Exodus 12:48

And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

12:43-51 In times to come, all the congregation of Israel must keep the passover. All that share in God's mercies should join in thankful praises for them. The New Testament passover, the Lord's supper, ought not to be neglected by any. Strangers, if circumcised, might eat of the passover. Here is an early indication of favour to the gentiles. This taught the Jews that their being a nation favoured by God, entitled them to their privileges, not their descent from Abraham. Christ our passover is sacrificed for us, 1Co 5:7; his blood is the only ransom for our souls; without the shedding of it there is no remission; without the sprinkling of it there can be no salvation. Have we, by faith in him, sheltered our souls from deserved vengeance under the protection of his atoning blood? Do we keep close to him, constantly depending upon him? Do we so profess our faith in the Redeemer, and our obligations to him, that all who pass by may know to whom we belong? Do we stand prepared for his service, ready to walk in his ways, and to separate ourselves from his enemies? These are questions of vast importance to the soul; may the Lord direct our consciences honestly to answer them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

In one house - i. e. "in one company." Each lamb was to be entirely consumed by the members of one company, whether they belonged to the same household or not.

Break a bone - The typical significance of this injunction is recognized by John, (see the margin reference.) It is not easy to assign any other satisfactory reason for it. This victim alone was exempt from the general law by which the limbs were ordered to be separated from the body.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

41. even the selfsame day—implying an exact and literal fulfilment of the predicted period.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, Who by so doing became a proselyte of the gate, he observing the commands of the sons of Noah:

and will keep the passover of the Lord; is desirous of being admitted to that ordinance:

let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near, and keep it: first himself, and then all his male children and male servants, and then, and not till then, he might approach to this ordinance, and observe it; for by this means he would become a proselyte of righteousness, and in all respects as an Israelite, or son of Abraham, as it follows:

and he shall be as one that is born in the land; a native and proper inhabitant of Canaan, enjoying all the privileges and immunities of such:

for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof; these laws and rules concerning those persons that were to eat of the passover are such as were to be observed in all successive generations, to the coming of Christ; and were the rather necessary to be given now, because of the mixed multitude who now came up with the children of Israel out of Egypt.

Geneva Study Bible

And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

48. The ‘stranger,’ or, better, sojourner, Heb. gêr, i.e. the protected foreigner, if he is circumcised, may keep the Passover. The gêr was like the Arab jâr, i.e. ‘a man of another tribe or district, who coming to sojourn in a place where he was not strengthened by the presence of his own kin, put himself under the protection of a clan or of a powerful chief’ (W.R. Smith, Relig. of the Semites, p. 75 f.; cf. his Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, pp. 41–43). ‘Stranger’ is the conventional rendering of gêr; but it is inadequate: a better word would be sojourner, which would also preserve the connexion with the corresponding verb in such passages as v. 49, Genesis 12:10; Genesis 19:9; Genesis 47:4. In the legislation of JE and Deut. the gêr has no legal status in Israel, and is represented as liable to oppression (Exodus 22:21; Exodus 23:9, Deu Exo 1:16, &c.): in P (cf. Ezekiel 47:22) he is placed on practically the same footing as the native Israelite, he enjoys the same rights (Numbers 35:15 ‘for the sojourner and for the settler’ [above, on v. 45]; Leviticus 19:34 ‘thou shalt love him as thyself’), and is bound by the same laws (ch. Exodus 12:19, Leviticus 16:29; Leviticus 17:8; Leviticus 17:10; Leviticus 17:12-13; Leviticus 17:15; Leviticus 18:26; Leviticus 20:2; Leviticus 22:18; Leviticus 24:16); the principle, ‘One law shall there be for the homeborn and for the gêr,’ is repeatedly affirmed (ch. Exodus 12:49, Leviticus 24:22, Numbers 9:14; Numbers 15:15-16; Numbers 15:29). Indeed, in P the term is already on the way to assume the later technical sense of ‘proselyte,’ the foreigner who, being circumcised and observing the law generally, is in full religious communion with Israel.

come near] to take part in the sacred rite. So often in P, as Exodus 40:32, Leviticus 9:5; Leviticus 9:7-8 (EVV. ‘draw near’), Exodus 21:17 f. (‘approach’), Numbers 16:40.

one that is born in] lit. a native of; the word, when standing alone, is rendered homeborn (v. 49). It denotes the native Israelite, as distinct, especially, from the gêr, or foreigner settled in Israel; cf. v. 19, Leviticus 16:29; Leviticus 17:15; Leviticus 18:26; Leviticus 19:34; Leviticus 23:42; Leviticus 24:16; Leviticus 24:22, Numbers 9:14; Numbers 15:13; Numbers 15:29-30.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 48, 49. - And when a stranger, etc. Here we have the positive ordinance corresponding to the implied permission in ver. 19, and modifying in the most important and striking way the prohibitive enactment of ver. 43. The "stranger," even if he only "sojourned" in the land, was to be put on exactly the same spiritual footing as the Israelite ("One law shall be," etc.) if only he and his would be circumcised, and so enter into covenant, Exodus 12:48

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Regulations Concerning the Participants in the Passover. - These regulations, which were supplementary to the law of the Passover in Exodus 12:3-11, were not communicated before the exodus; because it was only by the fact that a crowd of foreigners attached themselves to the Israelites, that Israel was brought into a connection with foreigners, which needed to be clearly defined, especially so far as the Passover was concerned, the festival of Israel's birth as the people of God. If the Passover was still to retain this signification, of course no foreigner could participate in it. This is the first regulation. But as it was by virtue of a divine call, and not through natural descent, that Israel had become the people of Jehovah, and as it was destined in that capacity to be a blessing to all nations, the attitude assumed towards foreigners was not to be an altogether repelling one. Hence the further directions in Exodus 12:44 : purchased servants, who had been politically incorporated as Israel's property, were to be entirely incorporated by circumcision, so as even to take part in the Passover. But settlers, and servants working for wages, were not to eat of it, for they stood in a purely external relation, which might be any day dissolved. בּ אכל, lit., to eat at anything, to take part in the eating (Leviticus 22:11). The deeper ground fore this was, that in this meal Israel was to preserve and celebrate its unity and fellowship with Jehovah. This was the meaning of the regulations, which were repeated in Exodus 12:46 and Exodus 12:47 from Exodus 12:4, Exodus 12:9, and Exodus 12:10, where they had been already explained. If, therefore, a foreigner living among the Israelites wished to keep the Passover, he was first of all to be spiritually incorporated into the nation of Jehovah by circumcision (Exodus 12:48). פס ועשׂה: "And he has made (i.e., made ready) a passover to Jehovah, let every male be circumcised to him (i.e., he himself, and the male members of his house), and then he may draw near (sc., to Jehovah) to keep it." The first עשׂה denotes the wish or intention to do it, the second, the actual execution of the wish. The words בּן־נכר, גּר, תּושׁב and שׂכיר, are all indicative of non-Israelites. בּן־נכר was applied quite generally to any foreigner springing from another nation; גּר was a foreigner living for a shorter or longer time in the midst of the Israelites; תּושׁב, lit., a dweller, settler, was one who settled permanently among the Israelites, without being received into their religious fellowship; שׂכיר was the non-Israelite, who worked for an Israelite for wages.