Exodus 12:2

Summary

The verse establishes that a particular month is designated as the first month of the year for the addressees (plural "you"). The Hebrew states this through two parallel nominal clauses, both marked with the preposition-plus-suffix lakhem ("for you", H9005+H9036), emphasizing that this reckoning applies specifically to the group being addressed.

Key words

• ha-Chodesh ("the month", H2320G) — definite noun functioning as the subject of the first clause, pointing to a specific month already identified in context.
• ha-Zeh ("this", H2088) — demonstrative particle modifying Chodesh, anchoring the statement to a specific referent.
• lakhem ("for you", H9005+H9036) — preposition with 2nd person masculine plural suffix, appearing twice (word 5 and word 11), marking the addressees for whom this calendrical rule applies.
• rosh ("beginning of", H7218J) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning it must be followed by another noun ("beginning of months"), forming a genitive-type relationship.
• rishon ("first", H7223G) — ordinal number, masculine singular, functioning predicatively with the pronoun hu' ("it", H1931) to state "it is first."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as two parallel nominal (verbless) clauses, both lacking an explicit verb "to be" — a common feature in Biblical Hebrew where the copula is implied. The first clause, ha-Chodesh ha-Zeh lakhem rosh chodashim ("this month, for you, [is the] beginning of months"), places the demonstrated month in construct relationship with chodashim ("months", H2320G plural), meaning "head/beginning of months." The second clause, rishon hu' lakhem le-chodshei ha-shanah ("first it [is] for you, for/of the months of the year"), repeats the idea using an ordinal number instead of the construct noun rosh, and adds the preposition le- ("of/for", H9005) before chodshei ha-shanah ("months of the year", H2320G construct + H8141), specifying the yearly cycle.

The double occurrence of lakhem (words 5 and 11) is a grammatical feature not always visible in translation: it frames the statement twice as applying "to you" (plural), reinforcing the addressee-specific nature of the designation rather than presenting it as a universal calendrical fact.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the second clause with ἐν τοῖς μησὶν ("among the months") where the Hebrew has the construct phrase le-chodshei ha-shanah ("of the months of the year"), slightly shifting the syntactic relationship from a genitive/possessive construct to a prepositional "among" phrase. The Vulgate's primus erit in mensibus anni similarly uses "in mensibus" ("in the months") rather than a construct genitive. The Hebrew's double lakhem ("for you") is preserved in the Vulgate's single vobis and BSB's "for you," but the SBLIBRE paraphrases this as "el mes más importante del año" ("the most important month of the year"), which interprets rather than directly renders the repeated addressee-marking structure.