3 Say to all the children of Israel when they are come together, In the tenth day of this month every man is to take a lamb, by the number of their fathers' families, a lamb for every family: 4 And if the lamb is more than enough for the family, let that family and its nearest neighbour have a lamb between them, taking into account the number of persons and how much food is needed for every man. 5 Let your lamb be without a mark, a male in its first year: you may take it from among the sheep or the goats: 6 Keep it till the fourteenth day of the same month, when everyone who is of the children of Israel is to put it to death between sundown and dark. 7 Then take some of the blood and put it on the two sides of the door and over the door of the house where the meal is to be taken. 8 And let your food that night be the flesh of the lamb, cooked with fire in the oven, together with unleavened bread and bitter-tasting plants. 9 Do not take it uncooked or cooked with boiling water, but let it be cooked in the oven; its head with its legs and its inside parts. 10 Do not keep any of it till the morning; anything which is not used is to be burned with fire. 11 And take your meal dressed as if for a journey, with your shoes on your feet and your sticks in your hands: take it quickly: it is the Lord's Passover. 12 For on that night I will go through the land of Egypt, sending death on every first male child, of man and of beast, and judging all the gods of Egypt: I am the Lord. 13 And the blood will be a sign on the houses where you are: when I see the blood I will go over you, and no evil will come on you for your destruction, when my hand is on the land of Egypt. 14 And this day is to be kept in your memories: you are to keep it as a feast to the Lord through all your generations, as an order for ever. 15 For seven days let your food be unleavened bread; from the first day no leaven is to be seen in your houses: whoever takes bread with leaven in it, from the first till the seventh day, will be cut off from Israel. 16 And on the first day there is to be a holy meeting and on the seventh day a holy meeting; no sort of work may be done on those days but only to make ready what is necessary for everyone's food. 17 So keep the feast of unleavened bread; for on this very day I have taken your armies out of the land of Egypt: this day, then, is to be kept through all your generations by an order for ever. 18 In the first month, from the evening of the fourteenth day, let your food be unleavened bread till the evening of the twenty-first day of the month. 19 For seven days no leaven is to be seen in your houses: for whoever takes bread which is leavened will be cut off from the people of Israel, if he is from another country or if he is an Israelite by birth. 20 Take nothing which has leaven in it; wherever you are living let your food be unleavened cakes.
21 Then Moses sent for the chiefs of Israel, and said to them, See that lambs are marked out for yourselves and your families, and let the Passover lamb be put to death. 22 And take some hyssop and put it in the blood in the basin, touching the two sides and the top of the doorway with the blood from the basin; and let not one of you go out of his house till the morning. 23 For the Lord will go through the land, sending death on the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood on the two sides and the top of the door, the Lord will go over your door and will not let death come in for your destruction. 24 And you are to keep this as an order to you and to your sons for ever. 25 And when you come into the land which the Lord will make yours, as he gave his word, you are to keep this act of worship. 26 And when your children say to you, What is the reason of this act of worship? 27 Then you will say, This is the offering of the Lord's Passover; for he went over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he sent death on the Egyptians, and kept our families safe. And the people gave worship with bent heads. 28 And the children of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had given orders to Moses and Aaron, so they did.
29 And in the middle of the night the Lord sent death on every first male child in the land of Egypt, from the child of Pharaoh on his seat of power to the child of the prisoner in the prison; and the first births of all the cattle. 30 Then Pharaoh got up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians; and a great cry went up from Egypt; for there was not a house where someone was not dead.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Exodus 12:3-30
Commentary on Exodus 12:1-20
(Read Exodus 12:1-20)
The Lord makes all things new to those whom he delivers from the bondage of Satan, and takes to himself to be his people. The time when he does this is to them the beginning of a new life. God appointed that, on the night wherein they were to go out of Egypt, each family should kill a lamb, or that two or three families, if small, should kill one lamb. This lamb was to be eaten in the manner here directed, and the blood to be sprinkled on the door-posts, to mark the houses of the Israelites from those of the Egyptians. The angel of the Lord, when destroying the first-born of the Egyptians, would pass over the houses marked by the blood of the lamb: hence the name of this holy feast or ordinance. The passover was to be kept every year, both as a remembrance of Israel's preservation and deliverance out of Egypt, and as a remarkable type of Christ. Their safety and deliverance were not a reward of their own righteousness, but the gift of mercy. Of this they were reminded, and by this ordinance they were taught, that all blessings came to them through the shedding and sprinkling of blood. Observe, 1. The paschal lamb was typical. Christ is our passover, 1 Corinthians 5:7,8. Having received Christ Jesus the Lord, we must continually delight ourselves in Christ Jesus. No manner of work must be done, that is, no care admitted and indulged, which does not agree with, or would lessen this holy joy. The Jews were very strict as to the passover, so that no leaven should be found in their houses. It must be a feast kept in charity, without the leaven of malice; and in sincerity, without the leaven of hypocrisy. It was by an ordinance for ever; so long as we live we must continue feeding upon Christ, rejoicing in him always, with thankful mention of the great things he has done for us.
Commentary on Exodus 12:21-28
(Read Exodus 12:21-28)
That night, when the first-born were to be destroyed, no Israelite must stir out of doors till called to march out of Egypt. Their safety was owing to the blood of sprinkling. If they put themselves from under the protection of that, it was at their peril. They must stay within, to wait for the salvation of the Lord; it is good to do so. In after-times they should carefully teach their children the meaning of this service. It is good for children to ask about the things of God; they that ask for the way will find it. The keeping of this solemnity every year was, 1. To look backward, that they might remember what great things God had done for them and their fathers. Old mercies, to ourselves, or to our fathers, must not be forgotten, that God may be praised, and our faith in him encouraged. 2. It was designed to look forward, as an earnest of the great sacrifice of the Lamb of God in the fulness of time. Christ our passover was sacrificed for us; his death was our life.
Commentary on Exodus 12:29-36
(Read Exodus 12:29-36)
The Egyptians had been for three days and nights kept in anxiety and horror by the darkness; now their rest is broken by a far more terrible calamity. The plague struck their first-born, the joy and hope of their families. They had slain the Hebrews' children, now God slew theirs. It reached from the throne to the dungeon: prince and peasant stand upon the same level before God's judgments. The destroying angel entered every dwelling unmarked with blood, as the messenger of woe. He did his dreadful errand, leaving not a house in which there was not one dead. Imagine then the cry that rang through the land of Egypt, the long, loud shriek of agony that burst from every dwelling. It will be thus in that dreadful hour when the Son of man shall visit sinners with the last judgment. God's sons, his first-born, were now released. Men had better come to God's terms at first, for he will never come to theirs. Now Pharaoh's pride is abased, and he yields. God's word will stand; we get nothing by disputing, or delaying to submit. In this terror the Egyptians would purchase the favour and the speedy departure of Israel. Thus the Lord took care that their hard-earned wages should be paid, and the people provided for their journey.