Exodus 12:4
If the household is too small for a whole lamb, they are to share with the nearest neighbor based on the number of people, and apportion the lamb accordingly.
BSB
Parallel translations (2) ▾
ASV
and if the household be too little for a lamb, then shall he and his neighbor next unto his house take one according to the number of the souls; according to every man’s eating ye shall make your count for the lamb.
KJV
And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb.
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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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| וְאִם־ | ve.'im- | and if | H518 → |
| יִמְעַ֣ט | yim.'At | it will be [too] small | H4591 → |
| הַבַּיִת֮ | ha.ba.Yit | the household | H1004 → |
| מִהְיֹ֣ת | mih.Yot | for being | H1961 → |
| מִשֶּׂה֒ | mi.Seh | for a lamb | H7716 → |
| וְלָקַ֣ח | ve.la.Kach | and he will take | H3947 → |
| ה֗וּא | Hu' | he | H1931 → |
| וּשְׁכֵנ֛וֹ | u.she.khe.No | and neighbor his | H7934 → |
| הַקָּרֹ֥ב | ha.ka.Ro | <the> near | H7138 → |
| אֶל־ | 'el- | to | H413 → |
| בֵּית֖וֹ | bei.To | house his | H1004 → |
| בְּמִכְסַ֣ת | be.mikh.Sat | by [the] number of | H4373 → |
| נְפָשֹׁ֑ת | ne.fa.Shot | people | H5315 → |
| אִ֚ישׁ | 'ish | each one | H376 → |
| לְפִ֣י | le.Fi | to [the] mouth of | H6310 → |
| אָכְל֔וֹ | 'a.khe.Lo | food his | H400 → |
| תָּכֹ֖סּוּ | ta.Kho.su | you will estimate | H3699 → |
| עַל־ | 'al- | on | H5921 → |
| הַשֶּֽׂה׃ | ha.Seh | the lamb | H7716 → |
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