The Stabilisers
Every community needs its stabilisers — people, whether natives or resident aliens, who can live as God intended, one sign of which is to identify with the community by sharing appropriately in the traditional customs, not for the benefit of the stabilisers but for the health of the community, because the stabilisers are the people who keep the community safe, steady, and pointing in the right direction.
One aspect of this is to show respect for, and to retain, those things that really matter, in their case the Passover, and two rules are paramount. Those who thought that their way of life had prohibited them from participation — they had offended in some way or other and felt excluded or knew they did not naturally belong — were reassured that they were part of the whole, while those who just could not be bothered were dismissed as having excluded themselves.
So the strength of a community depends on those prepared to commit themselves to involvement, ‘both the resident alien and the native’ (v 14), rather than those who claim it as of right (even a privilege) but will not lift a finger by way of commitment.
Another important issue is knowing when to move and when to stick. Dependence on the cloud for divine guidance (v17) may seem somewhat primitive and unreliable for 21st century scientific creatures, but this may be something we ought to examine more closely. Could it, for example, be simply a matter of relating to nature? Who would want to move into unfamiliar territory when the weather is mirky and potentially dangerous. In a pre-scientific society it would be natural to attribute anything you didn’t quite understand to God. But were these people early environmentalists? Like the swallow (Jer 8:7), migratory birds and animals which produce their young only when there is likely to be food, they know their appointed time. Theologically, in a world where nature works in harmony with God the Israelites may well have understood the weather and the environment as God’s messenger. Get it right and there will be food ahead. Get it wrong and you may thirst or starve or catch disease. A successful community needs people like that.