Exodus 12:3 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Exodus 12:3
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:
perhaps properly · verb, piel imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
congregation
עֲדַ֤ת'a.Dat
H5712
a stated assemblage (specifically · noun, common feminine singular construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵל֙Yis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
saying
לֵאמֹ֔רle.Mor
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
tenth
בֶּעָשֹׂ֖רbe.'a.Sor
H6218
ten · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
month
לַחֹ֣דֶשׁla.Cho.desh
H2320
the new moon · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
take
וְיִקְח֣וּve.yik.Chu
H3947
to take (in the widest variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal, 3rd person masculine plural
man
אִ֛ישׁ'ish
H376
a man as an individual or a male person · noun, common masculine singular absolute
lamb
שֶׂ֥הseh
H7716
a member of a flock · noun, common both genders singular absolute
house
לְבֵיתle.veit-
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
fathers
אָבֹ֖ת'a.Vot
H1
father · noun, common feminine plural absolute
lamb
שֶׂ֥הseh
H7716
a member of a flock · noun, common both genders singular absolute
house
לַבָּֽיִתla.Ba.yit
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Leviticus 1:2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the…
Leviticus 5:6 And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD for his sin which he hath sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goa…
John 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
1 Corinthians 5:7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
Genesis 4:4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
Genesis 22:8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
Exodus 4:30 And Aaron spake all the words which the LORD had spoken unto Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people.
Exodus 6:6 Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid y…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Exodus 12:1-20
Moses and Aaron here receive of the Lord what they were afterwards to deliver to the people concerning the ordinance of the passover, to which is prefixed an order for a new style to be observed in their months (Exo 12:1, Exo 12:2): This shall be to you the beginning of months. They had hitherto begun their year from the middle of September, but henceforward they were to begin it from the middle of March, at least in all their ecclesiastical computations. Note, It is good to begin the day, and begin the year, and especially to begin our lives, with God. This new calculation began the year with the spring, which reneweth the face of the earth, and was used as a figure of the coming of Christ,…
Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel--The recent events had prepared the Israelitish people for a crisis in their affairs, and they seem to have yielded implicit obedience at this time to Moses. It is observable that, amid all the hurry and bustle of such a departure, their serious attention was to be given to a solemn act of religion.
a lamb for an house--a kid might be taken (Exo 12:5). The service was to be a domestic one, for the deliverance was to be from an evil threatened to every house in Egypt.
Adam Clarke on Exodus 12:3
In the tenth day of this month - In after times they began their preparation on the thirteenth day or day before the Passover, which was not celebrated till the fourteenth day, see Exo 12:6 : but on the present occasion, as this was their first passover, they probably required more time to get ready in; as a state of very great confusion must have prevailed at this time. Mr. Ainsworth remarks that on this day the Israelites did afterwards go through Jordan into the land of Canaan; Jos 4:19. And Christ, our Paschal Lamb, on this day entered Jerusalem, riding on an ass; the people bearing palm branches, and crying, Hosanna, Joh 12:1, Joh 12:12, Joh 12:13, etc.: and in him this type was truly f…
The bridegroom, who was to call good and bad to his marriage, was pleased to assimilate himself to his guests, in being born of good and bad. He thus confirms as typical of himself the symbol of the Passover, in which it was commanded that the lamb to be eaten should be taken from the sheep or from the goats—that is, from the righteous or the wicked. Preserving throughout the indication of both divinity and humanity, as man he consented to have both bad and good as his parents, while as God he chose the miraculous birth from a virgin.
"The lamb," the Lord says, "must be without blemish. You may take it from either the sheep or the goats." In another place of Holy Writ, it is prescribed that if anyone is unable to keep the Passover in the first month, he is to do so in the second. According to the regulation above, anyone who is unable to sacrifice a lamb may substitute a kid. In the house of the church, moreover, Christ is offered in a twofold manner: if we are just, we eat of the flesh of the lamb; if we are sinners and do penance, for us a goat is slain. This does not mean that Christ is from the goats that stand, as he has taught, on his left hand, but that Christ becomes a lamb or a goat in conformity with individual and personal merit.
It was commanded that the paschal lamb, by whose immolation the people of Israel were freed from slavery in Egypt, should be selected five days before the [feast of] Passover, that is, on the tenth [day of the lunar] month, and immolated on the fourteenth [day of the lunar] month at sundown. This signified the one who was going to redeem us by his blood, since five days before the [feast of] Passover (that is, today), accompanied by the great joy and praise of people going ahead and following, he came into God's temple, and he was there teaching daily. At last, after five days, having observed up to that point the sacraments of the old Passover, he brought them to perfect fulfillment, and he handed over the new sacraments to his disciples to be observed henceforth.[Then], having gone out to the Mt. of Olives, he was seized by the Jews and crucified [the next] morning. He redeemed us from the sway of the devil on that very day when the ancient people of the Hebrews cast aside the yoke of slavery under the Egyptians by the immolation of the lamb.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Blood — (1.) As food, prohibited in Gen. 9:4, where the use of animal food is first allowed. Comp. Deut. 12:23; Lev. 3:17; 7:26; 17:10-14. The injunction to abstain from blood is renewed in the decree of the…
Frontlets — Occurs only in Ex. 13:16; Deut. 6:8, and 11:18. The meaning of the injunction to the Israelites, with regard to the statues and precepts given them, that they should “bind them for a sign upon their…
Lamb — (1.) Heb. kebes, a male lamb from the first to the third year. Offered daily at the morning and the evening sacrifice (Ex. 29:38-42), on the Sabbath day (Num. 28:9), at the feast of the New Moon…
Law of Moses — Is the whole body of the Mosaic legislation (1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 23:25; Ezra 3:2). It is called by way of eminence simply “the Law” (Heb. Torah, Deut. 1:5; 4:8, 44; 17:18, 19; 27:3, 8). As a written…
Passover — The name given to the chief of the three great historical annual festivals of the Jews. It was kept in remembrance of the Lord’s passing over the houses of the Israelites (Ex. 12:13) when the first…
Pentecost — I.e., “fiftieth”, found only in the New Testament (Acts 2:1; 20:16; 1 Cor. 16:8). The festival so named is first spoken of in Ex. 23:16 as “the feast of harvest,” and again in Ex. 34:22 as “the day…
Sacrifice — The offering up of sacrifices is to be regarded as a divine institution. It did not originate with man. God himself appointed it as the mode in which acceptable worship was to be offered to him by…
Egypt · History of Israel in: The passover instituted — History of Israel in: The passover instituted
Lamb, The · Offered in sacrifice: At the passover — Offered in sacrifice: At the passover
Month · .Pas — .Pas
Paschal Lamb, Typical Nature Of
John Gill on Exodus 12:3
Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel,.... That is, to the elders of the people, and heads of families; unless we can suppose that they had been gradually gathered, and were now gathered together in a body by the direction of Moses, by whom they were assured that their departure was at hand; and the rather it may be thought that so it was, since the following order concerned the whole and every individual:
saying, in the tenth day of this month; the month Abib or Nisan, which shows that this direction must be given before that day, and so very probably on the first of the month, as before observed:
they shall take to them every man a lamb; not every individual person, but every mast…
Exodus 12:1-20
1. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,
1. Loquutus est Jehova ad Mosen et ad Abaton in terra Aegypti, dicendo.
2. This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.
2. Mensis iste principium vobis erit mensium, et primus idem vobis in mensibus anni.
3. 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.
3. Loquimini ad totum coetum Israel, dicendo, Decima hujus mensis tollat sibi quisque agnum secundum domum patrum, agnum domatim.
4. And if the house…
Institution of the Passover. - The deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Egypt was at hand; also their adoption as the nation of Jehovah (Exo 6:6-7).
But for this a divine consecration was necessary, that their outward severance from the land of Egypt might be accompanied by an inward severance from everything of an Egyptian or heathen nature. This consecration was to be imparted by the Passover-a festival which was to lay the foundation for Israel's birth (Hos 2:5) into the new life of grace and fellowship with God, and to renew it perpetually in time to come. This festival was therefore instituted and commemorated before the exodus from Egypt. Vv. 1-28 contain the directions for the Pa…
This month was the month Abib (13:4; 23:15; 34:18; Deut 16:1; later called by the Babylonian name, Nisan, Neh 2:1; Esth 3:7), which falls within the months of March and April. Many cultures held festivals about this time of the year, celebrating the renewal of plant life. Israel’s festival celebrated the historic event in which God defeated death and rescued his people from bondage in Egypt.
Rashi on Exodus 12:3
דברו אל כל עדת SPEAK UNTO ALL THE CONGREGATION — But did Aaron speak? Has it not already been stated, (Exodus 7:2) “You (Moses) shall speak etc.”. But the explanation is: they paid respect one to the other, saying to each other, “Instruct me what to say”. and the divine communication in question issued from both of them, so that it was as though they were both speaking (Mekhilta).
דברו אל כל עדת ישראל לאמר בעשר לחדש i. e. SPEAK to-day — on the first of the month — THAT ON THE TENTH OF THE MONTH they should take it (the lamb) (Mekhilta).
הזה [ON THE TENTH OF] THIS [MONTH] — As regards the paschal lamb sacrificed in Egypt it had to be taken from the flock on the tenth, but this did not apply…
Sheep · Young of, called lambs — Young of, called lambs
Symbols And Similitudes · ma — ma
Types Of Christ · Paschal lamb — Paschal lamb
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
