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Exodus 12: What the Passage Says

151 claims across 51 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Exodus 12 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

In Egypt, the LORD tells Moses and Aaron to start a new calendar and gives instructions for the Passover: each household takes an unblemished year-old male lamb on the tenth day, kills it at twilight on the fourteenth, puts its blood on the doorframe, and eats it roasted with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, dressed to travel. He also commands a seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread to be kept in later generations. At midnight the LORD strikes down every firstborn in Egypt, Pharaoh orders Israel out, and the people leave Rameses for Succoth with silver, gold, clothing, livestock, and a mixed crowd. The chapter closes with the length of Israel's stay in Egypt and further rules about who may eat the Passover meal.

Claim by Claim

  1. 12:1
    • The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron.
    • The LORD spoke to them in the land of Egypt.
  2. 12:2
    • The LORD said this month is to be for them the head of the months.
    • The LORD said it is to be the first of the months of the year for them.
  3. 12:3
    • The LORD told Moses and Aaron to speak to the whole congregation of Israel.
    • On the tenth day of this month each man is to take a flock animal for his father's household.
    • One flock animal is to be taken for each household.
  4. 12:4
    • If a household is too small for a whole flock animal, the man and his nearest neighbor are to take one together.
    • The sharing is to be according to the number of persons.
    • They are to count for the animal according to how much each person eats.
  5. 12:5
    • The animal must be without blemish.
    • The animal must be male.
    • The animal must be a year old.
    • They may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
  6. 12:6
    • They are to keep the animal until the fourteenth day of this month.
    • The whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to slaughter it.
    • They are to slaughter it between the two evenings, at twilight.
  7. 12:7
    • They are to take some of the blood.
    • They are to put the blood on the two doorposts and on the lintel.
    • The blood is to be put on the houses in which they eat the animal.
  8. 12:8
    • They are to eat the flesh that night.
    • The flesh is to be roasted with fire.
    • They are to eat it with unleavened bread.
    • They are to eat it with bitter herbs.
  9. 12:9
    • They are not to eat any of it raw.
    • They are not to eat it boiled in water.
    • They are to eat it roasted with fire.
    • It is to be roasted with its head, its legs, and its inner parts.
  10. 12:10
    • They are to leave none of it until morning.
    • Whatever remains of it until morning they are to burn with fire.
  11. 12:11
    • They are to eat it with their loins girded.
    • They are to eat it with their sandals on their feet.
    • They are to eat it with their staff in their hand.
    • They are to eat it in haste.
    • It is a passover to the LORD.
  12. 12:12
    • The LORD said he will pass through the land of Egypt that night.
    • The LORD said he will strike every firstborn in the land of Egypt.
    • The striking will extend from man to beast.
    • The LORD said he will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt.
    • The LORD said, I am the LORD.
  13. 12:13
    • The blood will be a sign for them on the houses where they are.
    • When the LORD sees the blood he will pass over them.
    • No plague will fall on them to destroy them when the LORD strikes the land of Egypt.
  14. 12:14
    • This day is to be a memorial for them.
    • They are to keep it as a feast to the LORD.
    • They are to keep it throughout their generations.
    • They are to keep it as a perpetual statute.
  15. 12:15
    • For seven days they are to eat unleavened bread.
    • On the first day they are to remove leaven from their houses.
    • Anyone who eats what is leavened from the first day until the seventh day is to be cut off from Israel.
  16. 12:16
    • On the first day there is to be a holy convocation.
    • On the seventh day there is to be a holy convocation.
    • No work is to be done on those days.
    • Only the preparation of what each person must eat may be done.
  17. 12:17
    • They are to keep the observance of unleavened bread.
    • On this very day the LORD brought their divisions out of the land of Egypt.
    • They are to keep this day throughout their generations.
    • They are to keep it as a perpetual statute.
  18. 12:18
    • In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, they are to eat unleavened bread.
    • They are to eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.
  19. 12:19
    • For seven days no leaven is to be found in their houses.
    • Anyone who eats what is leavened is to be cut off from the congregation of Israel.
    • This applies to the sojourner and to the native of the land alike.
  20. 12:20
    • They are to eat nothing leavened.
    • In all their dwellings they are to eat unleavened bread.
  21. 12:21
    • Moses called for all the elders of Israel.
    • Moses spoke to them.
    • Moses told them to go and take flock animals for their families.
    • Moses told them to slaughter the passover.
  22. 12:22
    • They are to take a bunch of hyssop.
    • They are to dip the hyssop in the blood that is in the basin, though the word may mean the threshold rather than a basin.
    • They are to touch the lintel and the two doorposts with that blood.
    • None of them is to go out of the door of his house until morning.
  23. 12:23
    • The LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians.
    • The LORD will see the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts.
    • The LORD will pass over the door.
    • The LORD will not permit the destroyer to enter their houses to strike them.
  24. 12:24
    • They are to keep this word as a statute for themselves and for their sons forever.
  25. 12:25
    • They will come into the land that the LORD will give them.
    • The LORD promised to give them that land.
    • When they come into the land they are to keep this service.
  26. 12:26
    • Their children will ask them what this service means to them.
  27. 12:27
    • They are to answer that it is the sacrifice of the LORD's passover.
    • The LORD passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt.
    • The LORD struck the Egyptians.
    • The LORD delivered their houses.
    • The people bowed their heads.
    • The people worshipped.
  28. 12:28
    • The children of Israel went.
    • The children of Israel did as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron.
    • So they did.
  29. 12:29
    • At midnight the LORD struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt.
    • The striking extended from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive in the prison house.
    • The LORD also struck every firstborn of the livestock.
  30. 12:30
    • Pharaoh rose up in the night.
    • All his servants rose up.
    • All the Egyptians rose up.
    • There was a great cry in Egypt.
    • There was no house in which there was not someone dead.
  31. 12:31
    • Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron by night.
    • Pharaoh told them to rise up and go out from among his people.
    • Pharaoh said this applied both to them and to the children of Israel.
    • Pharaoh told them to go and serve the LORD as they had said.
  32. 12:32
    • Pharaoh told them to take their flocks and their herds as they had said.
    • Pharaoh told them to go.
    • Pharaoh told them to bless him also.
  33. 12:33
    • The Egyptians pressed hard upon the people to send them out of the land quickly.
    • The Egyptians said they were all dead men.
  34. 12:34
    • The people took their dough before it was leavened.
    • Their kneading bowls were bound up in their clothing on their shoulders.
  35. 12:35
    • The children of Israel did according to the word of Moses.
    • They asked the Egyptians for objects of silver.
    • They asked for objects of gold.
    • They asked for garments.
  36. 12:36
    • The LORD gave the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians.
    • The Egyptians granted them what they asked.
    • They stripped the Egyptians of their goods.
  37. 12:37
    • The children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth.
    • There were about six hundred thousand men on foot.
    • This count did not include the little ones.
  38. 12:38
    • A mixed multitude also went up with them.
    • Flocks and herds went up with them.
    • The livestock was very numerous.
  39. 12:39
    • They baked the dough they had brought out of Egypt into unleavened cakes.
    • The dough was not leavened.
    • They had been driven out of Egypt.
    • They could not delay.
    • They had not prepared any provisions for themselves.
  40. 12:40
    • The dwelling of the children of Israel in Egypt lasted four hundred and thirty years.
  41. 12:41
    • At the end of the four hundred and thirty years, on that very day, all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.
  42. 12:42
    • It is a night of vigil for the LORD, for bringing them out of the land of Egypt.
    • This same night belongs to the LORD as a vigil for all the children of Israel throughout their generations.
  43. 12:43
    • The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron.
    • The LORD said this is the statute of the passover.
    • No foreigner is to eat of it.
  44. 12:44
    • Every man's slave bought with money may eat of it once he has been circumcised.
  45. 12:45
    • A resident alien is not to eat of it.
    • A hired servant is not to eat of it.
  46. 12:46
    • It is to be eaten in one house.
    • None of the flesh is to be carried outside the house.
    • No bone of it is to be broken.
  47. 12:47
    • The whole congregation of Israel is to keep it.
  48. 12:48
    • If a sojourner dwells with them and wants to keep the passover to the LORD, all his males must be circumcised.
    • Then he may come near and keep it.
    • He shall then be as a native of the land.
    • No uncircumcised person is to eat of it.
  49. 12:49
    • One law is to apply to the native and to the sojourner who dwells among them.
  50. 12:50
    • All the children of Israel did as the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron.
    • So they did.
  51. 12:51
    • On that very day the LORD brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
    • He brought them out by their hosts.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

12:1
Where the King James prints "LORD" in capitals it is standing in for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew letters usually written YHWH, which Jewish readers traditionally do not say aloud. "Lord" in ordinary letters translates a common word meaning master.
12:2
The month meant is the one later called Abib, "green ears" (Exodus 13:4), and after the exile Nisan, the spring month falling in our March–April, when barley ripened. The instruction resets the calendar so that the year is counted from the escape from Egypt.
12:3
"The house of their fathers" is the ordinary Israelite household: an extended family under one senior man, including his married sons and their wives and children, plus servants and dependants. This is why one animal is expected to feed a whole "house."
12:4
"Souls" in the King James means people, living human beings. The instruction is a head count, not a comment about spirits.
12:5
An animal brought as a sacrifice had to be physically perfect, no injury, disease, or deformity. The Hebrew word translated "lamb" simply means a young animal from the flock, which is why either a sheep or a goat will do.
12:6
The Hebrew literally says "between the two evenings." What that meant was already disputed in antiquity: either the period between sunset and full dark, or the stretch from mid-afternoon to sunset. Later Jewish practice took it as the afternoon.
12:7
The "side posts" and "upper door post" are the frame of the doorway: the two uprights and the beam across the top. Blood smeared there was on the outside, visible to anyone in the street.
12:8
Ancient bread was raised by mixing in a lump of fermented dough saved from the previous batch. Bread made without it is flat and can be made quickly, with no waiting for it to rise. "Bitter herbs" are sharp-tasting greens, the sort eaten as a relish with meat.
12:9
Boiling would mean cutting the animal up first; roasting keeps it whole and is faster. The King James "purtenance" means the edible inner organs, heart, liver, kidneys and the like.
12:10
In that climate meat left overnight spoils. Burning the remains also made sure none of it could be kept back, eaten later as an ordinary meal, or carried around as a charm.
12:11
The Hebrew name is *pesach*. The sense of the verb behind it is debated: either "pass over, skip" or "shield, protect." The same word is used for the festival, for the sacrifice, and for the action described in verse 13. "Loins girded" means the long robe pulled up and tucked into the belt so a person could walk or run freely, the ancient equivalent of being dressed to leave at once.
12:12
The firstborn son held a special standing: he headed the family after his father's death and received a double share of the inheritance. To strike the firstborn was to strike each household's future. Egypt's many gods were held to guarantee the order of the land, including the standing of Pharaoh himself.
12:13
"Token" in the King James means a sign or identifying mark, not a keepsake.
12:14
"For ever" translates Hebrew *olam*, meaning for the long duration ahead, a practice with no set end, binding on the generations to come.
12:15
"Cut off" is a fixed legal formula whose exact force is disputed: it may mean expulsion from the community, execution, or being removed by God, for instance by leaving no descendants. The texts never spell it out.
12:16
A "holy convocation" is a day on which the people were summoned to assemble; ordinary work stopped, with an exception here for preparing food.
12:17
The word behind "armies" or "groups" is a military term for organized divisions. It pictures the people leaving in ordered ranks rather than as a scattered crowd.
12:18
In Israelite reckoning a day ran from sunset to sunset, so the fourteenth day begins on what we would call the evening before.
12:19
The "stranger" here is a foreigner who has settled permanently among the Israelites and lives under their law, not a traveler passing through. The distinction matters again in verses 43–49.
12:21
The elders were the senior heads of families and clans, who spoke and acted for the community as a whole; instructions to the nation were normally passed down through them.
12:22
Hyssop is a small bushy plant, probably the marjoram that grows in cracks in walls in that region; its stiff, hairy stems make a natural brush for sprinkling. The Hebrew word rendered "basin" can also mean the threshold or hollow of a doorway, so the blood may be in a bowl or gathered at the door sill itself.
12:23
"The destroyer" translates a Hebrew word meaning "the one who ruins." Whether this names a distinct agent sent by God or is another way of speaking of the destroying plague itself is left unclear by the text.
12:25
The land is Canaan. God had promised it long before to Abraham, their great-great-grandfather.
12:26
The question is built into the ceremony on purpose: the ritual is designed to make children ask, so that the story has to be told again in every generation. Jewish Passover meals still open with a child asking a set list of questions.
12:27
Bowing down here means going to the knees and lowering the head to the ground, the ordinary posture of respect before a superior and of worship.
12:29
The King James "dungeon" renders a phrase meaning "the house of the pit", a prison, often a cistern-like chamber below ground.
12:30
The "great cry" is loud, public wailing: mourning in that world was a formal, audible act, not a private matter.
12:32
Pharaoh, whose own people treated him as divine, is asking the two men he has spent this whole conflict resisting to ask their God to do him good. It is a complete reversal of his position in the earlier chapters.
12:33
"We be all dead men" is 1611 English for "we are all going to die".
12:34
Kneading bowls were shallow vessels of wood, clay or leather in which dough was mixed. Here they are bundled up in the outer cloaks people wore and slung over the shoulder.
12:35
The King James "borrowed" is misleading to modern ears. The Hebrew verb simply means "asked for" or "requested," with no suggestion of a loan to be repaid. "Jewels" likewise translates a general word for articles or objects, not necessarily jewelry.
12:36
"Spoiled" in the King James means plundered, stripped of goods, as a victorious army strips a defeated enemy. The wording deliberately frames the departure as the taking of spoil.
12:37
Rameses and Succoth are sites in the eastern Nile delta, a short first stage of the journey. The figure of 600,000 men is much debated, because the Hebrew word for "thousand" can also mean a clan or a military unit; on that reading the total would be far smaller.
12:38
A "mixed multitude" is a group of assorted non-Israelites who left along with them, other foreigners and forced laborers in Egypt.
12:39
"Victual" means food supplies packed for a journey, and "could not tarry" means could not wait around. The flat bread is not a ritual choice here but the practical result of leaving in a hurry.
12:40
The Hebrew text counts the 430 years as time in Egypt. The Samaritan and the ancient Greek versions read it as covering the stay in Canaan and Egypt together, which halves the time spent in Egypt itself.
12:42
The King James "to be much observed" renders a word meaning a night of watching or keeping vigil. The same word is used twice: the LORD keeps watch that night, and Israel is to keep watch on the same night ever after, staying awake through it.
12:43
This "stranger" is a different word from the one in verses 19 and 48: an outsider with no attachment to the community, as opposed to a foreigner who has settled permanently among the people.
12:44
Circumcision, the cutting away of the foreskin, was the physical mark that a male belonged to the covenant community. It was applied to everyone in a household, including bought slaves, who counted as members of the house.
12:45
Two further categories: a resident who is staying temporarily and has no permanent standing in the household, and a laborer working for wages. Neither belonged to the family in the way a bought slave did.
12:46
One house, one animal, no meat carried outside and no bones broken: the rules keep the meal a single complete household act instead of portions being distributed around a town.
12:48
Membership here is a matter of choice rather than birth. A foreigner who accepts the mark of the covenant is counted exactly as a native, with no lesser status attached.
12:49
"One law" for both was not the norm in the ancient world, where resident foreigners usually had a separate and weaker legal standing than citizens.

Read Exodus 12