Exodus 12:11

12:11 This is how you are to eat it – dressed to travel, ¹  your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. ² 

Exodus 12:21

12:21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel, and told them, “Go and select ³  for yourselves a lamb or young goat ⁴  for your families, and kill the Passover animals. ⁵ 

Exodus 12:43

Participation in the Passover

12:43 ⁶ The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the Passover. No foreigner may ⁷  share in eating it. ⁸ 

[12:11]  ¹ tn Heb “your loins girded.”

[12:11]  ² tn The meaning of פֶּסַח (pesakh) is debated. (1) Some have tried to connect it to the Hebrew verb with the same radicals that means “to halt, leap, limp, stumble.” See 1 Kgs 18:26 where the word describes the priests of Baal hopping around the altar; also the crippled child in 2 Sam 4:4. (2) Others connect it to the Akkadian passahu, which means “to appease, make soft, placate”; or (3) an Egyptian word to commemorate the harvest (see J. B. Segal, The Hebrew Passover, 95-100). The verb occurs in Isa 31:5 with the connotation of “to protect”; B. S. Childs suggests that this was already influenced by the exodus tradition (Exodus [OTL], 183, n. 11). Whatever links there may or may not have been that show an etymology, in Exod 12 it is describing Yahweh’s passing over or through.

[12:21]  ³ tn Heb “draw out and take.” The verb has in view the need “to draw out” a lamb or goat selected from among the rest of the flock.

[12:21]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew noun is singular and can refer to either a lamb or a goat. Since English has no common word for both, the phrase “a lamb or young goat” is used in the translation.

[12:21]  ⁵ tn The word “animals” is added to avoid giving the impression in English that the Passover festival itself is the object of “kill.”

[12:43]  ⁵ sn The section that concludes the chapter contains regulations pertaining to the Passover. The section begins at v. 43, but vv. 40-42 form a good setting for it. In this unit vv. 43-45 belong together because they stress that a stranger and foreigner cannot eat. Verse 46 stands by itself, ruling that the meal must be eaten at home. Verse 47 instructs that the whole nation was to eat it. Verses 48-49 make provision for foreigners who may wish to participate. And vv. 50-51 record the obedience of Israel.

[12:43]  ⁶ tn This taken in the modal nuance of permission, reading that no foreigner is permitted to share in it (apart from being a member of the household as a circumcised slave [v. 44] or obeying v. 48, if a free individual).

[12:43]  ⁷ tn This is the partitive use of the bet (ב) preposition, expressing that the action extends to something and includes the idea of participation in it (GKC 380 §119.m).