Exodus 12:3

Summary

Moses and Aaron are instructed to speak to the entire congregation of Israel, giving them a specific date — the tenth day of "this month" — on which each household is to select an animal for itself. The verse establishes both the timing and the household-based unit of distribution for what follows in the passage.

Key words

• da.be.Ru ("speak", H1696G) — piel imperative, plural "you," an intensive command form addressed to multiple recipients (understood from context as Moses and Aaron).
• 'a.Dat ("[the] congregation of", H5712) — feminine singular construct, linking directly to Yis.ra.'El, forming "congregation of Israel" as a bound phrase.
• yik.Chu ("they may take", H3947G) — qal imperfect with vav, expressing a resulting or purposed action following the command to speak: "and let them take."
• seh ("a lamb", H7716) — common gender singular, repeated twice in the verse (once for beit 'avot, once for bayit), each time governing a distinct distributive unit.
• 'a.Vot ("fathers", H0001G) — feminine plural in this form, part of the construct chain beit-'avot ("house of fathers"), designating an extended family unit.

What the text says

The verse opens with the plural imperative da.be.Ru ("speak"), directed 'el ("to") kol-'adat Yisra'el ("all the congregation of Israel"), followed by the infinitive le'mor ("saying"), a standard Hebrew construction introducing reported speech. The content of the speech begins with a temporal marker: be-'asor la-chodesh ha-zeh ("on the ten of the month, the this"), meaning the tenth day of the specified month, using the article ha on zeh ("this") to anchor the reference to a month presumably named earlier in the surrounding narrative.

The verb yik.chu ("they may take"), a qal imperfect with vav-conjunction, shifts into a purpose or sequential clause: "and let them take." The subject is distributed through 'ish ("everyone" / "a man"), a masculine singular noun used distributively to mean "each one." The object is seh ("a lamb"), appearing twice, each time attached to a different unit of allocation: first le-veit-'avot ("for a household of fathers"), a construct chain denoting an extended paternal household, and second la-bayit ("for the household"), using the definite article on bayit ("house"). This repetition of seh across two nested household categories — the wider paternal house and the immediate household — structures the distributive logic of the instruction without needing an explicit connecting verb the second time.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'ish ("everyone", H0376I) as ἕκαστος ("each one") twice, matching the double occurrence of seh/πρόβατον in the Hebrew's two-part distributive structure (beit-'avot / bayit), rendered as κατ' οἴκους πατριῶν and κατ' οἰκίαν respectively. The Vulgate condenses this into a single clause, "per familias et domos suas," combining both household terms without repeating the verb "tollat," slightly compressing the parallel structure visible in the Hebrew and the LXX. The Hebrew term 'edah ("congregation") is rendered in the LXX as συναγωγὴν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ ("assembly of the sons of Israel"), adding "sons of" not explicit in the Hebrew construct 'adat Yisra'el.