Exodus 12:14

Summary

The verse establishes that "this day" is to become a zikkaron ("memorial", H2146) for the Israelites, commanding them to celebrate it as a chag ("festival", H2282) dedicated to YHWH (H3068G), observed across all future generations as a perpetual statute.

Key words

• ha.Yah ("it will become", H1961) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain from the preceding verses; it frames the day's future status rather than a present state.
• zi.ka.Ron ("a memorial", H2146) — masculine singular noun; the day itself is designated as an object of remembrance, not merely accompanied by one.
• cha.go.Tem ("you will celebrate a festival", H2287) — qal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine plural; a communal, collective obligation directed at the people as a group.
• do.Ro.tei.Khem ("generations, your", H1755 + H9026) — feminine plural construct noun with pronominal suffix, indicating the festival's observance spans across successive generations, not a single occasion.
• te.cha.Gu.hu ("you will celebrate it", H2287) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural with 3rd person suffix; unlike the earlier sequential perfect verbs, this imperfect form marks an ongoing, repeated future action.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence moves through a sequence of verb forms tied together by the narrative ve ("and", H9001), each continuing the instructional chain begun earlier in the chapter. The clause opens with ha.Yah ("it will become") plus ha.Yom ha.Zeh ("the day, the this", H3117G + H2088), identifying "this day" as the grammatical subject that will become a zikkaron for the addressees, marked by la.Khem ("for you", H9005+H9036).

The second clause uses cha.go.Tem ("you will celebrate a festival") with the direct object marker 'oto ("it", H0853+H9033) referring back to the day, followed by chag la.Yehovah ("a festival of Yehovah", H2282+H3068G), specifying the festival's dedication.

The final clause shifts verb form: chu.Kat o.Lam ("a statute of perpetuity", H2708+H5769G) functions as a construct phrase modifying the following imperfect verb te.cha.Gu.hu ("you will celebrate it", H2287), which — unlike the two preceding sequential perfects — expresses ongoing, repeated observance rather than a single completed instruction. The construct chains (chukkat olam, dorotekhem) compress the ideas of "generation" and "perpetuity" into tightly bound noun phrases characteristic of Hebrew legal-cultic instruction.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ha.Yah ("it will become") with ἱστᾶι (present-tense "stands/is established"), shifting the verb's temporal nuance compared to the Hebrew's future-oriented sequential perfect. The Vulgate's habebitis ("you shall have") similarly reframes the subject-verb relationship, making "you" grammatically active where the Hebrew makes "the day" the subject of ha.Yah. The phrase le.dorotekhem ("to your generations") is rendered by the LXX as εἰς πάσας τὰς γενεὰς ὑμῶν ("into all your generations"), adding πάσας ("all") not present as a separate lexical item in the Hebrew construct phrase.