Exodus 12:3
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.
BSB
Parallel translations (2) ▾
ASV
Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household:
KJV
Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house:
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Commentary
2 voicesVoices 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| דַּבְּר֗וּ | da.be.Ru | speak | H1696 → |
| אֶֽל־ | 'el- | to | H413 → |
| כָּל־ | kol- | all | H3605 → |
| עֲדַ֤ת | 'a.Dat | [the] congregation of | H5712 → |
| יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ | Yis.ra.'El | Israel | H3478 → |
| לֵאמֹ֔ר | le.Mor | <to> saying | H559 → |
| בֶּעָשֹׂ֖ר | be.'a.Sor | on the ten | H6218 → |
| לַחֹ֣דֶשׁ | la.Cho.desh | of the month | H2320 → |
| הַזֶּ֑ה | ha.Zeh | <the> this | H2088 → |
| וְיִקְח֣וּ | ve.yik.Chu | so they may take | H3947 → |
| לָהֶ֗ם | la.Hem | for <the> themselves | |
| אִ֛ישׁ | 'ish | everyone | H376 → |
| שֶׂ֥ה | seh | a lamb | H7716 → |
| לְבֵית־ | le.veit- | for a household of | H1004 → |
| אָבֹ֖ת | 'a.Vot | fathers | H1 → |
| שֶׂ֥ה | seh | a lamb | H7716 → |
| לַבָּֽיִת׃ | la.Ba.yit | for the household | H1004 → |
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About Exodus
