Exodus 12:43–51

Participation in the Passover

12:43 104 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the Passover. No foreigner may105 share in eating it.106 12:44 But everyone’s servant who is bought for money, after you have circumcised him, may eat it. 12:45 A foreigner and a hired worker must not eat it. 12:46 It must be eaten in one house; you must not bring any of the meat outside the house, and you must not break a bone of it. 12:47 The whole community of Israel must observe it.

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. 12:49 The same law will apply110 to the person who is native-born and to the foreigner who lives among you.”

12:50 So all the Israelites did exactly as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.111 12:51 And on this very day the Lord brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt by their regiments.

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104	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.
105	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).
106	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).
107	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 GKC 347 §113.gg and 387 §121.a).
109	tn אֶזְרָח (’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.
110	tn Heb “one law will be to.”
111	tn Heb “did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.” The final phrase “so they did,” which is somewhat redundant in English, has been represented in the translation by the adverb “exactly.”

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