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Exodus 12:28

in Exodus 12

And the Israelites went and did just what the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

And the children of Israel went and did so; as Jehovah had commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they.

KJV

And the children of Israel went away, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they.

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This verse in Exodus 12

Commentary

3 notes on this verse

This site's exposition

did as the LORD had commanded Moses

One verse of obedience stands between the instruction and the midnight, and verse 50 repeats it after the event. The report that the people did as they were told is the shape Exodus uses at its close, where the phrase as the LORD commanded Moses falls thirteen times in chapters 39 and 40. Between those two ends stands chapter 32, where they do the opposite.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices

And the children of Israel went away,.... The elders of the people, Exo 12:21 they departed to their several tribes and families at Goshen and elsewhere: and did as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they; they took a lamb on the tenth day, and kept it till the fourteenth, on which day they slew it, and roasted it with fire, and ate it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

Not one of all the providences of God concerning the Jewish church was more illustrious, or is more frequently mentioned, than the deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt. The firstborn of the Egyptians are slain,

How the passage was read

On Exodus 12:1-51

On Exodus 12:1-51

The night Israel still keeps

This chapter founds Passover, in Hebrew Pesach, the spring feast that remembers the night God struck Egypt's firstborn and passed over the blood-marked houses. Jewish families keep it to this day with a ceremonial meal called the seder (Hebrew for “order”): unleavened flatbread (matzah), bitter herbs, cups of wine, and the retelling of this chapter's story, with the children asking the questions.

Honesty about the timeline helps the reader: in the Bible's own period the center of the feast was the lamb, slain and eaten as this chapter commands. The seder as now practiced took its shape after the Temple fell in AD 70 and the lamb could no longer be offered; its oldest written outline is in the Mishnah, the first code of Jewish oral law (about AD 200), which already includes the four cups and the rule that “in every generation a person must see himself as if he personally came out of Egypt.”

This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.

Sources: Mishnah Pesachim 10 (the seder's oldest outline) · Mishnah Pesachim 10:5 (“in every generation”) · The Feasts of the LORD (this site's study)

The words behind it

12 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • וַיֵּלְכ֥וּand they went

    vaiyelekhuH1980 →1546 times

  • וַיַּֽעֲשׂ֖וּand they did

    vaiyaasuH6213 →2628 times

  • בְּנֵ֣י[the] people of

    beneiH1121 →4930 times

  • יִשְׂרָאֵ֑לIsrael

    yisraelH3478 →2507 times

  • כַּאֲשֶׁ֨רjust as

    kaasherH834 →5497 times

  • צִוָּ֧הhe had commanded

    tzivahH6680 →494 times

  • יְהוָ֛הYahweh

    yahwehH3068 →6520 times

  • אֶת־<obj.>

    ʾet-H853 →10935 times

  • מֹשֶׁ֥הMoses

    moshehH4872 →765 times

  • וְאַהֲרֹ֖ןand Aaron

    veaharonH175 →347 times

  • כֵּ֥ןso

    kenH3651 →771 times

  • עָשֽׂוּ׃ סthey did

    ʾasuH6213 →2628 times

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

Related verses

2 in all, six open

The walk

5 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    Hebrews 11:28

    By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch Israel’s own firstborn.

    it leads to

    • Exodus 12:21–30

      Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and told them, “Go at once and select for yourselves a lamb for each family, and slaughter the Passover lamb.

    • Hebrews 9:19

      For when Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, along with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and…

    • Hebrews 12:24

      to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

    • 1 Peter 1:2

      according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

    • Exodus 12:3–14

      Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man must select a lamb for his family, one per household.

Where this verse is studied

About Exodus

The Firstborn of the Egyptians Are Slain — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain
The Firstborn of the Egyptians Are Slain — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain
Exodus: the study guide →Read Exodus 12 →

This page draws on John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.

Read on in Exodus 12 →