Exodus 12:30
During the night Pharaoh got up—he and all his officials and all the Egyptians—and there was loud wailing in Egypt; for there was no house without someone dead.
BSB
Parallel translations (2) ▾
ASV
And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead.
KJV
And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead.
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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
19 tagged words| Original | Transliteration | Meaning | Word study |
|---|---|---|---|
| וַיָּ֨קָם | vai.Ya.kom | and he arose | H6965 → |
| פַּרְעֹ֜ה | par.'Oh | Pharaoh | H6547 → |
| לַ֗יְלָה | Lay.lah | night | H3915 → |
| ה֤וּא | hu' | he | H1931 → |
| וְכָל־ | ve.khol | and all | H3605 → |
| עֲבָדָיו֙ | 'a.va.Dav | servants his | H5650 → |
| וְכָל־ | ve.khol | and all | H3605 → |
| מִצְרַ֔יִם | mitz.Ra.yim | Egypt | H4714 → |
| וַתְּהִ֛י | va.te.Hi | and it was | H1961 → |
| צְעָקָ֥ה | tze.'a.Kah | a cry | H6818 → |
| גְדֹלָ֖ה | ge.do.Lah | great | H1419 → |
| בְּמִצְרָ֑יִם | be.mitz.Ra.yim | in Egypt | H4714 → |
| כִּֽי־ | ki- | for | H3588 → |
| אֵ֣ין | 'ein | there not | H369 → |
| בַּ֔יִת | Ba.yit | [was] a house | H1004 → |
| אֲשֶׁ֥ר | 'a.Sher | where | H834 → |
| אֵֽין־ | 'ein- | there not | H369 → |
| שָׁ֖ם | sham | there | H8033 → |
| מֵֽת׃ | Met | [was] a dead [person] | H4191 → |
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