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Journey of a Passage

2 Chronicles 30:2–3 and Numbers 9:10–11

Passover in the second month

All witnesses say Hezekiah kept Passover in the second month because the priests had not sanctified themselves and the people had not gathered. Numbers 9 allows a second-month Passover for those unclean or on a journey.

Read 2 Chronicles 30:2–3 and Numbers 9:10–11 in every edition

Stable text: no manuscript differences in meaning

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains this verse · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. Numbers 9:10–11 (parallel account, Masoretic Text)Torah
  2. Original ChroniclesComposed c. 4th century BC (debated)
  3. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from Original Chronicles
Greek
  1. Septuagint, 2 Paraleipomena (library text: Giguet's French)Translated c. 2nd century BCTranslated from a Hebrew text of Chronicles
Latin
    English
    1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    Every witness, in order

    1. Torah

      Numbers 9:10–11 (parallel account, Masoretic Text)

      ✓ Contains this passage

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex, quoted here in English.

      If any man of you… shall be unclean… or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the passover… The fourteenth day of the second month

    2. Composed c. 4th century BC (debated)

      Original Chronicles

      – No copy survives

      No original survives.

    3. Translated c. 2nd century BC

      Septuagint, 2 Paraleipomena (library text: Giguet's French)

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from a Hebrew text of Chronicles

      How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

      résolurent de faire la Pâque le second mois

      One Greek text (Vaticanus type) via Giguet's French; not checked against a critical Greek edition.

    4. AD 1008

      Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

      ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from Original Chronicles

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

      לַעֲשׂוֹת הַפֶּסַח בַּחֹדֶשׁ הַשֵּׁנִי

      to keep the Passover in the second month

    5. 1611

      King James Bible

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

      to keep the passover in the second month

    What changed, and why

    Hezekiah applies an individual exception to the whole people, and then prays for those who ate unpurified (30:18–20). Later rabbinic tradition debated whether Hezekiah acted rightly (Talmud Berakhot 10b).

    What the evidence shows

    • Independently documentedNumbers 9 provides for a second-month Passover.

    Sources

      Related lessons

      • A Passover for North and South →Hezekiah invites all Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, including the remnant of the north after Assyria's conquest, to keep the Passover in Jerusalem, in the second month because the priests and people were not ready. Many in Ephraim mock the couriers, but some come. Many eat without purification; Hezekiah prays for them. The feast is extended a second week: "since the time of Solomon… there was not the like in Jerusalem."
      • Temple Worship, Priests and Law across the Centuries →Chronicles measures every king by the temple: whether he repaired or neglected it, kept its feasts, honored its priests and Levites, and sought God there. Following the temple through the book shows a cycle of neglect and renewal, and the growing role of Levites, singers and teachers of the law.