Exodus 12:6
You must keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight.
BSB
Parallel translations (2) ▾
ASV
and ye shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at even.
KJV
And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
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Commentary
1 voiceVoices on this verse
loading…Hebraic traditional view
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.”
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)
Original language & word study
17 tagged words| Original | Transliteration | Meaning | Word study |
|---|---|---|---|
| וְהָיָ֤ה | ve.ha.Yah | and it will be | H1961 → |
| לָכֶם֙ | la.Khem | for <the> you | |
| לְמִשְׁמֶ֔רֶת | le.mish.Me.ret | for safekeeping | H4931 → |
| עַ֣ד | 'ad | until | H5704 → |
| אַרְבָּעָ֥ה | 'ar.ba.'Ah | [the] four- | H702 → |
| עָשָׂ֛ר | 'a.Sar | teen | H6240 → |
| י֖וֹם | Yom | day | H3117 → |
| לַחֹ֣דֶשׁ | la.Cho.desh | of the month | H2320 → |
| הַזֶּ֑ה | ha.Zeh | <the> this | H2088 → |
| וְשָׁחֲט֣וּ | ve.sha.cha.Tu | and they will slaughter | H7819 → |
| אֹת֗וֹ | 'o.To | <obj.> it | H853 → |
| כֹּ֛ל | kol | all | H3605 → |
| קְהַ֥ל | ke.Hal | [the] assembly of | H6951 → |
| עֲדַֽת־ | 'a.dat- | [the] congregation of | H5712 → |
| יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל | Yis.ra.'El | Israel | H3478 → |
| בֵּ֥ין | bein | between | H996 → |
| הָעַרְבָּֽיִם׃ | ha.'ar.Ba.yim | the two evenings | H6153 → |
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About Exodus
