Discovery BoxExodus 6:14 
Context6:14 1 These are the heads of their fathers’ households: 2
The sons 3 of Reuben, the firstborn son of Israel, were Hanoch and Pallu, Hezron and Carmi. These were the clans 4 of Reuben.
Exodus 6:25
Context6:25 Now Eleazar son of Aaron married one of the daughters of Putiel and she bore him Phinehas.
These are the heads of the fathers’ households 5 of Levi according to their clans.
Exodus 12:27
Context12:27 then you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice 6 of the Lord’s Passover, when he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck 7 Egypt and delivered our households.’” The people bowed down low 8 to the ground,
1 sn This list of names shows that Moses and Aaron are in the line of Levi that came to the priesthood. It helps to identify them and authenticate them as spokesmen for God within the larger history of Israel. As N. M. Sarna observes, “Because a genealogy inherently symbolizes vigor and continuity, its presence here also injects a reassuring note into the otherwise despondent mood” (Exodus [JPSTC], 33).
2 tn The expression is literally “the house of their fathers.” This expression means that the household or family descended from a single ancestor. It usually indicates a subdivision of a tribe, that is, a clan, or the subdivision of a clan, that is, a family. Here it refers to a clan (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 46).
3 tn Or “descendants.”
4 tn Or “families,” and so throughout the genealogy.
5 tn Heb “heads of the fathers” is taken as an abbreviation for the description of “households” in v. 14.
6 sn This expression “the sacrifice of Yahweh’s Passover” occurs only here. The word זֶבַח (zevakh) means “slaughtering” and so a blood sacrifice. The fact that this word is used in Lev 3 for the peace offering has linked the Passover as a kind of peace offering, and both the Passover and the peace offerings were eaten as communal meals.
7 tn The verb means “to strike, smite, plague”; it is the same verb that has been used throughout this section (נָגַף, nagaf). Here the construction is the infinitive construct in a temporal clause.
8 tn The two verbs form a verbal hendiadys: “and the people bowed down and they worshiped.” The words are synonymous, and so one is taken as the adverb for the other.
