Exodus 12:32
in Exodus 12Take your flocks and herds as well, just as you have said, and depart! And bless me also.”
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Take both your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also.
KJV
Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also.
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This verse in Exodus 12
Commentary
7 notes on this verseA commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
Appalling judgments in such rapid succession showed plainly that the hand of God was against him. His own family bereavement had so crushed him to the earth that he not only showed impatience to rid his kingdom of such formidable neighbors, but even begged an interest in their prayers.
This site's exposition
he called for Moses and Aaron by night
on Exodus 12:31-32
Pharaoh finally uses the words Moses had been given at the start, go, serve the LORD, and drops every condition he had tried to attach in chapters 8 and 10. Then he asks for something for himself, bless me also, and the text records no answer. The man who said at 5:2 who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice ends the contest asking for a blessing.
This site's exposition
Take your flocks and herds as well, just as you have said
At 10:26 Moses said not a hoof would stay behind. Pharaoh now grants the flocks and herds on the terms Moses set, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown trace the change to the death in his own family. They read his request for a blessing as a plea for prayer.
The record, by era
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
): " Bless me also; let me have your prayers, that I may not be plagued for what is past, when you are gone." Note, Those that are enemies to God's church are enemies to themselves, and, sooner or later, they will be made to see it.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said,.... Which they had insisted upon should go with them, but he had refused, but now he is willing they should go with them: and be gone; out of his city and country in all haste: and bless me also; or pray for me, as the Targum of Onkelos; pray the Lord to bestow a blessing upon me also, as I have done well by you in suffering you to depart with your whole families, flocks, and herds.
Note, God's word will stand, and we shall get nothing by disputing it, or delaying to submit to it. Hitherto the Israelites were not permitted to depart, but now things had come to the last extremity, in consequence of which, 1. They are commanded to depart: Rise up, and get you forth,
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
Bless me also - No words could show more strikingly the complete, though temporary, submission of Pharaoh.
How the passage was read
On Exodus 12:1-51On 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
11 Hebrew wordsEvery 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.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| גַּם־ | gam- | both | H1571 → | 769 times |
| צֹאנְכֶ֨ם | tzonkhem | flock[s] your | H6629 → | 274 times |
| גַּם־ | gam- | as well as | H1571 → | 769 times |
| בְּקַרְכֶ֥ם | bekarkhem | herd[s] your | H1241 → | 183 times |
| קְח֛וּ | kechu | take | H3947 → | 966 times |
| כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר | kaasher | just as | H834 → | 5497 times |
| דִּבַּרְתֶּ֖ם | dibartem | you said | H1696 → | 1141 times |
| וָלֵ֑כוּ | valekhu | and go | H1980 → | 1546 times |
| וּבֵֽרַכְתֶּ֖ם | uverakhtem | and you will bless | H1288 → | 330 times |
| גַּם־ | gam- | also | H1571 → | 769 times |
| אֹתִֽי׃ | ʾoti | <obj.> me | H853 → | 10935 times |
גַּם־both
gam-H1571 →769 times
צֹאנְכֶ֨םflock[s] your
tzonkhemH6629 →274 times
גַּם־as well as
gam-H1571 →769 times
בְּקַרְכֶ֥םherd[s] your
bekarkhemH1241 →183 times
קְח֛וּtake
kechuH3947 →966 times
כַּאֲשֶׁ֥רjust as
kaasherH834 →5497 times
דִּבַּרְתֶּ֖םyou said
dibartemH1696 →1141 times
וָלֵ֑כוּand go
valekhuH1980 →1546 times
וּבֵֽרַכְתֶּ֖םand you will bless
uverakhtemH1288 →330 times
גַּם־also
gam-H1571 →769 times
אֹתִֽי׃<obj.> me
ʾotiH853 →10935 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach 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
Genesis 27:34When Esau heard his father’s words, he let out a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me too, O my father!”
it leads to
- Hebrews 12:17
For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. He could find no ground for repentance, though he sought the blessing with tears.
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Proverbs 1:31
So they will eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.
- Hebrews 12:17
Through
Exodus 10:9“We will go with our young and old,” Moses replied. “We will go with our sons and daughters, and with our flocks and herds, for we must hold a feast to the LORD.”
it leads to
- Deuteronomy 31:12–13
Assemble the people—men, women, children, and the foreigners within your gates—so that they may listen and learn to fear the LORD your God and to follow carefully all the words of this law.
- 1 Corinthians 5:7–8
Get rid of the old leaven, that you may be a new unleavened batch, as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
- Exodus 5:1
After that, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let My people go, so that they may hold a feast to Me in…
- Exodus 3:18
The elders of Israel will listen to what you say, and you must go with them to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with…
- Deuteronomy 31:12–13
Through
Exodus 9:28Pray to the LORD, for there has been enough of God’s thunder and hail. I will let you go; you do not need to stay any longer.”
it leads to
- Exodus 8:8
Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the LORD to take the frogs away from me and my people. Then I will let your people go, that they may sacrifice to the…
- Exodus 10:17
Now please forgive my sin once more and appeal to the LORD your God, that He may remove this death from me.”
- Exodus 8:8
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies10
About Exodus
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.