What Does Exodus 12:6 Mean?
And you will guard it until the fourteenth day of this same month; then all the gathering of the assembly of Israel will slaughter it between the two evenings.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.THE KEY
The lamb is held under watch until a fixed day, when the whole gathered community is named as the agent of its slaughter.
THE MEANING
You see the lamb held under guard until a precise day; then the gathered people are named in its slaughter. The verse holds watchfulness and violence together: the keeping has a fixed end, and the act belongs to the whole assembly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The community is only a passive spectator to the offering; the verse names the whole assembly as its agent.
THE ROOT
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
mishmeret
GROWS FROM
שׁמר
sh-m-r
To guard, watch over, or keep in custody.
“guard it” in this verse is mishmeret. The word rendered “keep it up” is mishmeret, a guarded charge, so the holding includes watchfulness and custody. That charge lasts to a named day and then ends in the assembly’s slaughter, holding care and killing in a single sequence.
ALSO GROWS
shamar: To guard or keep watch.
שָׁמַר
This verbal form shows the active watch carried by the lamb’s guarded interval.
shomer: A keeper or watchman.
שֹׁמֵר
This branch gives the custody a responsible watcher, rather than treating the lamb as simply set aside.
mishmar: A guard, watch, or period of custody.
מִשְׁמָר
Like mishmeret, it names keeping as an assigned watch.
קְהַל
qehāl
GROWS FROM
קהל
q-h-l
To gather as an assembly.
“gathering” in this verse is qehāl. The verse names the people as qahal, a gathered assembly, within the phrase “the congregation of Israel.” The doubled communal language makes the slaughter an act assigned to the gathered people, not an isolated individual.
ALSO GROWS
qāhāl: An assembly or gathered community.
קָהָל
This noun names the gathered body that the verse places within the act of slaughter.
qāhal: To assemble or gather.
קָהַל
The verb reveals the gathering action beneath the noun: the people are brought together as the assembly named here.
THE PATTERN
The Passover lamb carries deliverance through a chosen offering whose time and slaughter are made explicit.
Speak to all the assembly of Israel, saying, “On the tenth day of this month each man will take for himself a lamb according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for each house.”On the fourteenth day of the first month, between the evenings, is the LORD's passing over.Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even the Anointed One, our Passover, was slaughtered for us.THE THREAD
And the LORD God took Adam and set him down in the garden of Eden, to serve it and to guard it.Genesis uses שָׁמַר (shamar), “keep” or “guard,” from the same root carried by מִשְׁמֶרֶת (mishmeret) in Exodus. The echo makes the lamb’s interval active custody: it is kept under watch until the slaughter the verse names.
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