Êxodo 12:4

4 Se uma família for pequena demais para um animal inteiro, deve dividi-lo com seu vizinho mais próximo, conforme o número de pessoas e conforme o que cada um puder comer.

Êxodo 12:4 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 12:4

And if the household be too little for the lamb
That they cannot eat it up at once; let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the
number of the souls;
which Josephus ^F5 says were never fewer than ten, and were often twenty, but no man might feast alone; with which agrees the Jewish canon ^F6,

``they do not kill the passover lamb for a single person, nor even for a society consisting of one hundred, that cannot eat the quantity of an olive:''

every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb:
that is, a man must reckon up how many he has in his own house to eat of the lamb, and what their appetites be, by which he will he able to judge whether he can dispense with a lamb himself, or whether he must take in some of his neighbours, and how many, so as to eat up the whole lamb, for, for such persons the lamb was to be slain. The rule is,

``if a man slays it for those that do not eat of it, or for those that are not counted, for the uncircumcised, and the unclean, it was wrong, and not allowed of ^F7.''

The taking in his neighbours may respect the call of the Gentiles to partake of Christ with the Jews, see ( Ephesians 3:5 Ephesians 3:6 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F5 De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 9. sect. 3.
F6 Misn. Pesach. c. 8. sect. 7.
F7 lbid. c. 5. sect. 3.

Êxodo 12:4 In-Context

2 “Este deverá ser o primeiro mês do ano para vocês.

3 Digam a toda a comunidade de Israel que no décimo dia deste mês todo homem deverá separar um cordeiro ou um cabrito, para a sua família, um para cada casa.

4 Se uma família for pequena demais para um animal inteiro, deve dividi-lo com seu vizinho mais próximo, conforme o número de pessoas e conforme o que cada um puder comer.

5 O animal escolhido será macho de um ano, sem defeito, e pode ser cordeiro ou cabrito.

6 Guardem-no até o décimo quarto dia do mês, quando toda a comunidade de Israel irá sacrificá-lo, ao pôr do sol.