Exodus 12:45

Summary

Exodus 12:45 states a prohibition regarding two categories of people who may not eat "it" (the referent being the Passover offering discussed in the surrounding verses): a toshav ("resident alien", H8453A) and a sakhir ("hired laborer", H7916). The verse uses a short negated verbal clause to establish this exclusion.

Key words

• toshav ("a resident alien", H8453A) — masculine singular noun designating a non-native resident, the first subject of the prohibition.
• sakhir ("a hired laborer", H7916) — masculine singular adjective functioning substantively, joined to the first noun by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002).
• lo' ("not", H3808) — the negation particle placed directly before the verb, standard for negating a finite verb in Biblical Hebrew.
• yokhal ("he will eat", H0398) — Qal imperfect third-person masculine singular of the root H398, expressing an action understood as ongoing or future; here it functions as a prohibitive/general rule rather than a simple future prediction.
• bo (from b- "in the" H9003 + -o "it/his" H9033) — a preposition with pronominal suffix, "in it," here rendered contextually as "of it," referring back to the object eaten.

What the text says

The Hebrew clause is compact: two subjects — toshav and sakhir — are joined by the conjunction ve ("and") and share a single negated verb, lo' yokhal ("he will not eat"). Although the verb yokhal is grammatically singular, it applies distributively to both subjects, a common feature in Biblical Hebrew where a singular verb can govern a compound subject treated as a unified category rather than two separately conjugated actions. The imperfect aspect of yokhal does not simply mark future tense; combined with the negation lo', it expresses a standing prohibition or rule of general applicability, not a one-time predicted event.

The final word, bo, combines the preposition be- ("in") with the third-person masculine singular suffix ("it"), literally "in it." The pronoun's antecedent is not present in this verse itself but points back to the object under discussion in the surrounding context (rendered "the Passover" or "of it" by translations, since the referent is grammatically masculine and singular in Hebrew).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the two Hebrew terms as paroikos ("dweller beside/sojourner") and misthōtos ("hired one"), joined by ē ("or") rather than the Hebrew conjunction ve ("and"). This shifts the logical relation from a joint prohibition ("resident alien and hired laborer, neither shall eat") to an alternative framing ("sojourner or hired one shall not eat"). The Vulgate uses et ("and"), matching the Hebrew conjunction, with advena ("stranger") and mercenarius ("hired worker"), and a plural verb edent ("they will eat") rather than the singular yokhal found in the Hebrew.