What Does Exodus 12:3 Mean in the King James?
Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house:
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
The instruction moves from the whole congregation to each ancestral house, making the household the place where the lamb is received.
THE MEANING
You are addressed as part of a people and as someone situated in a household: the lamb is taken house by house. Shared belonging and particular shelter are held together; the congregation’s direction takes shape at the dwelling.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that you disappear inside the collective: it addresses the whole congregation, then gives the act a household-sized place to happen.
THE ROOT
בַּיִת
bayit
GROWS FROM
בית
b-y-t
House, dwelling, household.
Bayit can name both a dwelling and the household whose life is organized within it. The verse says “house of their fathers” and then “a lamb for a house,” holding ancestry and the present dwelling together as the place that receives the lamb.
ALSO GROWS
beit avotam: House of their fathers; ancestral household.
בֵּית אֲבֹתָם
This phrase in the verse makes “house” include a family line, not only a building.
beit YHWH: House of the LORD; the Temple.
בֵּית־יְהוָה
The same word can name a dwelling devoted to shared life and a sanctuary, widening the sense of bayit beyond a private structure.
עֲדַת
adat
GROWS FROM
יעד
y-ʿ-d
Appoint, designate, meet.
The Hebrew word for congregation is linked to ya’ad, “appoint” or “meet,” and to mo’ed, an appointed meeting. The people are assembled as one, yet the instruction lands in each house: collective belonging and household provision move together.
ALSO GROWS
ya’ad: Appoint, designate, meet.
יָעַד
This verb gives the congregation’s gathering the sense of an assembled people, not merely a crowd.
mo’ed: Appointed time or meeting.
מוֹעֵד
The related word carries the sense of a gathering set in place, echoing the congregation addressed here.
THE PATTERN
Scripture repeatedly treats the household as a shared place where protection, allegiance, or deliverance takes shape.
And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.THE THREAD
Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the passover.“Take” is וְיִקְחוּ (veyikchu) in this verse and וּקְחוּ (u-qeḥu) there; both come from לקח (laqach), “take, receive.” The next verse names the family unit directly, showing how the congregation’s instruction takes form household by household.
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