12:1 VA YOMER YHVH EL MOSHEH VE EL AHARON BE ERETS MITSRAYIM LEMOR
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל אַהֲרֹן בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לֵאמֹר
KJ (King James translation): And the LORD spake
unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,
But before we go any further, and continuing my constant references back to Genesis 1, because these two episodes are deeply inerconnected, let me take you by hyperlink to the greatest Bible commentator of them all, Rashi himself, who likewise starts his commentary of this chapter with reference to Genesis 1 - infact, the other way around, it is his commentary on Genesis 1 that alludes back to here, because this, as he tells us, this is where the giving of the Law truthfully commences. Click here (but don't forget to hit the "show" button if the commentary doesn't come up below the text automatically.)
12:2 HA CHODESH HA ZEH LACHEM ROSH CHADASHIM RISHON HU LACHEM LE CHADSHEY HA SHANAH
הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים רִאשׁוֹן הוּא לָכֶם לְחָדְשֵׁי הַשָּׁנָה
KJ: This month shall be unto
you the beginning of months: it shall
be the first month of the year to you.
Much confusion of a different kind stems from this, however. Modern Jewry knows that the first month of the year is Tishrey, in the autumn; but here it is clearly Nisan, in the spring, which is actually much more logical for a Nature cult. And we know from elsewhere in the text that Tishrey is actually the seventh month, the new year commemorations having been moved from the spring to the autumn. Yet the text here is unequivocal.
The change is first noted in the 1st century CE, in Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:1, which specifically defines Rosh Hashanah's "new year" status. "The first of Tishrey is the beginning of the year [rosh hashanah] for years, sabbatical cycles, and the jubilee."
Five hundred years earlier Nechem-Yah (Nehemiah 8:1-18) supervised a festival on the first day of the seventh month, but nothing in the text indicates that it was a New Year festival; more obviously a covenant renewal ceremony, followed the next day by the re-institution of Sukot, which was originally instituted in Exodus 23:26 and 34:22.
The Qumran texts (the Dead Sea Scrolls) continued to maintain Nisan (Passover) as the New Year. When and why did it change remains unknown, but there is strong evidence that it was upon the return from exile in 536 BCE, as an attempt to bring the people back to the Yisra-Eli cult by separating them from Babylonian and Persian practices. Both Babylonian and Persian new years were in the spring, and it may be that Purim was created to sustain the Persian new year in a Yisra-Eli form, by those who did not wish to give it up (we can see similarities in modern America, where Purim and Chanukah have become the two most commonly celebrated Jewish festivals, despite the fact that both of them are Rabbinic and not Torah-given; in both cases it is the proximity to Christian-secular festivals, Easter and Christmas, that have given them this popularity).
As suggested earlier, we have now reached the end of the three days of darkness when the moon is invisible, and the new month opens with the traditional sacrifices (see Rosh Chodesh sacrifices in Leviticus and elsewhere). What is hugely significant about this verse is that it again confirms that the ruling deity at this point of the tale is a moon-goddess, feminine! YHVH works only until the evening, and then the morning is his resumption time; night-shift is the responsibility of the moon.
Important to note that when this New Year is later moved, to the month of Tishrey, all of its traditional rites and ceremonies will be carried with it, to make Rosh haShana and Yom Kippur, and a rather different Passover created to replace it, while still retaining some at least of the key spring-cleaning rituals such as chamets and matzah; but we can still understand this Passover best if we go to the liturgy of those festivals. Once we do, all the plagues, all the sins, all the heart-hardenings, right down to the driving out of the Ivrim and the Azaz-El into the desert, become self-evident, even predictable.
The only outstanding issue now is the time between the New Moon/New Year and the Passover, which does not fall until the moon is full (yes, again the moon), on the 15th of the month. Not a problem in itself, but it insists on two weeks between this night and the ceremony. And we shall see in the following verses (v6 especially) that fourteen days are indeed required, though it makes no sense in the context of the departure/expulsion, which is the second, completely separate story, merged into this one. Having finally been granted permission to leave by Pharaoh, and following the 10th "plague", there is no logic (at least in the flight from Egypt version as understood by Judaism) to them waiting fourteen days; only the need to get from new moon to full moon. And what is more, as we shall see, they will carry out the Passover rituals while they are still in Egypt!
12:3 DABRU EL KOL ADAT YISRA-EL LEMOR BE ASAR LA CHODESH HA ZEH VE YIK'CHU LAHEM ISH SEH LE VEYT AVOT SEH LA BAYIT
דַּבְּרוּ אֶל כָּל עֲדַת יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר בֶּעָשֹׂר לַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה וְיִקְחוּ לָהֶם אִישׁ שֶׂה לְבֵית אָבֹת שֶׂה לַבָּיִת
KJ: Speak ye unto all the
congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of
this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers,
a lamb for an house:
ADAT: Congregation, strictly in the sense of a group of worshippers. Now that they have permission to leave and conduct the ceremony, they have pilgrim status.
SEH: A lamb or a kid-goat are both denoted by this term, which also gives the word SE'IR ("place of the goat"). This of course is the origin of the paschal lamb, the original spring Azaz-El, who was sacrificed to take all the sins of the people away, on what can best be described as a "Yom Kippur", a "Day of Atonement" - no coincidence then that it was on the tenth of the month then, as now.
12:4 VE IM YIM'AT HA BAYIT MI HEYOT MI SEH VE LAKACH HU U SHECHENO HA KAROV EL BEYTO BE MICHSAT NEPHASHOT ISH LEPHI ACHLO TACHSU AL HA SEH
וְאִם יִמְעַט הַבַּיִת מִהְיוֹת מִשֶּׂה וְלָקַח הוּא וּשְׁכֵנוֹ הַקָּרֹב אֶל בֵּיתוֹ בְּמִכְסַת נְפָשֹׁת אִישׁ לְפִי אָכְלוֹ תָּכֹסּוּ עַל הַשֶּׂה
KJ: And if the household
be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according
to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your
count for the lamb.
The laws of sacrifice in the Yom Kippur liturgy (see "Day of Atonement", Preliminaries 2, Temple Service) are very precise about which sacrifices may be eaten, and when, and by whom. And eating is very much the point here. YHVH likes the smell while the meat is cooking (it deflates his inflamed nostrils - for which note the closing phrase of Exodus 11:8), and the act of "sacrifice" is literally an act of "facere sacrae", of "making sacred", a process by which YHVH effectively gives permission for a part of his Creation to be killed and used for food. But note this: the purpose of taking the lambs is not to surrender them to the god; it is for the god to surrender them to the appetites of the eaters. So the point here is: don't cook more food than you can eat, or that really would be the pointless sacrifice of a lamb!
12:5 SEH TAMIM ZACHAR BEN SHANAH YIHEYEH LACHEM MIN HA KEVASIM U MIN HA IZIM TIKACHU
שֶׂה תָמִים זָכָר בֶּן שָׁנָה יִהְיֶה לָכֶם מִן הַכְּבָשִׂים וּמִן הָעִזִּים תִּקָּחוּ
KJ: Your lamb shall be
without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from
the sheep, or from the goats:
Mosheh claimed that he did not know what would be needed for sacrifice, and presumed cattle; now we hear it is sheep and goats, and no mention of cattle; though MIKNEH was frequently used in the Genesis tales to mean any type of flock or herd. Remember that all the cattle of the Mitsrim [supposedly] died in the plague at Exodus 9:6. See my notes on cattle throughout Exodus 9, especially 9:3, and also 10:26.
The possession of sufficient sheep and goats for a mass barbecue makes the Beney Yisra-El wealthier than we previously thought, given their status as slaves. And it also leaves open a question about the Mitsrim hating shepherds, and especially Hyksos shepherd-kings, which is residual from Genesis 46:34.
The possession of sufficient sheep and goats for a mass barbecue makes the Beney Yisra-El wealthier than we previously thought, given their status as slaves. And it also leaves open a question about the Mitsrim hating shepherds, and especially Hyksos shepherd-kings, which is residual from Genesis 46:34.
Confirming that it is goats as well as sheep. Again see "A Myrtle Among Reeds" and "Day of Atonement" for precisely which sacrifice this is (CHAT'OT, probably, based on our reading of the last chapter). Were these rules already in place, or is the Redactor retroactively validating the rules of his time?
12:6 VE HAYAH LACHEM LE MISHMERET AD ARBA'AH ASAR YOM LA CHODESH HA ZEH VE SHACHATU OTO KOL KEHAL ADAT YISRA-EL BEYN HA ARBA'AIM
וְהָיָה לָכֶם לְמִשְׁמֶרֶת עַד אַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר יוֹם לַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה וְשָׁחֲטוּ אֹתוֹ כֹּל קְהַל עֲדַת יִשְׂרָאֵל בֵּין הָעַרְבָּיִם
KJ: And ye shall keep it
up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the
congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
At dusk on the 13th, or the 14th? See verse 18. And remember that this is a lunar calendar, so days begin at moonrise and end at sunset ("and there was evening, and then morning, the first day"; that way around). The evening of the 14th is already the 15th, if we see it through the lens of our solar calendar. And Erev Pesach is always the evening of the solar 14th, so logically the animal is killed and prepared on the eve, and eaten on the day, the 15th - 15 in Yehudit is written with the letters Yud and Hey, which also happens to be the name of the moon goddess, the consort of YHVH, namely YAH, though modern Judaism, having patriarchally removed the goddess from the Omnideistic unitheon, avoids this by writing 15 as TU (9+6) instead.
SHACHATU: The concept of Shechitah derives from this root. It means "to slaughter", and does not mean "to kill"; this is ritual slaughter at the hands of a priest or otherwise sacredly authorised person; this is an abattoir not somebody's back-garden, one running on strictly "healthy and safety approved" lines.
BEYN HA ARBA'IM: Arba'im may sound like the number forty, but it does not write like the number forty, which would be ארבעים, with an initial Aleph not an Ayin.
Rashi claims, in his comments on the Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael re Beyn ha arba'im, that "From six hours [after sunrise] and onward is called בֵּין הָעַרְבַּיִם, literally, between the two evenings, for the sun is inclined toward the place where it sets to become darkened. It seems to me that the expression בֵּין הָעַרְבַּיִם denotes those hours between the darkening of the day and the darkening of the night. The darkening of the day is at the beginning of the seventh hour, when the shadows of evening decline, and the darkening of the night at the beginning of the night. עֶרֶב is an expression of evening and darkness."
Rashi is certainly correct that BEYN HA ARBA'IM means "between the evenings", though a contemporary reader may not be accustomed to hearing that word used for the "balancing" or "even-ing" of light and darkness at the beginning as well as at the end of the day; but the term was clearly once used for both dawn and dusk, and elsewhere "eventide" serves equally. Where Rashi is merely guessing is his calculation of the precise times of dawn and dusk, and I strongly suspect that the times he offers may have been correct in Troyes, just east of Paris, where he lived (48.2973° N, 4.0744° E), but may be up to an hour wrong in either direction somewhat further south in Erets Yisra-El (Yeru-Shala'im is at 31.7683° N, 35.2137° E.)
Rashi is certainly correct that BEYN HA ARBA'IM means "between the evenings", though a contemporary reader may not be accustomed to hearing that word used for the "balancing" or "even-ing" of light and darkness at the beginning as well as at the end of the day; but the term was clearly once used for both dawn and dusk, and elsewhere "eventide" serves equally. Where Rashi is merely guessing is his calculation of the precise times of dawn and dusk, and I strongly suspect that the times he offers may have been correct in Troyes, just east of Paris, where he lived (48.2973° N, 4.0744° E), but may be up to an hour wrong in either direction somewhat further south in Erets Yisra-El (Yeru-Shala'im is at 31.7683° N, 35.2137° E.)
Either way this connects us with the arrival of the deity at midnight (the equivalent in the daily cycle of the full moon in the monthly, and therefore the time of her fullness). Whatever we conclude, two facts are clear: a) that never again in Yisra-Eli practice did sacrifices take place at night; and b) they clearly did here, as we are about to witness.
It might also be interesting to go back to the locusts, which are also ARBEH (אַרְבֶּה - with an aleph), and wonder if the time-frame isn't "between the time of the locusts and now". It isn't, but these things are still fun to wonder, especially as the verbal puns are a characteristic of the entire Tanach. In the same way, BEYN HA ARBA'IM as "between the forties", also makes for an aural pun on that sacred number which is about to become key to the remainder of the story: forty days and nights in the No'achic version of Creation paralleled in the forty years of crossing the flooded Earth in order to wander in search of an alternative to doves and olive branches, which is to say milk and honey, on another sacred mountain: Tsi'on rather than Ararat.
12:7 VE LAK'CHU MIN HA DAM VE NATNU AL SHETEY HA MEZUZOT VE AL HA MASHKOPH AL HA BATIM ASHER YOCHLU OTO BA HEM
וְלָקְחוּ מִן הַדָּם וְנָתְנוּ עַל שְׁתֵּי הַמְּזוּזֹת וְעַל הַמַּשְׁקוֹף עַל הַבָּתִּים אֲשֶׁר יֹאכְלוּ אֹתוֹ בָּהֶם
KJ: And they shall take of
the blood, and strike it on the two
side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.
MEZUZOT: Traditionally a mezuzah is a metal amulet attached to the doorpost, and probably derived from the placing of the Eye of Ra or Eye of Hor on doorposts and the sides of fishing-boats in the Egyptian world. It contains the letter SHEEN (ש) on the cover, representing El Shadai, Av-Raham's name for god, and a parchment copy of the SHEMA on the inside.
What we can see here is that originally the mezuzah was the doorpost itself, and not the amulet; and what should be placed on the doorpost - superstitiously, to ward off the angel of death, as we shall see in verse 12 - is lamb or goat blood. In what way were they to paint it? The truth is: we don't know; though we can find references to it in Egyptian lore - the last section of "The Tale of the Two Brothers" for example. Did they literally paint the whole door-post, and the lintel? Or just smear some kind of symbolic mark? What we do know is that this is the origin of the Red Cross which, painted at any point of any building, denotes a safe house under the terms of the Geneva Convention (a red Star of David - Magen David Adom - in the Jewish world, a red crescent in the Moslem now provides their equivalents). It would be nice to conjecture that it was indeed a cross, not for Christian reasons - though the Christian Cross was originally the Egyptian Ankh, so it is not impossible - but because that would have been the same mark that was branded on the beast intended for sacrifice, the Mark of Kayin (Cain) - see my notes to Genesis 4. However, it was much more likely just painted blood.
What we can see here is that originally the mezuzah was the doorpost itself, and not the amulet; and what should be placed on the doorpost - superstitiously, to ward off the angel of death, as we shall see in verse 12 - is lamb or goat blood. In what way were they to paint it? The truth is: we don't know; though we can find references to it in Egyptian lore - the last section of "The Tale of the Two Brothers" for example. Did they literally paint the whole door-post, and the lintel? Or just smear some kind of symbolic mark? What we do know is that this is the origin of the Red Cross which, painted at any point of any building, denotes a safe house under the terms of the Geneva Convention (a red Star of David - Magen David Adom - in the Jewish world, a red crescent in the Moslem now provides their equivalents). It would be nice to conjecture that it was indeed a cross, not for Christian reasons - though the Christian Cross was originally the Egyptian Ankh, so it is not impossible - but because that would have been the same mark that was branded on the beast intended for sacrifice, the Mark of Kayin (Cain) - see my notes to Genesis 4. However, it was much more likely just painted blood.
AHER YOCHLU OTO: We can better understand the nature of the sacrifice from this; see "A Myrtle Among Reeds" again; very few sacrifices could be eaten outside the precincts of the Sanctuary; but here we have take-away (that's take-out if you are an American).
12:8 VE ACHLU ET HA BASAR BA LAILAH HA ZEH TSELI-ESH U MATSOT AL MERORIM YOCHLU'HU
וְאָכְלוּ אֶת הַבָּשָׂר בַּלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה צְלִי אֵשׁ וּמַצּוֹת עַל מְרֹרִים יֹאכְלֻהוּ
KJ: And they shall eat the
flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with
bitter herbs they
shall eat it.
This verse needs to be triple underlined: the intention of the feast, which is taking place before they leave Mitsrayim, is to eat the paschal lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs; the notion that they only had unleavened bread because they had to flee in a hurry and didn't have time for it to leaven, is Midrash. The feast has nothing whatsoever to do with liberation from slavery in Mitsrayim.
Given what became the traditional Passover seder later, we are entitled to ask, entirely seriously: did they have charoset too? And what about the egg? The Easter egg (the mediaeval Christians spelt it "Oester" - click here), from Greek oestrus, and Babylonian Ishtar, giving us "ostrich" and "oestrogen" and "oysters", and all those other egg-shaped fertility-related words; did they already have the egg? It is New Year after all, in the spring; there must have been an egg. I bet they even hid the afikomen!
12:9 AL TOCHLU MIMENU NA U VASHEL MEVUSHAL BA MAYIM KI IM TSELI-ESH ROSHO AL KERA'AV VE AL KIRBO
אַל תֹּאכְלוּ מִמֶּנּוּ נָא וּבָשֵׁל מְבֻשָּׁל בַּמָּיִם כִּי אִם צְלִי אֵשׁ רֹאשׁוֹ עַל כְּרָעָיו וְעַל קִרְבּוֹ
KJ: Eat not of it raw, nor
sodden at all with water, but roast with fire;
his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof.
KERA'AV... KIRBO: With the innards; later on, when the Kashrut laws are created, the eating of the innards will be strictly prohibited.
12:10 VE LO TOTIYRU MIMENU AD BOKER VE HA NOTAR MIMENU AD BOKER BA ESH TISROPHU
וְלֹא תוֹתִירוּ מִמֶּנּוּ עַד בֹּקֶר וְהַנֹּתָר מִמֶּנּוּ עַד בֹּקֶר בָּאֵשׁ תִּשְׂרֹפוּ
KJ: And ye shall let
nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until
the morning ye shall burn with fire.
So precise are these instructions, they almost seem like the Kashrut laws are being given already, even before Sinai. How do they compare with the actual Kashrut laws? And are they perhaps Mitsri Kashrut laws that pre-existed?
12:11 VE CHACHA TOCHLU OTO MATNEYCHEM CHAGURIM NA'ALEYCHEM BE RAGLEYCHEM U MAKELCHEM BE YEDCHEM VA ACHALTEM OTO BE CHIPHAZON PESACH HU LA YHVH
וְכָכָה תֹּאכְלוּ אֹתוֹ מָתְנֵיכֶם חֲגֻרִים נַעֲלֵיכֶם בְּרַגְלֵיכֶם וּמַקֶּלְכֶם בְּיֶדְכֶם וַאֲכַלְתֶּם אֹתוֹ בְּחִפָּזוֹן פֶּסַח הוּא לַיהוָה
KJ: And thus shall ye eat
it; with your
loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye
shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD'S
passover.
MATNEYCHEM CHAGURIM: Not what the modern world thinks - the modern phrase makes it sound like putting on a jockstrap. The tunic could either be worn loose, or tied. Loose it restricted running, or even fast walking, because it grabbed at the thighs, so the habit was to tie it at the top of the thighs; not very attractive, but pragmatic. This was called MATNEYCHEM CHAGURIM and "girding the loins" is really a very poor translation.
MAKELCHEM: A MAKLECHET is not the same as a MATEH: this is a walking-stick, not a sceptre. They are about to set out on the Hajj, or Chag in Yehudit, but it is the same word, with the same meaning: pilgrimage.
PESACH: Once again we can see that this is not the inauguration of a new festival, but the customs of a long-existing one; though it may well be a re-inauguration.
12:12 VE AVARTI VE ERETS MITSRAYIM BA LAILAH HA ZEH VE HIKEYTI CHOL BECHOR BE ERETS MITSRAYIM ME ADAM VE AD BEHEMAH U VE CHOL ELOHEY MITSRAYIM E'ESEH SHEPHATIM ANI YHVH
וְעָבַרְתִּי בְאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם בַּלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה וְהִכֵּיתִי כָל בְּכוֹר בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מֵאָדָם וְעַד בְּהֵמָה וּבְכָל אֱלֹהֵי מִצְרַיִם אֶעֱשֶׂה שְׁפָטִים אֲנִי יְהוָה
KJ: For I will pass
through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the
land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will
execute judgment: I am the LORD.
This needs careful consideration, because this is a verse that has been much altered to meet the needs of Yisra-Eli theology. The god has called for the gathering of all the sheep and cattle, precisely in order to have their first-born sacrificed, and by night; so going through the land and doing this is not really a plague, nor a punishment of the Mitsrim, but simply a description.
SHEPHATIM: The same with the "judgements" - see my note on this at Exodus 6:6. If, as appears to be the case, we are at the Mitsri equivalent of New Year/Yom Kippur, then it is precisely now that the god determines MI BA EYSH U MI BA MAYIM; who will live and who will die; the repentance for the CHAT'OT that Pharaoh has confessed on behalf of his people now comes to fruition. Once again this is not plague; this is liturgical ceremony; not DEVER YHVH but DAVAR YHVH.
ANI YHVH: Look again at the phrasing of the last sentence, imagine the final two words are not there, and pluralise the rest to make it grammatically correct. It now translates as "and great deeds will be performed by all the gods of Mitsrayim" - as we would expect, on the first day of re-Creation.
ANI YHVH: Look again at the phrasing of the last sentence, imagine the final two words are not there, and pluralise the rest to make it grammatically correct. It now translates as "and great deeds will be performed by all the gods of Mitsrayim" - as we would expect, on the first day of re-Creation.
12:13 VE HAYAH HA DAM LACHEM LE OT AL HA BATIM ASHER ATEM SHAM VE RA'IYTI ET HA DAM U PASACHTI AL'ECHEM VE LO YIHEYEH VACHEM NEGEPH LE MASHCHIT BE HAKOTI BE ERETS MITSRAYIM
וְהָיָה הַדָּם לָכֶם לְאֹת עַל הַבָּתִּים אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם שָׁם וְרָאִיתִי אֶת הַדָּם וּפָסַחְתִּי עֲלֵכֶם וְלֹא יִהְיֶה בָכֶם נֶגֶף לְמַשְׁחִית בְּהַכֹּתִי בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם
KJ: And the blood shall be
to you for a token upon the houses where ye are:
and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be
upon you to destroy you, when I smite
the land of Egypt.
OT: As we have seen repeatedly, and starting at Creation itself in Genesis 1, the OT is both a "symbolic sign" and the indication of the annual festival: so this event is repeated annually, and is not a one-off historical occurrence.
HA DAM: rather goes with the matzah, doesn't it, Eucharistically, the matzah being made from the corn, which is the body of Osher, the blood his life-means, though later cults will prefer to use symbolic red wine. Modern Jewry at the Passover Seder dips a little finger in the wine at the recitation of the names of the plagues, and drips it on the plate that will then take the other seder offerings (do not lick your finger!).
Which god/goddess is this? Yisra-Eli tradition says an "angel of death" passed over the houses; we haven't heard that yet, and angels of any kind do not belong in Egyptian mythology, or in Yisra-Eli mythology before the 6th century BCE, when they learned it in Persia. Nor does the moon-goddess generally go in for this kind of sacrificial orgy, and certainly not the partridge dance, the limping-dance connected with both Oedipus and Achilles in the Greek myths, which is the source of the name Pesach for the original festival.
And remember: the killing of the first-born is not a plague; it is an act of ritual sacrifice.
12:14 VE HAYAH HAYOM HA ZEH LACHEM LE ZIKARON VE CHAGOTEM OTO CHAG LA YHVH LE DOROTEYCHEM CHUKAT OLAM TECHAGU'HU
וְהָיָה הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה לָכֶם לְזִכָּרוֹן וְחַגֹּתֶם אֹתוֹ חַג לַיהוָה לְדֹרֹתֵיכֶם חֻקַּת עוֹלָם תְּחָגֻּהוּ
BN: "And this day shall serve you as a memorial, and you shall keep it as a feast to YHVH; throughout your generations you shall keep it as a feast by ordinance for ever...
Having said that this is not the inauguration of a new festival, it also is, though probably this verse was added in Ezraic times: there is the existing festival, which they are now celebrating; and there is the ideologically invented "Yisra-Eli Passover festival of redemption from slavery in Mitsrayim" which is being inaugurated by the Redactor, a thousand years after the somewhat different event. What we are now reading, from verse 14 through 20, is written that thousand years later, to describe the new festival to those who will be participating in it.
12:15 SHIV'AT YAMIM MATSOT TOCHELU ACH BA YOM HA RISHON TASHBIYTU SE'OR MI BATEYCHEM KI KOL OCHEL CHAMETS VE NICHRETAH HA NEPHESH HA HU MI YISRA-EL MI YOM HA RISHON AD YOM HA SHEVI'I
שִׁבְעַת יָמִים מַצּוֹת תֹּאכֵלוּ אַךְ בַּיּוֹם הָרִאשׁוֹן תַּשְׁבִּיתוּ שְּׂאֹר מִבָּתֵּיכֶם כִּי כָּל אֹכֵל חָמֵץ וְנִכְרְתָה הַנֶּפֶשׁ הַהִוא מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל מִיּוֹם הָרִאשֹׁן עַד יוֹם הַשְּׁבִעִי
KJ: Seven days shall ye
eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your
houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the
seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.
ACH: usually means "therefore"; I have rendered it as "thus" here, but it has an altogether different meaning in verse 16 below, probably "however"; as it does in Genesis 20:12 et al. And it would be perfectly feasible for it to mean "however" here as well.
The "problem" for the "Jewish version" is that they are celebrating it on the date of Passover, but here they are doing it in Mitsrayim, before it has taken place, before the Exodus, before any laws have been given at Sinai.
The "problem" for the "Jewish version" is that they are celebrating it on the date of Passover, but here they are doing it in Mitsrayim, before it has taken place, before the Exodus, before any laws have been given at Sinai.
VE NICHRETAH HA NEPHESH HA HI (or possiblu HA HU: the pointing in fact renders it as both and neither): This is a strange ordinance. Does it mean killed, or excommunicated? See verse 19 below.
SHEVI'I: In the next verse we will see this written with a Yud - I do wish there was more consistency in the Masoretic pointing, as it impacts enormously on both pronunciation and meaning (though only the former in this instance).
12:16 U VA YOM HA RI'SHON MIKRA KODESH U VA YOM HA SHEVI'YI MIKRA KODESH YIHEYEH LACHEM KOL MELA'CHAH LO YE'ASEH VA HEM ACH ASHER YE'ACHEL LE CHOL NEPHESH HU LEVADO YE'ASEH LACHEM
וּבַיּוֹם הָרִאשׁוֹן מִקְרָא קֹדֶשׁ וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי מִקְרָא קֹדֶשׁ יִהְיֶה לָכֶם כָּל מְלָאכָה לֹא יֵעָשֶׂה בָהֶם אַךְ אֲשֶׁר יֵאָכֵל לְכָל נֶפֶשׁ הוּא לְבַדּוֹ יֵעָשֶׂה לָכֶם
KJ: And in the first day there shall be an
holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to
you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which
every man must eat, that only may be done of you.
But wait a moment! In verse 11 they were told to make the festive meal at night, and eat it quickly, loins girded and sandal-laces tied, because they were off on pilgrimage as soon as the sun came up. Yet here they are going absolutely nowhere, they are staying still, and taking part in a religious ceremony - this can only be the later version, created as a memorial, and not the original.
MELA'CHAH: This is a holy day, and connected to the number seven, but still not a full Shabbat; though no work may be done, any work connected to the necessity to eat is permitted. Making Pesach a Shabbat shabbatot, exactly like Yom Kippur. The concept of the 39 Mel'achot, related to the Sabbath, comes from the same root.
12:17 U SHEMARTEM ET HA MATSOT KI BE ETSEM HA YOM HA ZEH HOTS'E'TI ET TSIV'OTEYCHEM ME ERETS MITSRAYIM U SHEMARTEM ET HA YOM HA ZEH LE DOROTEYCHEM CHUKAT OLAM
וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת הַמַּצּוֹת כִּי בְּעֶצֶם הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה הוֹצֵאתִי אֶת צִבְאוֹתֵיכֶם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה לְדֹרֹתֵיכֶם חֻקַּת עוֹלָם
KJ: And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened
bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of
Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance
for ever.
This makes it unequivocal that having no time to bake the bread, or leaving in a hurry, is a later folk-tale, and not part of the original tale. They are supposed to eat matzah because it is the Passover, and has been for a very long time already, which is to say the Spring New Year Festival of - yes, redemption; but not redemption as in flight from Egypt, but redemption from the CHAT'OT, the "sins" that Pharaoh described, and which are themselves connected to the "plagues" - the negatives of Nature, as attributed to the Underworld god Set.
Confirmation that this part at least was added or redacted a thousand years later; because he hasn't yet brought them out of Egypt, and all the evidence of the last nine "plagues" suggests that it still isn't certain, or wouldn't have been, to Mosheh and his followers. This verse is a Redactor's addition, to establish the Yisra-Eli version later on.
12:18 BA RISHON BE ARBA'AH ASAR YOM LA CHODESH BA EREV TOCHLU MATSOT AD YOM HA ECHAD VE ESRIM LA CHODESH BA AREV
בָּרִאשֹׁן בְּאַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר יוֹם לַחֹדֶשׁ בָּעֶרֶב תֹּאכְלוּ מַצֹּת עַד יוֹם הָאֶחָד וְעֶשְׂרִים לַחֹדֶשׁבָּעָרֶב
KJ: In the first month, on the fourteenth
day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and
twentieth day of the month at even.
Confirmation that this was the original first month of the year, Aviv, before it was moved to the seventh month, Tishrey.
In the evening. As at the Genesis Creation (and see my notes to verse 6), and always in the lunar calendar, the day begins when the moon takes over from the sun, in the evening, and not when the sun starts its day, in the morning.
12:19 SHIV'AT YAMIM SE'OR LO YIMATS'E BE VATEYCHEM KI LO OCHEL MACHMETSET VE NICHRETAH HA NEPHESH HA HU ME ADAT YISRA-EL BA GER U VE EZRACH HA ARETS
BN: "For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses; for whoever eats that which is leavened, that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Yisra-El, whether he be a visitor, or someone who was born in the land...
Spring-cleaning rituals!
MACHMETSET: The root that gives the word CHAMETS. The root really means "sharp", and is used in the sense of "eagerness" or "alertness", but mostly as a taste - so CHOMETS is the Yehudit word for "vinegar" in Numbers 6:3 and Ruth 2:14. That sharpness is applied to colour in Isaiah 63:1, and becomes a metaphor for certain states of the human mind in Psalm 71:4 and 73:21.
HA HU: Again we have pointing that makes it either HA HU or HA HI, or both.
GER...EZRACH HA ARETS: A GER is a stranger or a foreigner, an EZRACH quite explicitly a citizen - click here. So this verse cannot possibly have been given while they were still in Egypt; it can only have been written centuries later, when they were established in Yisra-El. Or if it was written then, then the GER refers to the Ivrim, and the EZRACH HA ARETS to the Mitsrim (Egyptians), meaning Passover applies to them too; and of course, it did; so this either confirms the pre-existence of Passover, or is an anachronism. Or quite possibly both.
BN: "You shall eat nothing leavened; wherever you are living, you shall eat unleavened bread."
BN: Then Mosheh summoned all the elders of Yisra-El, and said to them: "Draw out, and take you lambs according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb...
MISHCHU: The word-play to end all word-plays. MASHACH with a Chaf, not MASHIYACH with a Chet, though of course the Psachal Lamb is also the Azaz-El, the one sent into the wilderness to take all the sins of the world on his shoulders, just like the Christian Messiah!
Jewish tradition regarding Mosheh's name stems from Exodus 2:10, where Pharaoh's daughter names him Mosheh " KI MIN HA MAYIM MESHIYTIHU - because I drew him from the water". Unfortunately, in Yehudit anyway, the verb for "to draw" in this sense is LIMSHOCH, the verb being used here; there is no known Yehudit verb that could be rendered in the Pi'el form as MESHIYTIHU, but there is MASH'A, which Yesha-Yahu (Isaiah) introduces as the word for the the spiritual redeemer of Yisra-El, the Messiah, as a contrast to the already existing MASHIYACH, the word for the anointed king, the secular ruler of the people - which is indeed Mosheh's role. In fact, Mosheh's name is pure Egyptian, and has nothing to do with either of these; it means precisely what Pharaoh's daughter said, and it was an epithet for Osher: Ach-Mousa would have meant "my father was delivered from the water", which is how Osher was discovered by Eshet (Isis), when she went to search for the fourteen parts of his body, gored and butchered by Set, on the coast of southern Lebanon.
And note that Mosheh calls for them to bring the Passover lamb, and expects them to know what he means. It is not new.
BN: "And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is on the threshold, and smear the lintel and the two side-posts with the blood that is on the threshold; and none of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning.
12:23 VE AVAR YHVH LINGOPH ET MITSRAYIM VE RA'AH ET HA DAM AL HA MASHKOPH VE AL SHETEY HA MEZUZOT U PASACH YHVH AL HA PETACH VE LO YITEN HA MASH'CHIT LAVO EL BATEYCHEM LINGOPH
BN: "For YHVH will pass over Mitsrayim in order to smite it; but when he sees the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side-posts, YHVH will pass over the door, and will not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you...
BN: "And you shall observe this custom as a law, for you and for your descendants, for ever...
BN: "And it shall be, when you come to the land which YHVH intends to give you, according to his promise, that you shall continue to worship in this manner...
BN: "And it shall come to pass, when your children ask you: What precisely do you understand by this form of worship?..
The voice of the Redactor clearly audible, speaking to his own generation, effectively summing up what all the previous chapters have been about: "we have this bizarre month and a half of ritual that we are expected to perform; something from centuries ago apparently; what is it all about; and why do we need to do it?"
AVODAH: The coming-together of the two meanings of that word.
12:27 VA AMARTEM ZEVACH PESACH HU LA YHVH ASHER PASACH AL BATEY VENEY YISRA-EL BE MITSRAYIM BE NAGPO ET MITSRAYIM VE ET BATEYNU HITSIL VA YIKOD HA AM VA YISHTACHAVU
BN: "That you shall say: This is the sacrifice of YHVH's Pesach, because he passed over the houses of the Beney Yisra-El in Mitsrayim, when he took the first-born of the Mitsrim, but spared our houses." And the people bowed their heads and worshipped.
BN: And the Beney Yisra-El went, and did; as YHVH had commanded Mosheh and Aharon, so they did.
YELCHU: Went away from what? A religious gathering, presumably, celebrating the in-coming of the Chag. I only ask because, according to the later census, there are well over a million of these Habiru, and they can't all have been at the same shul on the same evening.
samech break
BN: And it came to pass at midnight, that YHVH smote all the first-born in the land of Mitsrayim, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sat on the throne, down to the first-born of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the first-born of cattle.
CHATSI HA LAILAH: Midnight, the moment of transition from the old year to the new one.
How do we know that this has to be mythological and liturgical, and not historical? By asking the questions that the kid in cheder gets sent to the Principal's office for having the cheek to ask. "Sir, how did the angel of death know which were the firstborn of the cattle, and of the sheep? Did the others also get painted with blood, or perhaps branded with the Mark of Kayin, so they wouldn't get selected? And the non-firstborn sons of Egypt. And how did one angel of death manage to kill that many at the same exact moment, right on the stroke of midnight?" Ritalin for you my son!
BN: And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all of Mitsrayim; and there was a great cry in Mitsrayim; for there was not a house in which there was not one dead.
BN: And he summoned Mosheh and Aharon in the dead of night, and said: "Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the Beney Yisra-El; go, worship YHVH, as you have said...
BN: "And take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone; and bless me also."
12:19 SHIV'AT YAMIM SE'OR LO YIMATS'E BE VATEYCHEM KI LO OCHEL MACHMETSET VE NICHRETAH HA NEPHESH HA HU ME ADAT YISRA-EL BA GER U VE EZRACH HA ARETS
שִׁבְעַת יָמִים שְׂאֹר לֹא יִמָּצֵא בְּבָתֵּיכֶם כִּי כָּל אֹכֵל מַחְמֶצֶת וְנִכְרְתָה הַנֶּפֶשׁ הַהִוא מֵעֲדַת יִשְׂרָאֵל בַּגֵּר וּבְאֶזְרַח הָאָרֶץ
KJ: Seven days shall there
be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened,
even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be
a stranger, or born in the land.
Spring-cleaning rituals!
MACHMETSET: The root that gives the word CHAMETS. The root really means "sharp", and is used in the sense of "eagerness" or "alertness", but mostly as a taste - so CHOMETS is the Yehudit word for "vinegar" in Numbers 6:3 and Ruth 2:14. That sharpness is applied to colour in Isaiah 63:1, and becomes a metaphor for certain states of the human mind in Psalm 71:4 and 73:21.
SE'OR: See my note to Exodus 9:31, a long way distant for a piece of word-play, but word-play nonetheless. There we were in the realm of the flax and the barley, both key elements of the Spring harvest, two of the three most essential crops to the Egyptian economy. However (that's ACH in Yehudit!), though you can make bread using barley, there is no evidence that the ancient Egyptians ever did, preferring the third essential element of their economy, corn. The leaven of the corn is SE'OR (שְׂאֹר); the "hairy" ears of the flax and the barley were SE'ORAH (ְּׂשְּׂעֹרָה), the first with an Aleph, the second with an Ayin.
NICHRETAH: that Isaiac favourite word yet again (see verse 15).
NICHRETAH: that Isaiac favourite word yet again (see verse 15).
HA HU: Again we have pointing that makes it either HA HU or HA HI, or both.
GER...EZRACH HA ARETS: A GER is a stranger or a foreigner, an EZRACH quite explicitly a citizen - click here. So this verse cannot possibly have been given while they were still in Egypt; it can only have been written centuries later, when they were established in Yisra-El. Or if it was written then, then the GER refers to the Ivrim, and the EZRACH HA ARETS to the Mitsrim (Egyptians), meaning Passover applies to them too; and of course, it did; so this either confirms the pre-existence of Passover, or is an anachronism. Or quite possibly both.
12:20 KOL MACHMETSET LO TOCHELU BE CHOL MOSHVOTEYCHEM TOCHLU MATSOT
כָּל מַחְמֶצֶת לֹא תֹאכֵלוּ בְּכֹל מוֹשְׁבֹתֵיכֶם תֹּאכְלוּ מַצּוֹת
KJ: Ye shall eat nothing
leavened; in all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread.
The lack of punctuation makes this imprecise; "in all your habitations" could belong to the phrase before or after; it does not change the meaning however.
12:21 VA YIKRA MOSHEH LE CHOL ZIKNEY YISRA-EL VA YOMER AL'EHEM MISHCHU U KECHU LACHEM TSON LE MISHPECHOTEYCHEM VE SHACHATU HA PASACH
וַיִּקְרָא מֹשֶׁה לְכָל זִקְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם מִשְׁכוּ וּקְחוּ לָכֶם צֹאן לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתֵיכֶם וְשַׁחֲטוּ הַפָּסַח
KJ: Then Moses called for
all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb
according to your families, and kill the passover.
Jewish tradition regarding Mosheh's name stems from Exodus 2:10, where Pharaoh's daughter names him Mosheh " KI MIN HA MAYIM MESHIYTIHU - because I drew him from the water". Unfortunately, in Yehudit anyway, the verb for "to draw" in this sense is LIMSHOCH, the verb being used here; there is no known Yehudit verb that could be rendered in the Pi'el form as MESHIYTIHU, but there is MASH'A, which Yesha-Yahu (Isaiah) introduces as the word for the the spiritual redeemer of Yisra-El, the Messiah, as a contrast to the already existing MASHIYACH, the word for the anointed king, the secular ruler of the people - which is indeed Mosheh's role. In fact, Mosheh's name is pure Egyptian, and has nothing to do with either of these; it means precisely what Pharaoh's daughter said, and it was an epithet for Osher: Ach-Mousa would have meant "my father was delivered from the water", which is how Osher was discovered by Eshet (Isis), when she went to search for the fourteen parts of his body, gored and butchered by Set, on the coast of southern Lebanon.
And note that Mosheh calls for them to bring the Passover lamb, and expects them to know what he means. It is not new.
12:22 U LEKACHTEM AGUDAT EZOV U TEVALTEM BA DAM ASHER BA SAPH VE HIG'ATEM EL HA MASHKOPH VE EL SHETEY HA MEZUZOT MIN HA DAM ASHER BA SAPH VE ATEM LO TETS'U ISH MI PETACH BEYTO AD BOKER
וּלְקַחְתֶּם אֲגֻדַּת אֵזוֹב וּטְבַלְתֶּם בַּדָּם אֲשֶׁר בַּסַּף וְהִגַּעְתֶּם אֶל הַמַּשְׁקוֹף וְאֶל שְׁתֵּי הַמְּזוּזֹת מִן הַדָּם אֲשֶׁר בַּסָּף וְאַתֶּם לֹא תֵצְאוּ אִישׁ מִפֶּתַח בֵּיתוֹ עַד בֹּקֶר
KJ: And ye shall take a
bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the
blood that is in the
bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the
bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning.
AGUDAT EZOV: Hyssop is the standard translation into English, and hyssop is a type of mint. Is there some special quality to the hyssop, some nutrient or vitamin of which the ancients were aware? Or it simply a convenient shape and texture to use as a paintbrush? The reference at the link is to Psalm 51:9 (51:7 in some versions).
TEVALTEM: Here is a question for the Rabbis. In the modern Seder service, as noted above, we dip our little finger in the wine and let it drip onto a spoon or plate or cloth, when we recite the Ten Plagues from the Haggadah. The wine represents blood, and we are spilling it, just as the Beneh Yisra-El are sprinkling it here. When the priests sprinkle the blood, they have a jug and a special Yad, a tool. Why do we not take hyssop, include it on the Seder plate, and everyone takes a piece to dip in the wine for the Plagues?
SAPH: Could be translated as a bowl, as per KJ, though no bowl has previously been mentioned, or it could be translated as the threshold, the inference being that the doorposts have been painted, but gravity causes the blood to drip, the threshold collecting the residue, which can then be redistributed. Saph is used to mean threshold on innumerable occasions - click here for the full list.
SHETEY HA MEZUZOT: Clearly, for modern Jewry, there should be an amulet - a mezuzah - on both door-posts, not just one. And should it be on the inside of the door, or on the outside? This question is asked entirely seriously. The truth is, the mezuzah hanging on most doors in the Jewish world is a Jewish Eye of Horus, and not a Pesach commemorative at all.
And why the night vigil if this is not a moon-festival? When is the Jewish world going to reinstate the mother-goddess?
12:23 VE AVAR YHVH LINGOPH ET MITSRAYIM VE RA'AH ET HA DAM AL HA MASHKOPH VE AL SHETEY HA MEZUZOT U PASACH YHVH AL HA PETACH VE LO YITEN HA MASH'CHIT LAVO EL BATEYCHEM LINGOPH
וְעָבַר יְהוָה לִנְגֹּף אֶת מִצְרַיִם וְרָאָה אֶת הַדָּם עַל הַמַּשְׁקוֹף וְעַל שְׁתֵּי הַמְּזוּזֹת וּפָסַח יְהוָה עַל הַפֶּתַח וְלֹא יִתֵּן הַמַּשְׁחִית לָבֹא אֶל בָּתֵּיכֶם לִנְגֹּף
KJ: For the LORD will pass
through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel,
and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer
the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.
AVAR: Connected to the root that also gives IVRIM. Is that a coincidence?
YHVH, not an "angel of death", though a distinction is being made between Brahma and Siva, so to speak, YHVH in the Brahma role, Creating the world, Siva the Destroyer, doing precisely that - one taking the last of the old, the other bringing in the first of the new. But the Hindu concept was long eradicated from Yisra-Eli polytheism by the time the Torah was written down, and so we have this somewhat superstitious, almost-angelic fantasy-tale instead. And in the later writings, especially the Haggadah, we are told that it was an "angel", which is to say a "messenger of YHVH".
Whoever this night-visitor was, it definitely was not the Prophet Eli-Yahu. Where, then, does the custom arise, of opening the front door for Eli-Yahu at Passover? It is, after all, the precise inversion of the visitation of YHVH as destroyer, and may therefore also be an origin of the Sukot custom of Ushpizin. Perhaps this was a necessary theological change as well, when the angel of death too became an unacceptable concept at the next stage of development of Yisra-Eli theology. Jewish scholars explain it as per this link, or sometimes this one, but it is unlikely to have been instituted for either of these reasons. Either way, if you do open the door for Elijah, this verse makes it quite clear that you should not step outside.
Whoever this night-visitor was, it definitely was not the Prophet Eli-Yahu. Where, then, does the custom arise, of opening the front door for Eli-Yahu at Passover? It is, after all, the precise inversion of the visitation of YHVH as destroyer, and may therefore also be an origin of the Sukot custom of Ushpizin. Perhaps this was a necessary theological change as well, when the angel of death too became an unacceptable concept at the next stage of development of Yisra-Eli theology. Jewish scholars explain it as per this link, or sometimes this one, but it is unlikely to have been instituted for either of these reasons. Either way, if you do open the door for Elijah, this verse makes it quite clear that you should not step outside.
MASH'CHIT: From the same root that gives SHECHITAH, ritual slaughter. And is the ritual sacrifice of the first-born not a form of Shechitah? The idea of the ritual slaughterer being an "angel of death" rather than a mohel with a knife, is actually a very late interpretation, and not in the text at all. The ritual slaughterer will pass by, like a hotel cleaner, because you have posted your "Do Not Disturb" sign in the form of a daubing of blood. Sadly, because it seems to us barbaric, but we have to understand that the people are being told to stay in their houses all night and not come out, because there are men with knives going from house to house, taking the first-born one by one. This is a physical event, not a metaphorical allegory.
HA MEZUZOT: Note again that the mezuzah is not the ritual object pinned to the door, but the doorpost itself.
12:24 U SHEMARTEM ET HA DAVAR HA ZEH LE CHAK LECHA U LE VANEYCHA AD OLAM
וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה לְחָק לְךָ וּלְבָנֶיךָ עַד עוֹלָם
KJ: And ye shall observe
this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever.
Again, covenant renewal, not inception. Again, DAVAR - though surely we can do better than translating DAVAR here as "thing": custom, ritual, ceremony...
12:25 VE HAYAH KI TAVO'U EL HA ARETS ASHER YITEN YHVH LACHEM KA ASHER DIBER U SHEMARTEM ET HA AVODAH HA ZOT
וְהָיָה כִּי תָבֹאוּ אֶל הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר יִתֵּן יְהוָה לָכֶם כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֵּר וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת הָעֲבֹדָה הַזֹּאת
KJ: And it shall come to
pass, when ye be come to the land which the LORD will give you, according as he
hath promised, that ye shall keep this service.
KI TAVO'U EL HA ARETS: The two versions get mixed up here. He has only told them that they are going for a 3-day journey to make sacrifice; he has not yet told them that they are going to Chorev, which is a great deal more than three days, let alone that the real plan is to go on to Kena'an - and this, in all probability, because three (or more!) completely separate legends have become amalgamated in this Torah tale.
AVODAH: until now the word has mostly been used - or at least understood - to mean "slavery" or "service"; now, suddenly, it is used in its other meaning, "to worship", adding still more weight to the conviction that the entire concept of slavery is erroneous, and to suggest the Beney Yisra-El were never slaves, but merely worshippers of a particular god, which may have been a different god from the one the Pharaoh followed, if you discount the argument that Pharaoh is part of this act of worship himself; or has all this to do with the eviction of the Hyksos and the restoration of the pre-Hyksos deity?
12:26 VE HAYAH KI YOMRU ALEYCHEM BENEYCHEM MAH HA AVODAH HA ZOT LACHEM
וְהָיָה כִּי יֹאמְרוּ אֲלֵיכֶם בְּנֵיכֶם מָה הָעֲבֹדָה הַזֹּאת לָכֶם
KJ: And it shall come to
pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service?
The voice of the Redactor clearly audible, speaking to his own generation, effectively summing up what all the previous chapters have been about: "we have this bizarre month and a half of ritual that we are expected to perform; something from centuries ago apparently; what is it all about; and why do we need to do it?"
AVODAH: The coming-together of the two meanings of that word.
12:27 VA AMARTEM ZEVACH PESACH HU LA YHVH ASHER PASACH AL BATEY VENEY YISRA-EL BE MITSRAYIM BE NAGPO ET MITSRAYIM VE ET BATEYNU HITSIL VA YIKOD HA AM VA YISHTACHAVU
וַאֲמַרְתֶּם זֶבַח פֶּסַח הוּא לַיהוָה אֲשֶׁר פָּסַח עַל בָּתֵּי בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּמִצְרַיִם בְּנָגְפּוֹ אֶת מִצְרַיִם וְאֶת בָּתֵּינוּ הִצִּיל וַיִּקֹּד הָעָם וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲווּ
KJ: That ye shall say, It is the
sacrifice of the LORD'S passover, who passed over the houses of the children of
Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the
people bowed the head and worshipped.
BN: "That you shall say: This is the sacrifice of YHVH's Pesach, because he passed over the houses of the Beney Yisra-El in Mitsrayim, when he took the first-born of the Mitsrim, but spared our houses." And the people bowed their heads and worshipped.
Which brings into place the final, perhaps even the key moment in this story, for the sacrifice of the first-born is the Akeda, and just as Yitschak was spared (Genesis 22), and Av-Raham sacrificed a ram instead, so will the first-born of all the Beney Yisra-El now be spared, and everyone will sacrifice their own ram. So the barbaric practice is brought to an end (and the last part of my note to MASH'CHIT, at the end of verse 24, as well). So can we ask, given that no date is given in Genesis for the Akeda, did Av-Raham take Yitschak to Mount Mor-Yah at Pesach?
VA YIKOD: The ending confirms that Mosheh's speech is not a speech, but a priestly sermon at this point in the act of worship being here described; a moment of covenant-renewal.
VA YIKOD: The ending confirms that Mosheh's speech is not a speech, but a priestly sermon at this point in the act of worship being here described; a moment of covenant-renewal.
Except that it still hasn't happened, and when it does, it won't happen in the way that is being described here - a carefully revised version, to fit the needs of a later time. Another example of a later piece of writing that simply doesn't check its anachronisms carefully.
12:28 VA YELCHU VA YA'ASU BENEY YISRA-EL KA ASHER TSIVAH YHVH ET MOSHEH VE AHARON KEN ASU
וַיֵּלְכוּ וַיַּעֲשׂוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה אֶת מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן כֵּן עָשׂוּ
KJ: And the children of
Israel went away, and did as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron, so did
they.
BN: And the Beney Yisra-El went, and did; as YHVH had commanded Mosheh and Aharon, so they did.
YELCHU: Went away from what? A religious gathering, presumably, celebrating the in-coming of the Chag. I only ask because, according to the later census, there are well over a million of these Habiru, and they can't all have been at the same shul on the same evening.
samech break
12:29 VA YEHI BA CHATSI HA LAILAH VE YHVH HIKAH CHOL BECHOR BE ERETS MITSRAYIM MI BECHOR PAR'OH HA YOSHEV AL KIS'O AD BECHOR HA SHEVIY ASHER BE VEYT HA BOR VE CHOL BECHOR BEHEMAH
וַיְהִי בַּחֲצִי הַלַּיְלָה וַיהוָה הִכָּה כָל בְּכוֹר בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבְּכֹר פַּרְעֹה הַיֹּשֵׁב עַל כִּסְאוֹ עַד בְּכוֹר הַשְּׁבִי אֲשֶׁר בְּבֵית הַבּוֹר וְכֹל בְּכוֹר בְּהֵמָה
KJ: And it came to pass,
that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from
the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the
captive that was in the
dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.
CHATSI HA LAILAH: Midnight, the moment of transition from the old year to the new one.
How do we know that this has to be mythological and liturgical, and not historical? By asking the questions that the kid in cheder gets sent to the Principal's office for having the cheek to ask. "Sir, how did the angel of death know which were the firstborn of the cattle, and of the sheep? Did the others also get painted with blood, or perhaps branded with the Mark of Kayin, so they wouldn't get selected? And the non-firstborn sons of Egypt. And how did one angel of death manage to kill that many at the same exact moment, right on the stroke of midnight?" Ritalin for you my son!
SHEVIY: Recalling again the story of Yoseph, who spent several years down in that metaphorical Underworld - and why mention it here, if you don't intend the paralleling of the allusion there?
12:30 VA YAKAM PAR'OH LAILAH HU VE CHOL AVADAV VE CHOL MITSRAYIM VA TEHI TSE'AKAH GEDOLAH BE MITSRAYIM KI EYN BAYIT ASHER EYN SHAM MET
וַיָּקָם פַּרְעֹה לַיְלָה הוּא וְכָל עֲבָדָיו וְכָל מִצְרַיִם וַתְּהִי צְעָקָה גְדֹלָה בְּמִצְרָיִם כִּי אֵין בַּיִת אֲשֶׁר אֵין שָׁם מֵת
KJ: And Pharaoh rose up in
the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a
great cry in Egypt; for there was not
a house where there was not
one dead.
This is a literary generalisation rather than a meaningful statement; it is statistically improbable that a first-born male was living in every house in Egypt, with no exceptions.
12:31 VA YIKRA LE MOSHEH U LE AHARON LAILAH VA YOMER KUMU TSE'U MI TOCH AMI GAM ATEM GAM BENEY YISRA-EL U LECHU IVDU ET YHVH KE DABERCHEM
12:31 VA YIKRA LE MOSHEH U LE AHARON LAILAH VA YOMER KUMU TSE'U MI TOCH AMI GAM ATEM GAM BENEY YISRA-EL U LECHU IVDU ET YHVH KE DABERCHEM
וַיִּקְרָא לְמֹשֶׁה וּלְאַהֲרֹן לַיְלָה וַיֹּאמֶר קוּמוּ צְּאוּ מִתּוֹךְ עַמִּי גַּם אַתֶּם גַּם בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וּלְכוּ עִבְדוּ אֶת יְהוָה כְּדַבֶּרְכֶם
KJ: And he called for
Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, andget
you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go,
serve the LORD, as ye have said.
Go, to worship three days away; not to go to Chorev, not to go to Kena'an.
12:32: GAM TSONCHEM GAM BEKARCHEM KECHU KA ASHER DIBARTEM VE LECHU U BERACHTEM GAM OTI
גַּם צֹאנְכֶם גַּם בְּקַרְכֶם קְחוּ כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבַּרְתֶּם וָלֵכוּ וּבֵרַכְתֶּם גַּם אֹתִי
KJ: Also take your flocks
and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also.
U BERACHTEM GAM OTI: Why would he ask for a blessing from a god who has just slaughtered half his people, including his own son, unless he was on the side of the ritual? Once again the Redactor has substituted the Yisra-Eli name for god for the Egyptian.
In fact, the addition of the blessing is crucial here; without it, we might yet believe the Yisra-Eli version; but this is Pharaoh both giving his blessing - "Go and worship" - in his capacity as sacred king, and receiving his own blessing from the priest, as is proper at the end of this lengthy piece of liturgy. A mutual act of giving and receiving.
In fact, the addition of the blessing is crucial here; without it, we might yet believe the Yisra-Eli version; but this is Pharaoh both giving his blessing - "Go and worship" - in his capacity as sacred king, and receiving his own blessing from the priest, as is proper at the end of this lengthy piece of liturgy. A mutual act of giving and receiving.
12:33 VA TECHEZAK MITSRAYIM AL HA AM LEMAHER LE SHALCHAM MIN HA ARETS KI AMRU KULANU METIM
וַתֶּחֱזַק מִצְרַיִם עַל הָעָם לְמַהֵר לְשַׁלְּחָם מִן הָאָרֶץ כִּי אָמְרוּ כֻּלָּנוּ מֵתִים
KJ: And the Egyptians were
urgent upon the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste; for
they said, We be all dead men.
Well, no, not really – only the firstborn. Or do they mean the dead in a metaphysical sense: you who are going on the Creation pilgrimage are the "reborn", the "ba'aley teshuvah" in modern Jewish terms, because you will be the recipients of the Law, you will make the sacrifices that obtain redemption; we who cannot go, we are last year's people, still living in the old ways, the old customs, unredeemed? Dead men?
But this seems unlikely, given the preceding text. Much more likely, the third of our (at least!) four different tales is getting mixed up with the others. What begins to take over now is the journey to Chorev to witness the volcanic eruption, early signs of which Mosheh brought with him when he returned from Midyan. No doubt, in this version, the plagues were also early signs of the impending full eruption, the wind blowing the volcanic dust at 9:18 ff, for example, and the dust, being volcanic, hot enough that if left marks ("boils") on your skin if you got touched by it. Presumably the pilgrims are heading to Chorev to try to propitiate the gods with sacrificial gifts, and these last few days have seen the volcano getting fierier and fierier, so haste is needed, do Pesach with your sandals on and your loins girded, and as soon as we have completed the midnight sacrifices, get on the road.
TECHEZAK: the same word that has been used throughout, when Pharaoh's heart was "hardened". But it is also the same word that has been, and will now even more emphatically be used, to describe the miraculous nature of the actions of the deity: BA YAD CHAZAKAH. Should we now go back and re-translate "Pharaoh's heart was hardened" as "Pharaoh's heart was strengthened", and see it, as partof liturgy, as a positive, not a negative?
But let me offer a second, not entirely different but still different, commentary on this, taking it as the "Yom Kippur" version of the tale, and not the "volcano" or the "3-day pilgrimage", or the "Ach-Mousa liberation". Thus:
KULANU METIM = "we are all dead men" is simply silly; they know this is not the case, literally-physically, because they can see for themselves that the dead are exclusively the first-born. They also, one assumes, participated in some form in the act of sacrifice, even if they did not partake of the holy meal because they were not themselves among the pilgrims. What they mean is: "Go, Azaz-El, fulfill our repentance for us; for if we do not complete the act of repentance, then the fertility we have been praying for this past six weeks will be denied us." And don't forget, they are about to bestow vast amounts (yes, vast amounts - see the notes when we reach the episodes of the Golden Calf and the making of the Tabernacle) of gold and jewellery and fine clothing on these people, so they will be able to perform the ceremony in the required manner. Their anxiety to get the Beney Yisra-El out of Egypt is simply the anxiety of a Yom Kippur worshipper, around the time of Ne'ilah, when hunger has you looking at your watch, desperate for something to eat. Remember, they have been told to do this during the night, because it is the lunar not the solar deity who is in charge. They are in a hurry, because soon dawn will come up, and - this is the Limping Festival yes, the Pesach - what was it the man said to Ya'akov at Penu-El, after he had left him limping from the pain in the hollow of his thigh: "'Let me go, for the day is breaking'. And he said, 'I will not let you go, unless you bless me.'" (Genesis 32:27). And then gave Ya'akov his blessing! As Yisra-El! Just as Mosheh gives Pharaoh his blessing now.
But this seems unlikely, given the preceding text. Much more likely, the third of our (at least!) four different tales is getting mixed up with the others. What begins to take over now is the journey to Chorev to witness the volcanic eruption, early signs of which Mosheh brought with him when he returned from Midyan. No doubt, in this version, the plagues were also early signs of the impending full eruption, the wind blowing the volcanic dust at 9:18 ff, for example, and the dust, being volcanic, hot enough that if left marks ("boils") on your skin if you got touched by it. Presumably the pilgrims are heading to Chorev to try to propitiate the gods with sacrificial gifts, and these last few days have seen the volcano getting fierier and fierier, so haste is needed, do Pesach with your sandals on and your loins girded, and as soon as we have completed the midnight sacrifices, get on the road.
TECHEZAK: the same word that has been used throughout, when Pharaoh's heart was "hardened". But it is also the same word that has been, and will now even more emphatically be used, to describe the miraculous nature of the actions of the deity: BA YAD CHAZAKAH. Should we now go back and re-translate "Pharaoh's heart was hardened" as "Pharaoh's heart was strengthened", and see it, as partof liturgy, as a positive, not a negative?
But let me offer a second, not entirely different but still different, commentary on this, taking it as the "Yom Kippur" version of the tale, and not the "volcano" or the "3-day pilgrimage", or the "Ach-Mousa liberation". Thus:
KULANU METIM = "we are all dead men" is simply silly; they know this is not the case, literally-physically, because they can see for themselves that the dead are exclusively the first-born. They also, one assumes, participated in some form in the act of sacrifice, even if they did not partake of the holy meal because they were not themselves among the pilgrims. What they mean is: "Go, Azaz-El, fulfill our repentance for us; for if we do not complete the act of repentance, then the fertility we have been praying for this past six weeks will be denied us." And don't forget, they are about to bestow vast amounts (yes, vast amounts - see the notes when we reach the episodes of the Golden Calf and the making of the Tabernacle) of gold and jewellery and fine clothing on these people, so they will be able to perform the ceremony in the required manner. Their anxiety to get the Beney Yisra-El out of Egypt is simply the anxiety of a Yom Kippur worshipper, around the time of Ne'ilah, when hunger has you looking at your watch, desperate for something to eat. Remember, they have been told to do this during the night, because it is the lunar not the solar deity who is in charge. They are in a hurry, because soon dawn will come up, and - this is the Limping Festival yes, the Pesach - what was it the man said to Ya'akov at Penu-El, after he had left him limping from the pain in the hollow of his thigh: "'Let me go, for the day is breaking'. And he said, 'I will not let you go, unless you bless me.'" (Genesis 32:27). And then gave Ya'akov his blessing! As Yisra-El! Just as Mosheh gives Pharaoh his blessing now.
And at such a moment of intense grief, does everyone really abandon the dead, forget their grief, and rush out into the street to hand over their jewellery and linen to the departing Habiru? Only in fable or liturgy. Or if you are brought up in a world where the sacrifice of the first-born is expected, customary, part of life - and therefore to be welcomed and celebrated.
12:34 VA YISA HA AM ET BETSEKO TEREM YECHMATS MI SHE'AROTAM TSERUROT BE SIMLOTAM AL SHICHMAM
וַיִּשָּׂא הָעָם אֶת בְּצֵקוֹ טֶרֶם יֶחְמָץ מִשְׁאֲרֹתָם צְרֻרֹת בְּשִׂמְלֹתָם עַל שִׁכְמָם
KJ: And the people took
their dough before it was leavened, their kneading-troughs being bound up in
their clothes upon their shoulders.
There is also a very real logic to going off on a 3-day pilgrimage with matzah rather than bread - the bread will go stale, and then mouldy, in the climate of the desert, before you ever get to Sinai, and then what will you eat for the rest of the pilgrimage? Manna?
As we begin to witness the exodus, let us not forget how many of these people there are supposed to have been. Twelve brothers at the beginning have apparently increased (see v37 and the census in Numbers) into a theoretical million and a half, or maybe even two million. This is an exodus on the scale of the Eritrean flight in the 1980s. How long does it take to walk that number of people from Goshen to wherever they were going - from Rameses at the starting point, somewhere on the Nile Delta, to an imprecisely known end-point at Sukot in the Sinai desert, but let us say ninety miles, conservatively, for the sake of a number (if it was in Midyan, then several times that distance)? See my detailed notes, and map, at Exodus 5:3.
Fifteen minutes per mile for a seriously strong walker in a hurry, twenty to thirty if you have children, forty if you have cattle, sheep, tents, fifty with the elderly, the sick; not less than thirty hours, and that is only the people at the front; double it for those at the back, and we are still being extremely conservative; so a three-day march? And resting, of course, on the seventh day! If Pharaoh changes his mind and pursues them, they won't have reached the first rhyne in the marshlands of Goshen, let alone the Bitter Lakes. And as to reaching the Red Sea - maybe in about six weeks from now.
As we begin to witness the exodus, let us not forget how many of these people there are supposed to have been. Twelve brothers at the beginning have apparently increased (see v37 and the census in Numbers) into a theoretical million and a half, or maybe even two million. This is an exodus on the scale of the Eritrean flight in the 1980s. How long does it take to walk that number of people from Goshen to wherever they were going - from Rameses at the starting point, somewhere on the Nile Delta, to an imprecisely known end-point at Sukot in the Sinai desert, but let us say ninety miles, conservatively, for the sake of a number (if it was in Midyan, then several times that distance)? See my detailed notes, and map, at Exodus 5:3.
Fifteen minutes per mile for a seriously strong walker in a hurry, twenty to thirty if you have children, forty if you have cattle, sheep, tents, fifty with the elderly, the sick; not less than thirty hours, and that is only the people at the front; double it for those at the back, and we are still being extremely conservative; so a three-day march? And resting, of course, on the seventh day! If Pharaoh changes his mind and pursues them, they won't have reached the first rhyne in the marshlands of Goshen, let alone the Bitter Lakes. And as to reaching the Red Sea - maybe in about six weeks from now.
12:35 U VENEY YISRA-EL ASU KI DEVAR MOSHEH VA YISH'ALU MI MITSRAYIM KELEY CHESEPH U CHELEY ZAHAV U SEMALOT
וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל עָשׂוּ כִּדְבַר מֹשֶׁה וַיִּשְׁאֲלוּ מִמִּצְרַיִם כְּלֵי כֶסֶף וּכְלֵי זָהָב וּשְׂמָלֹת
KJ: And the children of
Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians
jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment:
The Egyptians urged them to leave a few verses back; being sick of them, or at least, we were told, sick of their plagues. Yet they stood by the wayside in the dead of night (we know the time from verse 31), while their first-born were lying dead at home, and themselves presumably stricken with grief and therefore not likely to be excited about joining a street-procession or hunting out their finest for those responsible, but nonetheless handed over their jewellery and finest clothes (we know it was their finest clothes, and not their rags, from the account of the gifts to the Tabernacle - see Exodus 25, for example, or 36). This is simply implausible. Not for well over a million people. Or only if they were sending off their holy pilgrims to an occasion from which they themselves were excluded, but which was for their benefit, and where the slaying of the first-born was not a literal but merely a liturgical event (in the same way that Christ is killed every Easter Friday, or the Guy Faux burned on November 5th).
12:36 VA YHVH NATAN ET CHEN HA AM BE EYNEY MITSRAYIM VA YASH'ILUM VA YENATSLU ET MITSRAYIM
וַיהוָה נָתַן אֶת חֵן הָעָם בְּעֵינֵי מִצְרַיִם וַיַּשְׁאִלוּם וַיְנַצְּלוּ אֶת מִצְרָיִם
KJ: And the LORD gave the
people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required.
And they spoiled the Egyptians.
VA YENATSU: "Literally" despoiled. Which invites the fourth of our readings to resume its rightful place, that what happened that night was not a feast before a pilgrimage, nor a religious event, and nothing to do with volcanoes, but an armed uprising, in which the Ivrim [read "native Egyptians" as opposed to the Hyksos rulers] massacred tens of thousands of Egyptians, and helped themselves to as much booty as they could gather, and then hastened east into the desert, driving the Hyksos towards Kena'an (minus any first-born males who were among the slaughtered). "Despoiled" invites that reading, but nothing in the text before or after suggests that it was in either YHVH's or Mosheh's planning, and the latter aspiration of anti-Mosheh rebels to return to "the fleshpots of Egypt" mitigates against it.
But it does allow us to see in this a prefiguration of what is going to happen next, which is the coalescing of these several different tales, now incorporating the insurrection of Ach-Mousa against the Hyksos - and in that version one mounted militia pursuing another mounted militia might very well head south-east across the drier desert and find itself at the Red Sea - and if not at this stage, then more especially in the Book of Joshua, which is really the Book of Ach-Mousa.
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12:37 VA YIS'U VENEY YISRA-EL ME RA'AMSES SUKOTAH KE SHESH ME'OT ELEPH RAGLI HA GEVARIM LEVAD MI TAPH
וַיִּסְעוּ בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מֵרַעְמְסֵס סֻכֹּתָה כְּשֵׁשׁ מֵאוֹת אֶלֶף רַגְלִי הַגְּבָרִים לְבַד מִטָּף
KJ: And the children of
Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men,
beside children.
This six hundred thousand is the same number as that given in the census (Numbers 1:3) in the desert thirteen months later on; there the number of men - 603,550 - is calculated as those of military age: "from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Yisra-El"; which assumes that men too old to fight were not included; then add the women, and presume an equal number for the sake of argument; add the under 20s; and 1.5 million is a reasonable estimate. (A plausible estimate? Ah, that is an entirely different matter!) And then try to imagine such a number, all moving out at the same time; when your favourite football stadium empties at the end of the game, about 75,000 people are on the move, all trying to be first, all worrying about staying with their party, and think how long that takes; now multiply the number 20-fold! We are talking about a slow crawl along the CA-24 or the I-95 or the M1 at 6pm, not a pleasant drive along Big Sur or through the Cotswolds, on a Tuesday afternoon in January.
RAMSES: Ra-Mousa in the Egyptian. The pointing is tricky; probably the Yehudit should be read as either Ra-amses or Ra-emses, though secular scholars seem to prefer Ra-Meses. See also my note to Exodus 1:11.
SUKOT: Yes, the same place that is normally written as Succoth, Sukkoth, Succot or Sukkot, depending on your background and preference; I am spelling it this way to maintain the consistency of TheBibleNet's phonetic system.
Locating Sukot is significant because the forty-year journey appears both to begin and end there; in fact, a sukah (the singular form of which sukot is the plural) simply means "a semi-permanent camp", so we can assume that the name was given to many such places, and that its real significance lies in the meaning of the name, and its religious status. Sukot is where they ended up at the end of Deuteronomy, when Mosheh gave the law, and carried out the covenant renewal ceremonies, for the second time. Sukot is a very long way to travel in one night, and nowhere near either the Red Sea or the Sea of Reeds. But Sukot also means "booths", in the sense of wooden or more likely palm-frond shelters, and the sacred shrines of the mother-goddess were always adorned with booths, some for the ritual kadeshah, others for motels. So in truth it could be anywhere.
RAGLI: Interesting that the word used here is also the one used for "pilgrim", while Pesach, alongside Shavu'ot and Sukot (named here as a place, but the link is to the festival) became known as the "three pilgrim festivals" (sheloshet ha regalim) - the pilgrimage in that case being to the Temple in Yeru-Shala'im.
12:38 VE GAM EREV RAV ALAH ITAM VE TSON U VAKAR MIKNEH KAVED ME'OD
RAMSES: Ra-Mousa in the Egyptian. The pointing is tricky; probably the Yehudit should be read as either Ra-amses or Ra-emses, though secular scholars seem to prefer Ra-Meses. See also my note to Exodus 1:11.
SUKOT: Yes, the same place that is normally written as Succoth, Sukkoth, Succot or Sukkot, depending on your background and preference; I am spelling it this way to maintain the consistency of TheBibleNet's phonetic system.
Locating Sukot is significant because the forty-year journey appears both to begin and end there; in fact, a sukah (the singular form of which sukot is the plural) simply means "a semi-permanent camp", so we can assume that the name was given to many such places, and that its real significance lies in the meaning of the name, and its religious status. Sukot is where they ended up at the end of Deuteronomy, when Mosheh gave the law, and carried out the covenant renewal ceremonies, for the second time. Sukot is a very long way to travel in one night, and nowhere near either the Red Sea or the Sea of Reeds. But Sukot also means "booths", in the sense of wooden or more likely palm-frond shelters, and the sacred shrines of the mother-goddess were always adorned with booths, some for the ritual kadeshah, others for motels. So in truth it could be anywhere.
RAGLI: Interesting that the word used here is also the one used for "pilgrim", while Pesach, alongside Shavu'ot and Sukot (named here as a place, but the link is to the festival) became known as the "three pilgrim festivals" (sheloshet ha regalim) - the pilgrimage in that case being to the Temple in Yeru-Shala'im.
12:38 VE GAM EREV RAV ALAH ITAM VE TSON U VAKAR MIKNEH KAVED ME'OD
וְגַם עֵרֶב רַב עָלָה אִתָּם וְצֹאן וּבָקָר מִקְנֶה כָּבֵד מְאֹד
KJ: And a mixed multitude
went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very
much cattle.
What exactly is a "mixed multitude"? The phrase used is EREV RAV, which isn't simply a nice play on words, it's also a backwards allusion to one of the more abstruse but significant moments of the entire ritual: see the lengthy discussion about BEYN HA ARBA'IM and BEYN HA ARAVIM at verse 6.To understand the current verse we need to explore further that previous one.
The presence of the TSON and VAKAR is also difficult to fathom, given that they were taking flocks and herds anyway; stray sheep and goats following their natural instinct to congregate is acceptable; but who has stray cattle wandering in such a manner? Are we then talking about hangers-on, or wannabe pilgrims ignoring their exclusion, or criminals and dissidents taking advantage, or is this too part of the ceremonial, a kind of human gleaning, like the vegetal one at the harvest? Either way, if they are shepherding herds and flocks, the speed of the journey just got reduced, and it is going to take them a week at least to get to the Bitter Lakes, months to reach the Red Sea (assuming they can find enough water for that number of people - I would look again at my link to Eritrea a couple of verses ago; 2 million people walking towards Sudan in hope of finding food and water, the worst humanitarian disaster in living memory).
12:39 VA YOPHU ET HA BATSEK ASHER HOTSIY'U MI MITSRAYIM UGAT MATSOT KI LO CHAMETS KI GORSHU MI MITSRAYIM VE LO YACHLU LE'HITMAHME'AH VE GAM TSEDAH LO ASU LAHEM
וַיֹּאפוּ אֶת הַבָּצֵק אֲשֶׁר הוֹצִיאוּ מִמִּצְרַיִם עֻגֹת מַצּוֹת כִּי לֹא חָמֵץ כִּי גֹרְשׁוּ מִמִּצְרַיִם וְלֹא יָכְלוּ לְהִתְמַהְמֵהַּ וְגַם צֵדָה לֹא עָשׂוּ לָהֶם
KJ: And they baked
unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt, for it was
not leavened; because they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry,
neither had they prepared for themselves any victual.
Between the announcement of departure and this night was two weeks, the period of preparing and verifying the sacrifical beasts. They were told to eat matzah on the night of Passover; and they were only "driven out of Egypt" in the sense, as we have seen, that there were a lot of them to get on the road between midnight and dawn, plus collecting jewellery and clothing from the populace standing at the side of the road as they set off. No, they made matzah because they were meant to make matzah; because this was part of the ceremony, and because this is all they had, remember, because they burned the chamets from the old year, and any residual yeast, several days ago. They could not actually have made leavened bread if they had been given a whole week, because the new corn had not yet ripened, let alone been harvested or crushed. There was no leaven in Mitsrayim to bake bread from! And out there on their journey, not having the luxury of transportable B-B-Qs that we have, what would they have used for a stove anyway?
UGAT MATSOT: Probably not what we think of as matzah today, which are flat wafers.
TSEDAH: I noted in my comment above that "they could not actually have made leavened bread if they had been given a whole week, because the new corn had not yet ripened, let alone been harvested or crushed." And in fact the text tells us this, quite explicitly - but none of the translators, and none of the Jewish scholars that I have examined, seems to be aware of it. TSEDAH are not the generality of "provisions", but the specific of cut hay, barley, corn. The root is TSADAH, and it means "to mow", and is the reason why the letter Tsade (צ) is called a Tsade - it looks like a threshing fork. The only other occasion of its usage is in Zephaniah 3:6, where he puts it in the Niphal (passive), and has an entire country mown down, by an army on that occasion.
12:40 U MOSHAV BENEY YISRA-EL ASHER YASHVU BE MITSRAYIM SHELOSHIM SHANAH VE ARBA ME'OT SHANAH
וּמוֹשַׁב בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר יָשְׁבוּ בְּמִצְרָיִם שְׁלֹשִׁים שָׁנָה וְאַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה
KJ: Now the sojourning of
the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four
hundred and thirty years.
This number is regarded as problematic among Jewish scholars, and has been much examined - see my notes at Exodus 6:14. The text however justifies the number; later we will be given the generations from Yoseph to Mosheh, and if we reckon a new generation came along every twenty years (children getting married somewhat earlier then than today), we would have a full twenty-one generations, which is around four hundred years.
Much of the examination has been around the number itself, rather than the history. Inside Judaism, the pseudo-science of Gematria has been used to see what significance there might be behind this number. Tav (ת) and Lamed (ל) are the letters that give 430, which spells TAL, and TAL (תל) is also the morning dew, of which no doubt there was some, that April morning in circa 1520 BCE, though not yet the dew formed as manna that it would become later on (Numbers 11:9).
BN: And it came to pass at the end of four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the host of YHVH went out from the land of Mitsrayim.
BE ETSEM HA YOM: Which tells us that Yoseph arrived in Egypt on day one of Passover? Or is this dated from the first visit by the brothers? Or when Ya'akov himself arrived? And if they did arrive at Passover, even mythologically, does this then tie up the loose ends of the scarlet thread that I keep on drawing from the heel of this story to the heel of the Penu-El tale? And which of the tales was "born" first - or maybe the one that was "born" first now appears to be the second, because the younger supplanted the elder?
While we are on the subject of numbers, one of the serious reasons why the number 430 has been examined so thoroughly by the archaeologists and historians, is that the Hyksos are believed to have ruled Mitsrayim for a mere one hundred and eight years, from circa 1630–1523 BCE, though their Semitic forebears probably arrived at the start of the 18th century, which deproblemises the 430 years; but on the other hand it does move the arrival of Yoseph and/or Ya'akov back about three hundred years earlier than most Bible scholars generally prefer.
There is also the problem that the heads of the tribes at the time of Mosheh, and Mosheh and Aharon themselves, are described as being themselves the grandchildren of Ya'akov - so one or other of these versions has to be wrong. This was also dealt with in my notes at Exodus 6:14.
TSIV'OT: What happened to all those gods and goddesses whose "plagues" were the precursors of the New Year-Passover Creation story. Well, here they are, reconstituted as the TSIVOT (צבאות) - we already had the word at verse 17, but I waited till now to explain it - which is to say the TSEVA'OT (צבאות)...the tribes, as earthly representatives of the constellations of the heavens - see both of these links for different aspects of this, here and here. We can therefore assume that the tribal denotions were already established; and indeed we know they were, from Ya'akov's blessings (Genesis 49). This is the root of Adonai Tseva'ot, the god of the heavenly constellations.
BN: It was a night of watching for YHVH to bring them out of the land of Mitsrayim; this same night is a night of watching for YHVH for all the children of Yisra-El throughout their generations.
SHIMURIM: need to check the grammar of this, but it's an unusual construct. Does it mean watching, guarding or observing? And then where does "unto" fit in? My guess is that this watching ties in with the Tseva'ot - in the days before GPS and SatNav, how else did you find a route through the desert? - a constant watching of the movements in the sky (lucky it wasn't cloudy!), whether by all the people or just those priests whose task was to observe the heavens and deduce the "messages" being sent by the deity through the light of his messengers the stars, and through the movements around the heavens of those lesser deities the planets. And of course, they are watching for YHVH because YHVH will only appear, a) when the sun comes up, in the east, so they can compass their route by the first flickerings of sunrise; and b) - remembering what we understood was happening at Chorev from Mosheh's previous visit - when the first eruptions of the volcano become visible over the horizon, likewise due east, as it happens!
12:41 VA YEHI MI KETS SHELOSHIM SHANAH VE ARBA ME'OT SHANAH VA YEHI BE ETSEM HA YOM HA ZEH YATS'U KOL TSIV'OT YHVH ME ERETS MITSRAYIM
וַיְהִי מִקֵּץ שְׁלֹשִׁים שָׁנָה וְאַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה וַיְהִי בְּעֶצֶם הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה יָצְאוּ כָּל צִבְאוֹת יְהוָה מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם
KJ: And it came to pass at
the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to
pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.
While we are on the subject of numbers, one of the serious reasons why the number 430 has been examined so thoroughly by the archaeologists and historians, is that the Hyksos are believed to have ruled Mitsrayim for a mere one hundred and eight years, from circa 1630–1523 BCE, though their Semitic forebears probably arrived at the start of the 18th century, which deproblemises the 430 years; but on the other hand it does move the arrival of Yoseph and/or Ya'akov back about three hundred years earlier than most Bible scholars generally prefer.
There is also the problem that the heads of the tribes at the time of Mosheh, and Mosheh and Aharon themselves, are described as being themselves the grandchildren of Ya'akov - so one or other of these versions has to be wrong. This was also dealt with in my notes at Exodus 6:14.
TSIV'OT: What happened to all those gods and goddesses whose "plagues" were the precursors of the New Year-Passover Creation story. Well, here they are, reconstituted as the TSIVOT (צבאות) - we already had the word at verse 17, but I waited till now to explain it - which is to say the TSEVA'OT (צבאות)...the tribes, as earthly representatives of the constellations of the heavens - see both of these links for different aspects of this, here and here. We can therefore assume that the tribal denotions were already established; and indeed we know they were, from Ya'akov's blessings (Genesis 49). This is the root of Adonai Tseva'ot, the god of the heavenly constellations.
12:42 LEYL SHIMURIM HU LA YHVH LE HOTSIY'AM ME ERETS MITSRAYIM HU HA LAILAH HA ZEH LA YHVH SHIMURIM LE CHOL BENEY YISRA-EL LE DOROTAM
לֵיל שִׁמֻּרִים הוּא לַיהוָה לְהוֹצִיאָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם הוּא הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה לַיהוָה שִׁמֻּרִים לְכָל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְדֹרֹתָם
KJ: It is a night to
be much observed unto the LORD for bringing them out from the land of Egypt:
this is that night
of the LORD to be observed of all the children of Israel in their generations.
SHIMURIM: need to check the grammar of this, but it's an unusual construct. Does it mean watching, guarding or observing? And then where does "unto" fit in? My guess is that this watching ties in with the Tseva'ot - in the days before GPS and SatNav, how else did you find a route through the desert? - a constant watching of the movements in the sky (lucky it wasn't cloudy!), whether by all the people or just those priests whose task was to observe the heavens and deduce the "messages" being sent by the deity through the light of his messengers the stars, and through the movements around the heavens of those lesser deities the planets. And of course, they are watching for YHVH because YHVH will only appear, a) when the sun comes up, in the east, so they can compass their route by the first flickerings of sunrise; and b) - remembering what we understood was happening at Chorev from Mosheh's previous visit - when the first eruptions of the volcano become visible over the horizon, likewise due east, as it happens!
Having said which, I think the text is deliberately punning on the word SHIMURIM, so that the first is the sky-watchers googlemapping their route, but the second is the future generations, observing the festival.
LECHOL BENEY YISRA-EL LEDOROTAM: The final part of the verse is another of those anachronisms that confirm the later authorship of the text. Again the voice of the Redactor interfering, adding his commentary to the story for his contemporary listener.
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BN: Then YHVH said to Mosheh and Aharon: "This is the rule for the Pesach: no stranger shall eat of it...
NECHAR: "Stranger" is an uncomfortaby xenophobic translation ("alien", which some translations have, is simply horrible, suggesting little green men from Mars or unwanted Asians in Australia). "Gentiles" is used to translate "Goy", but would be perfectly apposite here. The point being, rather like the Moslem Hajj, you have to be an insider to be permitted, and verse 38 told us that a "mixed multitude" had straggled along with the pilgrims; they cannot be included in the ceremonies and rituals.
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12:43 VA YOMER YHVH EL MOSHEH VE AHARON ZOT CHUKAT HA PASACH KOL BEN NECHAR LO YOCHAL BO
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן זֹאת חֻקַּת הַפָּסַח כָּל בֶּן נֵכָר לֹא יֹאכַל בּוֹ
KJ: And the LORD said unto
Moses and Aaron, This is the
ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof:
Though probably this verse belongs to a later time.
And if it belonged to an even later time, perhaps we would translate the verse as "no one who is not halachically Jewish shall eat of it..."
LO YOCHAL: What should he not eat? To answer that we have to determine first whether this passage follows the previous, or has been added as a separate piece. If the former, then they are on the journey and the laws apply there; if the latter, they could be general rules for any point of the festival. So: what should he not eat? If it means the sacrificial meat, then we know from verses 8 and 10 that this was not allowed to be taken home, so it cannot be a rule for the journey or any later point, and establishes these as general laws. If the matzah, then we know from verses 34 and 39 that this was eaten on the journey, and becomes a deliberate denial of the most basic of foods from the "mixed multitude" whose presence has just been denoted as problematic.
So which is it? The answer to that is actually not given, or not yet anyway; but it will be given, in verse 46: this is about the seder meal itself, not the sacrificial meal in Egypt, because that could not be taken home, but the commemorative seder which we still perform today. Which is to say: the text is clearly an addition by the Redactor, designed for the listeners and readers of his day. It transfers us from the events of the original Passover, the Egyptian festival which Mosheh and Pharaoh were celebrating together, to the Yisra-Eli version, which the Redactor is now inaugurating, transforming past detail into new detail, making something rather different, but giving it retroactive legitimacy; pretending that it was also thus by pretending that this is how and why Mosheh did it. And why? This was a matter of politics at the time of the Redaction, and requires a reading of the five books of the period of the return from exile, Chagai, Zechar-Yah, Mal'achi, Ezra and especially Nechem-Yah, though my notes on the verses that follow here should clarify some of this.
CHUKAT: A chok is different from a mitzvah. In the world of Chabad and orthodox Judaism, they are distinguished by our ability to understand them, with the mitzvot encompassing the logical and rational, and the chukim being divine decrees that simply have to be accepted. In the world of Reform Judaism, and of the secular Bible scholars who regard the text as having been written by humans, and redacted at different times, a mitzvah is a law that may well come from the Mosaic period, and was certainly in place by the time of the conquest in 586 BCE, while a chok is an Ezraic or a Rabbinic addition, dated no earlier than 536 BCE, and reflecting the epoch in which the final version of the text was redacted.
12:44 VE CHOL EVED ISH MIKNAT KASEPH U MALTAH OTO AZ YOCHAL BO
וְכָל עֶבֶד אִישׁ מִקְנַת כָּסֶף וּמַלְתָּה אֹתוֹ אָז יֹאכַל בּוֹ
KJ: But every man's
servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he
eat thereof.
12:45 TOSHAV VE SACHIR LO YOCHAL BO
תּוֹשָׁב וְשָׂכִיר לֹא יֹאכַל בּוֹ
KJ: A foreigner and an
hired servant shall not eat thereof.
Why not? This is all about creating an AM KADOSH, a holy people. Only those initiated into the cult may partake of its mysteries. But it contradicts Ushpizin - I cannot invite a non-Jewish friend to my Seder table, because, being uncircumcised... the word xenophobia is rooted in the word xenia, central to Homer's "Odyssey", and meaning "hospitality". I merely mention that because it's interesting.
TOSHAV: NECHER previously, now Toshav – a resident, whether temporary or permanent: sojourner is not really accurate, but will have to do.
Let me ask the key question again: what can the sojourner and the hired servant not eat? The paschal lamb, or the entire Pesach meal? If the latter, as it seems, then a good host will have to keep chamets in the house to feed his guests and his hired servants. And does it matter if the guest is Jewish or non-Jewish? Rashi no doubt has considered this. It does seem that this ordinance applies to the paschal lamb, not the unleavened bread. In Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, these mitzvot appear with his commentary as Hilchot Terumot 6 and more specifically in the section Hilchot Korban Pesach.
12:46 BE VAYIT ECHAD YE'ACHEL LO TOTSIY MIN HA BAYIT MIN HA BASAR CHUTSAH VE ETSEM LO TISHBERU VO
בְּבַיִת אֶחָד יֵאָכֵל לֹא תוֹצִיא מִן הַבַּיִת מִן הַבָּשָׂר חוּצָה וְעֶצֶם לֹא תִשְׁבְּרוּ בוֹ
KJ: In one house shall it
be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the
house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof.
Confirming that it is the paschal lamb alone that is being discussed, and that this is general law. What happens on the journey is an entirely different matter; but the text just happens - confusingly! - to have been placed at a point after the journey has started.
BASAR = "flesh", adding one more confirmation that this is about the eating of the meat, and not about the matzah.
ETSEM: a strange word; see verse 51, where it has a completely different meaning. Or does it?
BN: "All the congregation of Yisra-El shall keep it...
BN: "And when a non-Yisra-Eli is lodging with you, and wants to keep the Passover to YHVH, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land; but no uncircumcised person shall eat of it...
VE CHI YAGUR: This time "sojourner" will not do, because a GER is not the same as a TOSHAV. The GER is your house-guest, the YAGUR more likely your lodger.
BE VAYIT ECHAD: Verse 3 gave the instruction: "every man shall take a lamb, according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household...". So, now, the lamb having been kept until the fourteenth of the month (verse 6), it must be slaughtered (verse 6), and eaten that night (verses 8, 10). But verse 4 also raised the issue of small households that could not consume an entire lamb in a single evening, and resolved it by eruving a number of households into one for the purpose. So this verse now renders that a general rule as well. But only for that night in Egypt, and for the later seder night. It cannot have applied on the journey. Why not?
Let us look at this from a different perspective. Elsewhere, many times, inrelation to religious activity, BAYIT has not meant "house" at all, in the sense of "domicile", but rather "holy place", or "shrine", even "temple". If it were that here, If BAYIT had that meaning here, we could deduce an instruction to those taking their household sheep that the sacrifice must be Shechitah, and not a general abattoir, or the back-garden by the barbecue, that it requires a priest and a holy place, and we know (again see A Myrtle Among Reeds) which sacrifices could only be eaten within the precincts and which could be taken out; we can then assume that the matzah is eaten with the sacrifical meat and bitter herbs inside the precinct too; but unless Mosheh is setting up shrines along the way to Sinai for the million and a half people, this simply doesn't work in the desert. Shechitah is still possible - the trained Mohel can slaughter anywhere, a trained Levite can provide the supervision, and a Kohen the prayers and blessings. And perhaps, along the way, there will be shrines, especially at the watering-places, though they may be shrines to the wrong deity.
Again, if BAYIT means houses, and the Beney Yisra-El are receiving this instruction as they enter the desert ahead of forty years of Bedou wandering, what houses can this mean? They are heading for Sukot where they will establish temporary booths; but these are never called BATIM, only SUKOT. So we can only construe this as the Redactor establishing laws for the city-dwelling Beney Yisra-El of his time, including the permission to establish an eruv and then move the food between houses, and again bestowing retroactive legitimacy by ascribing them to the desert
Let us look at this from a different perspective. Elsewhere, many times, inrelation to religious activity, BAYIT has not meant "house" at all, in the sense of "domicile", but rather "holy place", or "shrine", even "temple". If it were that here, If BAYIT had that meaning here, we could deduce an instruction to those taking their household sheep that the sacrifice must be Shechitah, and not a general abattoir, or the back-garden by the barbecue, that it requires a priest and a holy place, and we know (again see A Myrtle Among Reeds) which sacrifices could only be eaten within the precincts and which could be taken out; we can then assume that the matzah is eaten with the sacrifical meat and bitter herbs inside the precinct too; but unless Mosheh is setting up shrines along the way to Sinai for the million and a half people, this simply doesn't work in the desert. Shechitah is still possible - the trained Mohel can slaughter anywhere, a trained Levite can provide the supervision, and a Kohen the prayers and blessings. And perhaps, along the way, there will be shrines, especially at the watering-places, though they may be shrines to the wrong deity.
Again, if BAYIT means houses, and the Beney Yisra-El are receiving this instruction as they enter the desert ahead of forty years of Bedou wandering, what houses can this mean? They are heading for Sukot where they will establish temporary booths; but these are never called BATIM, only SUKOT. So we can only construe this as the Redactor establishing laws for the city-dwelling Beney Yisra-El of his time, including the permission to establish an eruv and then move the food between houses, and again bestowing retroactive legitimacy by ascribing them to the desert
BASAR = "flesh", adding one more confirmation that this is about the eating of the meat, and not about the matzah.
ETSEM: a strange word; see verse 51, where it has a completely different meaning. Or does it?
12:47 KOL EDAT YISRA-EL YA'ASU OTO
כָּל עֲדַת יִשְׂרָאֵל יַעֲשׂוּ אֹתוֹ
KJ: All the congregation
of Israel shall keep it.
12:48 VE CHI YAGUR IT'CHA GER VE ASAH PESACH LA YHVH HIMOL LO CHOL ZACHAR VE AZ YIKRAV LA'ASOTO VE HAYAH KE EZRACH HA ARETS VE CHOL AREL LO YOCHAL BO
וְכִי יָגוּר אִתְּךָ גֵּר וְעָשָׂה פֶסַח לַיהוָה הִמּוֹל לוֹ כָל זָכָר וְאָז יִקְרַב לַעֲשֹׂתוֹ וְהָיָה כְּאֶזְרַח הָאָרֶץ וְכָל עָרֵל לֹא יֹאכַל בּוֹ
KJ: And when a stranger
shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males
be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one
that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof.
VE CHI YAGUR: This time "sojourner" will not do, because a GER is not the same as a TOSHAV. The GER is your house-guest, the YAGUR more likely your lodger.
The sense of this again compels us to move forward in time to Ezra and Nechem-Yah, and to leave Mosheh behind; these are the rules governing the celebration of Pesach as a historic and religious anniversary, for a settled people (hence references to "strangers shall sojourn with you"), living in their own homeland (hence words like "citizen" and "non-citizen" and "house-guest" and "lodger"); one cannot even imagine how Mosheh could have communicated such a set of instructions to 1.5 million straggling refugees, at dead of night, while fleeing in a hurry from Pharaoh's pursuing chariots. And why would he have said any of this anyway. No, these verses can only have been added, when the laws were decreed, fully a thousand years later.
BN: "There shall be one law for he who is home-born, and for the stranger who sojourns among you."
TORAH ACHAT: As with the later Torah of Shabat, the expectation that the law will be applied to all equally, including those who cannot, so to speak, take part in the formal pilgrimage! Virtually every law of any importance states clearly that it applies to everyone, including household servants, cattle, and the stranger dwelling with you; and if not, then the law itself denotes the exceptions.
Note the use of the word TORAH here; the very first time. But Torah does not really mean "law"; it means "teaching", in the sense of "enlightenment". It can only have been used at a much later period of proto-Judaism, post-Beney Yisra-El, post-exile, in the epoch of the Sanhedrin and the Redactor.
EZRACH: The word means "citizen" today; how would it have been understood then? I have used "home-born" above, but this is really insufficient, because being home-born (aboriginal, native, Palestinian, First Nation, Sioux) does not necessarily confer the same rights of full citizenship.
12:50 VA YA'ASU KOL BENEY YISRA-EL KA ASHER TSIVAH YHVH ET MOSHEH VE ET AHARON KEN ASU
BN: Thus did all the Beney Yisra-El; as YHVH commanded Mosheh and Aharon, so they did.
And therefore, if you wish to be counted as a faithful and loyal member of the tribe, so must you. Unstated, but loudly inferred.
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BN: And so it came to pass that very day, that YHVH brought the Beney Yisra-El out of the land of Mitsrayim, in vast numbers.
ETSEM: As per my note to this word at verse 46, it is very odd that an identically spelled word should have two such different meanings. There it was "bone"; here, as at verses 17 and 41, it means "selfsame". The root has the sense of things being "bound together", or "strengthened", and a bone is the part that does that to a body; presumably, metaphorically, there are bones in time too. So not just any loose flesh of time, paunched in eternity, but "that very day", precise, specific, bony.
12:49 TORAH ACHAT YIHEYEH LA EZRACH VE LA GER HA GAR BETOCH'CHEM
תּוֹרָה אַחַת יִהְיֶה לָאֶזְרָח וְלַגֵּר הַגָּר בְּתוֹכְכֶם
KJ: One law shall be to
him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.
TORAH ACHAT: As with the later Torah of Shabat, the expectation that the law will be applied to all equally, including those who cannot, so to speak, take part in the formal pilgrimage! Virtually every law of any importance states clearly that it applies to everyone, including household servants, cattle, and the stranger dwelling with you; and if not, then the law itself denotes the exceptions.
Note the use of the word TORAH here; the very first time. But Torah does not really mean "law"; it means "teaching", in the sense of "enlightenment". It can only have been used at a much later period of proto-Judaism, post-Beney Yisra-El, post-exile, in the epoch of the Sanhedrin and the Redactor.
EZRACH: The word means "citizen" today; how would it have been understood then? I have used "home-born" above, but this is really insufficient, because being home-born (aboriginal, native, Palestinian, First Nation, Sioux) does not necessarily confer the same rights of full citizenship.
12:50 VA YA'ASU KOL BENEY YISRA-EL KA ASHER TSIVAH YHVH ET MOSHEH VE ET AHARON KEN ASU
וַיַּעֲשׂוּ כָּל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה אֶת מֹשֶׁה וְאֶת אַהֲרֹן כֵּן עָשׂוּ
KJ: Thus did all the
children of Israel; as the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they.
And therefore, if you wish to be counted as a faithful and loyal member of the tribe, so must you. Unstated, but loudly inferred.
samech break
12:51 VA YEHI BE ETSEM HA YOM HA ZEH HOTSIY YHVH ET BENEY YISRA-EL ME ERETS MITSRAYIM AL TSIV'OTAM
וַיְהִי בְּעֶצֶם הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה הוֹצִיא יְהוָה אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם עַל צִבְאֹתָם
KJ: And it came to pass
the selfsame day, that the LORD
did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies.
ETSEM: As per my note to this word at verse 46, it is very odd that an identically spelled word should have two such different meanings. There it was "bone"; here, as at verses 17 and 41, it means "selfsame". The root has the sense of things being "bound together", or "strengthened", and a bone is the part that does that to a body; presumably, metaphorically, there are bones in time too. So not just any loose flesh of time, paunched in eternity, but "that very day", precise, specific, bony.
Again TSIV'OTAM, and fascinating that the Beney Israel, never elsewhere referred to as a "host", should be described thus here, three timesindeed, at verses 17 and 41 (see my notes at the latter of these), and here, at the very end of a ceremony of worship dedicated to the Lord of Hosts, emphasising thereby the liturgical nature of this tale over the artificial-historical. YHVH Tseva'ot is a concept that does not enter Yisrae-Eli theology until the Prophetic era, around 850 BCE. I have translated it here as "in vast numbers", but probably it should be read as a synonym for "tribes".
Exodus: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13a 13b 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30a 30b 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38a 38b 39 40
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Exodus: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13a 13b 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30a 30b 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38a 38b 39 40
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