Discovery BoxExodus 12:4 
Context12:4 If any household is too small 1 for a lamb, 2 the man 3 and his next-door neighbor 4 are to take 5 a lamb according to the number of people – you will make your count for the lamb according to how much each one can eat. 6
Exodus 12:15-16
Context12:15 For seven days 7 you must eat 8 bread made without yeast. 9 Surely 10 on the first day you must put away yeast from your houses because anyone who eats bread made with yeast 11 from the first day to the seventh day will be cut off 12 from Israel.
12:16 On the first day there will be a holy convocation, 13 and on the seventh day there will be a holy convocation for you. You must do no work of any kind 14 on them, only what every person will eat – that alone may be prepared for you.
Exodus 12:48
Context12:48 “When a foreigner lives 15 with you and wants to observe the Passover to the Lord, all his males must be circumcised, 16 and then he may approach and observe it, and he will be like one who is born in the land 17 – but no uncircumcised person may eat of it.
Exodus 16:8
Context16:8 Moses said, “You will know this 18 when the Lord gives you 19 meat to eat in the evening and bread in the morning to satisfy you, because the Lord has heard your murmurings that you are murmuring against him. As for us, what are we? 20 Your murmurings are not against us, 21 but against the Lord.”
Exodus 16:16
Context16:16 “This is what 22 the Lord has commanded: 23 ‘Each person is to gather 24 from it what he can eat, an omer 25 per person 26 according to the number 27 of your people; 28 each one will pick it up 29 for whoever lives 30 in his tent.’”
Exodus 23:15
Context23:15 You are to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread; seven days 31 you must eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you, at the appointed time of the month of Abib, for at that time 32 you came out of Egypt. No one may appear before 33 me empty-handed.
Exodus 34:18
Context34:18 “You must keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days 34 you must eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you; do this 35 at the appointed time of the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out of Egypt.
1 sn Later Judaism ruled that “too small” meant fewer than ten (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 88).
2 tn The clause uses the comparative min (מִן) construction: יִמְעַט הַבַּיִת מִהְיֹת מִשֶּׂה (yim’at habbayit mihyot miseh, “the house is small from being from a lamb,” or “too small for a lamb”). It clearly means that if there were not enough people in the household to have a lamb by themselves, they should join with another family. For the use of the comparative, see GKC 430 §133.c.
3 tn Heb “he and his neighbor”; the referent (the man) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
4 tn Heb “who is near to his house.”
5 tn The construction uses a perfect tense with a vav (ו) consecutive after a conditional clause: “if the household is too small…then he and his neighbor will take.”
6 tn Heb “[every] man according to his eating.”
sn The reference is normally taken to mean whatever each person could eat. B. Jacob (Exodus, 299) suggests, however, that the reference may not be to each individual person’s appetite, but to each family. Each man who is the head of a household was to determine how much his family could eat, and this in turn would determine how many families shared the lamb.
7 tn This expression is an adverbial accusative of time. The feast was to last from the 15th to the 21st of the month.
8 tn Or “you will eat.” The statement stresses their obligation – they must eat unleavened bread and avoid all leaven.
9 tn The etymology of מַצּוֹת (matsot, “unleavened bread,” i.e., “bread made without yeast”) is uncertain. Suggested connections to known verbs include “to squeeze, press,” “to depart, go out,” “to ransom,” or to an Egyptian word “food, cake, evening meal.” For a more detailed study of “unleavened bread” and related matters such as “yeast” or “leaven,” see A. P. Ross, NIDOTTE 4:448-53.
10 tn The particle serves to emphasize, not restrict here (B. S. Childs, Exodus [OTL], 183, n. 15).
11 tn Heb “every eater of leavened bread.” The participial phrase stands at the beginning of the clause as a casus pendens, that is, it stands grammatically separate from the sentence. It names a condition, the contingent occurrences of which involve a further consequence (GKC 361 §116.w).
12 tn The verb וְנִכְרְתָה (vÿnikhrÿtah) is the Niphal perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive; it is a common formula in the Law for divine punishment. Here, in sequence to the idea that someone might eat bread made with yeast, the result would be that “that soul [the verb is feminine] will be cut off.” The verb is the equivalent of the imperfect tense due to the consecutive; a translation with a nuance of the imperfect of possibility (“may be cut off”) fits better perhaps than a specific future. There is the real danger of being cut off, for while the punishment might include excommunication from the community, the greater danger was in the possibility of divine intervention to root out the evildoer (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 94). Gesenius lists this as the use of a perfect with a vav consecutive after a participle (a casus pendens) to introduce the apodosis (GKC 337 §112.mm).
sn In Lev 20:3, 5-6, God speaks of himself as cutting off a person from among the Israelites. The rabbis mentioned premature death and childlessness as possible judgments in such cases, and N. M. Sarna comments that “one who deliberately excludes himself from the religious community of Israel cannot be a beneficiary of the covenantal blessings” (Exodus [JPSTC], 58).
13 sn This refers to an assembly of the people at the sanctuary for religious purposes. The word “convocation” implies that the people were called together, and Num 10:2 indicates they were called together by trumpets.
14 tn Heb “all/every work will not be done.” The word refers primarily to the work of one’s occupation. B. Jacob (Exodus, 322) explains that since this comes prior to the fuller description of laws for Sabbaths and festivals, the passage simply restricts all work except for the preparation of food. Once the laws are added, this qualification is no longer needed. Gesenius translates this as “no manner of work shall be done” (GKC 478-79 §152.b).
15 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).
16 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).
17 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.
18 tn “You will know this” has been added to make the line smooth. Because of the abruptness of the lines in the verse, and the repetition with v. 7, B. S. Childs (Exodus [OTL], 273) thinks that v. 8 is merely a repetition by scribal error – even though the versions render it as the MT has it. But B. Jacob (Exodus, 447) suggests that the contrast with vv. 6 and 7 is important for another reason – there Moses and Aaron speak, and it is smooth and effective, but here only Moses speaks, and it is labored and clumsy. “We should realize that Moses had properly claimed to be no public speaker.”
19 tn Here again is an infinitive construct with the preposition forming a temporal clause.
20 tn The words “as for us” attempt to convey the force of the Hebrew word order, which puts emphasis on the pronoun: “and we – what?” The implied answer to the question is that Moses and Aaron are nothing, merely the messengers.
21 tn The word order is “not against us [are] your murmurings.”
22 tn Heb “the thing that.”
23 tn The perfect tense could be taken as a definite past with Moses now reporting it. In this case a very recent past. But in declaring the word from Yahweh it could be instantaneous, and receive a present tense translation – “here and now he commands you.”
24 tn The form is the plural imperative: “Gather [you] each man according to his eating.”
25 sn The omer is an amount mentioned only in this chapter, and its size is unknown, except by comparison with the ephah (v. 36). A number of recent English versions approximate the omer as “two quarts” (cf. NCV, CEV, NLT); TEV “two litres.”
26 tn Heb “for a head.”
27 tn The word “number” is an accusative that defines more precisely how much was to be gathered (see GKC 374 §118.h).
28 tn Traditionally “souls.”
29 tn Heb “will take.”
30 tn “lives” has been supplied.
31 tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.
32 tn Heb “in it.”
33 tn The verb is a Niphal imperfect; the nuance of permission works well here – no one is permitted to appear before God empty (Heb “and they will not appear before me empty”).
34 tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.
35 tn The words “do this” have been supplied.
