Exodus 12:5

Summary

The verse specifies the qualifications of the animal to be taken for the Passover ritual: it must be tamim ("unblemished", H8549G), male, and one year old. It further states that this animal may be selected either from the sheep or from the goats.

Key words

• seh ("a lamb", H7716) — a common-gender noun that can refer to a lamb or a young goat, left general at this point in the sentence.
• tamim ("unblemished", H8549G) — masculine singular adjective describing physical completeness/absence of defect, agreeing with seh.
• ben-shanah ("a son of a year", H1121L + H8141) — construct phrase literally "son of a year," an idiomatic way of expressing age (one year old).
• yihyeh ("it will be", H1961) — qal imperfect third-person masculine singular, expressing a future/ongoing requirement rather than a simple present state.
• tiqqakhu ("you will take", H3947G) — qal imperfect second-person masculine plural, addressing the community collectively as the ones who select the animal.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence divides into two clauses. The first clause (seh tamim zakhar ben-shanah yihyeh lakhem) piles up descriptive terms — tamim, zakhar ("male", H2145), and ben-shanah — before the verb yihyeh, so the qualifying adjectives precede the verb that establishes them as a requirement "for you" (lakhem, H9036). This word order emphasizes the criteria before stating that they must be met.

The second clause (min-hakkevasim u-min-ha'izzim tiqqakhu) uses two prepositional phrases with min ("one of", H4480A), each attached to a definite plural noun — hakkevasim ("the lambs", H3532) and ha'izzim ("the goats", H5795) — placed before the verb tiqqakhu. This fronting of the source-categories highlights that either flock is an acceptable origin for the animal described in the first clause, with the verb "you will take" governing both options equally.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the second clause differently from the Hebrew structure: instead of presenting sheep and goats as parallel options ("from the lambs and from the goats you will take"), it states "juxta quem ritum tolletis et haedum" ("according to this rite you shall also take a kid"), framing the goat as a secondary application of a rule rather than a direct alternative alongside sheep. The LXX follows the Hebrew's parallel structure more closely, using ἀπὸ τῶν ἀρνῶν καὶ τῶν ἐρίφων ("from the lambs and the kids") with two coordinated prepositional phrases, matching the Hebrew's min...u-min construction. The RV1909, BSB, and SBLIBRE translations preserve this same either/or structure between sheep and goats found in the Hebrew and LXX.