalty. The purpose of all this was that G’d’s Shechinah would rest on the troops, and that therefore victory would be assured and casualties minimized. The Talmud in Sotah 11 and 31 relates that the Jewish people had 4 virtues to their credit on account of which they merited entering and conquering the land of Canaan already at that time if the sin of the spies had not intervened. We know that Moses was convinced that the conquest of the land of Canaan was at hand when he asked his father-in-law Yitro to remain with him and to partake in that event. (Numbers 10,29) These merits were: 1) the altar had been successfully consecrated, the offerings of the Jewish people were being accepted by G’d. 2) the Levites had been consecrated. 3) The Jewish people had demonstrated eagerness when observing the anniversary of the Exodus by performing the required ceremonies in difficult circumstances. 4) They had followed their G’d to an inhospitable desert even though they had no idea if and when the cloud would lift and indicate that they were suddenly to break camp. Their entire situation was such that sometimes they would remain in the same spot for months or years, whereas other times they would break camp and re-establish camp after only 24 hours, all of which involved a tremendous upheaval when we consider that we speak about two and a half to three million souls. In order to describe the various merits the Jewish people had in their favour at the time the Torah told us at this point about these events instead of relating them in chronological order, as we might have expected. Consecration of the altar occurred in the first month of the second year, so did the consecration of the Levites, and so did the celebration of the second Passover. Seeing that the beginning of the Book of Numbers speaks of events in the second month of that year, we could have questioned the Torah’s sequence. However, the Torah had a purpose in delaying the report about the last mentioned events in order to demonstrate that had it not been for the disastrous mission of the spies everything would have been in place for an immediate ascent to the Holy Land. The entire paragraph is another illustration of the principle known as אין מוקדם ומאוחר בתורה, that the Torah is not a record of events in chronological order. The Torah most certainly is very orderly, has been written after careful consideration, but G’d, the author, had decided that “order” does not necessarily mean “chronological sequence.”

ויעשו בני ישראל את הפסח, apart from the procedures reported as having taken place on the eighth day of the consecration of the Tabernacle, and the consecration of the princes between the first and twelfth of the month of Nissan, 2 days later the whole nation observed the Passover. They did not feel that they had become free from doing so seeing that they had just finished a string of rituals as a result of which they were on a spiritual “high,” full of joy. This was in contrast to the consecration of Solomon’s Temple, on the occasion of which, according to our sages in Moed Katan 9, Solomon ordered a dispensation of the Day of Atonement seeing that the people were on such a spiritual “high” on account of that event.

אנחנו טמאים לנפש אדם למה נגרע, seeing that the ritual impurity we have incurred was incurred in the process of our fulfilling a positive commandment, why should the result of this be the misdemeanour of not fulfilling such an important commandment as observing the Passover at the appointed time?

במועדו, seeing that this is a commandment which can only be fulfilled at its appointed date?

חקה אחת יהיה לכם, here while you are in the desert.

ולגר ולאזרח הארץ, once you will have settled in the land of Israel.

ואחרי כן יסעו, after the cloud had lifted off the Tabernacle the people would march, following its direction.

ובמקום אשר ישכון שם הענן שם יחנו, the Torah records this in order to praise the Israelites for following G’d in the desert regardless of the site where the cloud stopped being a desolate inhospitable place.

. ושמרו בני ישראל את משמרת ה', the reason why the Torah repeats this fact a second time is to emphasise that even when the location selected by the cloud was not only inhospitable, but the cloud remained there for a long period, the Israelites did not grumble or protest this fact. They did not start journeying on their own, looking for a more suitable place to encamp.

ויש אשר יהיה הענן ימים מספר, now the Torah reports the same matter for the third time as sometimes the encampment of the Jewish people was in an area which was pleasant, offered grazing for their animals and in spite of this after a day or two the cloud lifted, something which must have caused the people discontent [especially after the decree that the generation of the spies would die in the desert and they could not expect even if they moved to enter their ultimate destination. Ed.] Still, and this is why the Torah repeats the basic fact, the Israelites never complained about the movements of the cloud. Whatever the situation,

על פי ה' יחנו, they journeyed in accordance with G’d’s instructions, regardless if it suited them or not.

ועל פי ה' יסעו, even if the location of their camp had suited them very well.

ויש אשר יהיה הענן מערב עד בוקר, this is the fourth time that the manner in which the cloud operated is being mentioned, to show that it was impossible to predict with any degree of probability how long they would stay in one location. Sometimes, only overnight. This was not even time enough to pitch their tents, much less to erect the Tabernacle. The principal reason this detail was mentioned is to make clear that the journeys never started at night.

או יומים או חדש או ימים, this is now already the fifth time that the Torah belabours the subject of these journeys, something totally unprecedented. It alerts us to how sometimes the people did not even have time to send their beasts to graze, whereas on other occasions they had to dismantle everything at very short notice, any plans they had made having to be abandoned.

על פי ה' יחנו, even when the encampment was so short-lived and the time for the to arrange their affairs was so short.

ועל פי ה' יסעו, when the dismantling in advance of the next journey would be more time consuming seeing that they had been in the same location for a long time, they still hastened and packed up to follow the cloud.