12:1 1 The Lord said 2 to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 3 12:2 “This month is to be your beginning of months; it will be your first month of the year. 4 12:3 Tell the whole community of Israel, ‘In the tenth day of this month they each 5 must take a lamb 6 for themselves according to their families 7 – a lamb for each household. 8 12:4 If any household is too small 9 for a lamb, 10 the man 11 and his next-door neighbor 12 are to take 13 a lamb according to the number of people – you will make your count for the lamb according to how much each one can eat. 14
1 sn Chapter 12 details the culmination of the ten plagues on Egypt and the beginning of the actual deliverance from bondage. Moreover, the celebration of this festival of Passover was to become a central part of the holy calendar of Israel. The contents of this chapter have significance for NT studies as well, since the Passover was a type of the death of Jesus. The structure of this section before the crossing of the sea is as follows: the institution of the Passover (12:1-28), the night of farewell and departure (12:29-42), slaves and strangers (12:43-51), and the laws of the firstborn (13:1-16). In this immediate section there is the institution of the Passover itself (12:1-13), then the Unleavened Bread (12:14-20), and then the report of the response of the people (12:21-28).
2 tn Heb “and Yahweh said.”
3 tn Heb “saying.”
4 sn B. Jacob (Exodus, 294-95) shows that the intent of the passage was not to make this month in the spring the New Year – that was in the autumn. Rather, when counting months this was supposed to be remembered first, for it was the great festival of freedom from Egypt. He observes how some scholars have unnecessarily tried to date one New Year earlier than the other.
5 tn Heb “and they will take for them a man a lamb.” This is clearly a distributive, or individualizing, use of “man.”
6 tn The שֶּׂה (seh) is a single head from the flock, or smaller cattle, which would include both sheep and goats.
7 tn Heb “according to the house of their fathers.” The expression “house of the father” is a common expression for a family.
8 tn Heb “house” (also at the beginning of the following verse).
9 sn Later Judaism ruled that “too small” meant fewer than ten (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 88).
10 tn The clause uses the comparative min (מִן) construction: יִמְעַט הַבַּיִת מִהְיֹת מִשֶּׂה (yim’at habbayit mihyot miseh, “the house is small from being from a lamb,” or “too small for a lamb”). It clearly means that if there were not enough people in the household to have a lamb by themselves, they should join with another family. For the use of the comparative, see GKC 430 §133.c.
11 tn Heb “he and his neighbor”; the referent (the man) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
12 tn Heb “who is near to his house.”
13 tn The construction uses a perfect tense with a vav (ו) consecutive after a conditional clause: “if the household is too small…then he and his neighbor will take.”
14 tn Heb “[every] man according to his eating.”