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Exodus 12:7

They are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs.

BSB

Parallel translations (2) ▾

ASV

And they shall take of the blood, and put it on the two side-posts and on the lintel, upon the houses wherein they shall eat it.

KJV

And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.

Commentary

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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

15 tagged words
OriginalTransliterationMeaningWord study
וְלָֽקְחוּ֙ve.la.ke.Chuand they will takeH3947
מִן־min-some ofH4480
הַדָּ֔םha.Damthe bloodH1818
וְנָֽתְנ֛וּve.na.te.Nuand they will put [it]H5414
עַל־'al-onH5921
שְׁתֵּ֥יshe.Tei[the] twoH8147
הַמְּזוּזֹ֖תha.me.zu.Zotthe doorpostsH4201
וְעַל־ve.'al-and onH5921
הַמַּשְׁק֑וֹףha.mash.Kofthe lintelsH4947
עַ֚ל'alonH5921
הַבָּ֣תִּ֔יםha.Ba.Timthe housesH1004
אֲשֶׁר־'a.Sher-whichH834
יֹאכְל֥וּyo.khe.Luthey will eatH398
אֹת֖וֹ'o.To<obj.> itH853
בָּהֶֽם׃ba.Hemin <the> them

The walk

About Exodus

The Firstborn of the Egyptians Are Slain — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain
The Firstborn of the Egyptians Are Slain — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain