12:48 “When a foreigner lives107 with you and wants to observe the Passover to the Lord, all his males must be circumcised,108 and then he may approach and observe it, and he will be like one who is born in the land109—but no uncircumcised person may eat of it.
tn Both the participle “foreigner” and the verb “lives” are from the verb גּוּר (gur), which means “to sojourn, to dwell as an alien.” This reference is to a foreigner who settles in the land. He is the protected foreigner; when he comes to another area where he does not have his clan to protect him, he must come under the protection of the Law, or the people. If the “resident alien” is circumcised, he may participate in the Passover (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 104).
108
tn The infinitive absolute functions as the finite verb here, and “every male” could be either the object or the subject (see GKC347§113.gg and 387§121.a).
109
tnאֶזְרָח (’ezrakh) refers to the native-born individual, the native Israelite as opposed to the “stranger, alien” (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 104); see also W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, 127, 210.