Exodus 12:13

Summary

Exodus 12:13 states that the blood placed on the houses will serve as a sign, and that upon seeing this blood YHWH will pass over the inhabitants, so that no destructive plague will affect them when Egypt is struck. The verse links a visible marker (blood) to a specific divine action (passing over) with a stated consequence (protection from the negef).

Key words

• dam ("blood", H1818) — masculine singular noun, repeated twice (word 4 and 19), functioning first as the marked object with the article ("the blood") and then as the object of "I will see."
• 'ot ("a sign", H0226H) — feminine singular noun without article, introduced by the preposition le ("for/into"), marking the blood's designated function rather than an inherent quality.
• pasachti ("I will pass over", H6452A) — qal sequential perfect, 1st person, from the root that gives the festival its name (Pesach); the sequential perfect continues the chain of future actions begun with ve.haYah.
• negef ("a plague", H5063) — masculine singular noun, indefinite, the subject of the negated verb yihyeh ("it will be", H1961).
• hakoti ("my striking", H5221) — hiphil infinitive construct with 1st person suffix, forming a temporal clause with the preposition be ("in/when"): "in my striking" = "when I strike."

What the text says

The verse opens with the sequential perfect ve.haYah ("and it will become"), continuing a chain of future-oriented verbs that structures the entire passage: haYah → ra'iti ("I will see") → pasachti ("I will pass over"). This chain ties three actions together as a single sequence: the blood becomes a sign, is seen, and triggers the passing-over. The clause lachem le'ot ("for you, for a sign") uses two prepositional phrases rather than a direct predicate, emphasizing the functional role assigned to the blood rather than describing it as a sign in itself.

The relative clause 'asher 'atem sham ("where you are there") is built without a verb "to be" — the pronoun 'atem ("you") and adverb sham ("there") stand alone, a common feature of Biblical Hebrew nominal clauses. The final section introduces negef... le-mashchit ("a plague, for destruction"), where mashchit (H4889) functions as a noun expressing purpose/result, paired with negef. The temporal clause be-hakoti uses an infinitive construct with a pronominal suffix (word 34, -i, "my/I") — a construction that compactly expresses "when I strike," without needing a separate subject pronoun.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders pasachti ("I will pass over", H6452A) as skepasō ("I will shelter/cover"), a semantic shift from the Hebrew's "passing over" to an image of protective covering. The Vulgate's transibo vos ("I will pass by/through you") stays closer to the directional sense of the Hebrew root. Additionally, the LXX's histatai ("it stands/will stand") for ve.haYah ("and it will become") uses a present-tense construction rather than continuing the future sequential chain visible in the Hebrew.