Exodus 12:21

וַיִּקְרָא מֹשֶׁה לְכָל־זִקְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם מִֽשְׁכוּ וּקְחוּ לָכֶם צֹאן לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתֵיכֶם וְשַׁחֲטוּ הַפָּֽסַח׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וַיִּקְרָ֥א מֹשֶׁ֛ה לְכָל־זִקְנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֲלֵהֶ֑ם מִֽשְׁכ֗וּ וּקְח֨וּ לָכֶ֥ם צֹ֛אן לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתֵיכֶ֖ם וְשַׁחֲט֥וּ הַפָּֽסַח׃

Greek (Septuagint)

Ἐκάλεσεν δὲ Μωυσῆς πᾶσαν γερουσίαν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ καὶ εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς Ἀπελθόντες λάβετε ὑμῖν ἑαυτοῖς πρόβατον κατὰ συγγενίαν ὑμῶν, καὶ θύσετε τὸ πόσχα.

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Vocavit autem Moyses omnes seniores filiorum Israël, et dixit ad eos: Ite tollentes animal per familias vestras, et immolate Phase.

Spanish

Entonces Moisés mandó llamar a todos los líderes de Israel y les dijo: “Vayan y escojan los corderos para sus familias, y sacrifiquen el animal para la Pascua.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y Moisés convocó á todos los ancianos de Israel, y díjoles: Sacad, y tomaos corderos por vuestras familias, y sacrificad la pascua.

English

Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and told them, “ Go at once and select for yourselves a lamb for each family, and slaughter the Passover lamb.

✦ What the text says

Summary

Moses summons all the elders of Israel and instructs them, through a series of three linked imperatives, to draw/take sheep for their families and slaughter the pesach animal. The verse reports both the calling of the elders and the direct speech containing the ritual command.

Key words

yiqra ("he summoned", H7121) — qal narrative (wayyiqtol) form, marking the next event in the story sequence; Moses is the subject.
ziqnei ("elders of", H2205) — masculine plural construct, linking directly to Yisra'el ("Israel", H3478) to form "elders of Israel."
mishku ("draw", H4900) — qal imperative, 2nd person masculine plural, the first of three commands given to the elders.
tzon ("sheep", H6629) — common gender singular noun, used as a collective term for a flock rather than a plural count of individual animals.
pesach ("passover", H6453) — masculine singular noun with the definite article ha ("the", H9009), naming the specific ritual animal to be slaughtered.

What the text says

The verse is built on two narrative (wayyiqtol) verbs — yiqra ("he summoned") and yomer ("he said") — that advance the story: Moses calls the elders, then speaks to them. The content of his speech is a tight chain of three qal imperatives joined by the conjunction va ("and", H9002): mishku ("draw"), qechu ("take"), and shachatu ("slaughter"). This grammatical chaining presents the actions as a single continuous procedure rather than isolated commands.

The noun tzon ("sheep", H6629) is grammatically singular but functions as a collective, referring to livestock as a category rather than specifying how many animals each household takes. The phrase le-mishpechoteichem ("for your clans", from mishpachah, H4940) with the possessive suffix -khem ("your", H9026) ties the distribution of animals to family units. The final imperative, shachatu, governs the direct object ha-pasach ("the passover", H6453), a definite singular noun marking a specific, known ritual object — "the Passover [animal]" — rather than a general term for slaughter.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew imperative mishku ("draw", H4900) is rendered differently across versions: the LXX uses Apelthontes ("having gone away"), and the Vulgate uses Ite ("go"), both shifting the sense toward departure rather than the literal "drawing" or "pulling" implied by the Hebrew verb. The collective singular tzon ("sheep", H6629) is expressed in the LXX as the singular probaton ("sheep/lamb"), while English and Spanish translations (BSB "a lamb," RV1909 "corderos") render it as singular or plural count nouns, which the Hebrew grammatical form does not explicitly specify.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.