Discovery BoxExodus 12:38 
Context12:38 A mixed multitude 1 also went up with them, and flocks and herds – a very large number of cattle. 2
Exodus 12:48-49
Context12:48 “When a foreigner lives 3 with you and wants to observe the Passover to the Lord, all his males must be circumcised, 4 and then he may approach and observe it, and he will be like one who is born in the land 5 – but no uncircumcised person may eat of it. 12:49 The same law will apply 6 to the person who is native-born and to the foreigner who lives among you.”
1 tn The “mixed multitude” (עֵרֶב רַב, ’erev rav) refers to a great “swarm” (see a possible cognate in 8:21[17]) of folk who joined the Israelites, people who were impressed by the defeat of Egypt, who came to faith, or who just wanted to escape Egypt (maybe slaves or descendants of the Hyksos). The expression prepares for later references to riffraff who came along.
2 tn Heb “and very much cattle.”
3 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).
4 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).
5 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.
6 tn Heb “one law will be to.”
