What Does Exodus 12:24 Mean in the King James?
And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
This “thing” is a word: keeping it makes the command a living inheritance that outlasts the keeper.
THE MEANING
What is entrusted to you takes shape as a practice you guard. Its reach extends through your children and beyond your own years, making remembrance something lived across the ages.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a sacred charge ends with its first keeper dissolves here: it is entrusted to you and your children across the ages.
THE ROOT
שָׁמַר
shamar
GROWS FROM
שמר
š-m-r
To keep watch, guard, or preserve.
The word translated “observe” is shamar, the work of keeping watch over what is entrusted. The command is a continuing protection of the practice, carried through the family line.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: Keeper, guardian.
שֹׁמֵר
The keeper is one who watches over what has been entrusted, giving “observe” the sense of active care.
mishmeret: Charge, guard duty, watch.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
The same root names an entrusted charge, linking the practice to an ongoing responsibility across generations.
הַדָּבָר
ha-davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak or declare; davar can mean a word, matter, or thing.
The phrase “this thing” is “this davar,” the same Hebrew noun that can mean a word or a matter. Hebrew holds the instruction and the practice together in one word, where English lets the “thing” sound separate from the speech.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: Spoke, declared.
דִּבֵּר
The verb makes clear that the davar being kept is connected to spoken words.
medabber: One who speaks.
מְדַבֵּר
This speaking branch keeps the word’s connection to a living voice visible.
חֹק
ḥoq
GROWS FROM
חקק
ḥ-q-q
To cut, carve, or inscribe; by extension, to mark out or decree.
An ordinance here carries the deeper image of something marked out and established. Alongside shamar, the verse holds a marked instruction in active keeping so it can endure across the ages.
ALSO GROWS
chaqaq: To inscribe, engrave, or decree.
חָקַק
This verb gives the ordinance its image of a word marked into a lasting form.
mechoqeq: Lawgiver, one who decrees.
מְחֹקֵק
The lawgiver’s title grows from the same root that marks out an ordinance.
THE PATTERN
A received word stays alive through guarded practice and transmission across generations.
And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.THE THREAD
And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.Exodus 12:14 uses the same shamar root for keeping the feast through the generations. Here, guarding is embodied as repeated remembrance; Exodus 12:24 names that keeping as a charge carried to the children.
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