Exodus 12:25-27

12:25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give to you, just as he said, you must observe ¹  this ceremony. 12:26 When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ ²  – 12:27 then you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice ³  of the Lord’s Passover, when he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck ⁴  Egypt and delivered our households.’” The people bowed down low ⁵  to the ground,

[12:25]  ¹ tn The verb used here and at the beginning of v. 24 is שָׁמַר (shamar); it can be translated “watch, keep, protect,” but in this context the point is to “observe” the religious customs and practices set forth in these instructions.

[12:26]  ² tn Heb “what is this service to you?”

[12:27]  ³ sn This expression “the sacrifice of Yahweh’s Passover” occurs only here. The word זֶבַח (zevakh) means “slaughtering” and so a blood sacrifice. The fact that this word is used in Lev 3 for the peace offering has linked the Passover as a kind of peace offering, and both the Passover and the peace offerings were eaten as communal meals.

[12:27]  ⁴ tn The verb means “to strike, smite, plague”; it is the same verb that has been used throughout this section (נָגַף, nagaf). Here the construction is the infinitive construct in a temporal clause.

[12:27]  ⁵ tn The two verbs form a verbal hendiadys: “and the people bowed down and they worshiped.” The words are synonymous, and so one is taken as the adverb for the other.