Exodus 12:13 - Exposition

The blood shall be to you for a token , etc. The blood was not to be a token to the Israelites, but to God for them. Translate—"and the blood shall be as a token for you upon the houses that you are there." It shall distinguish the houses in which you dwell from the others. I will pass over you . This is the emphatic clause. God would pass by, or over the house on which the blood was, spare it, slay none of its inmates; and from this action of His, the lamb itself, and the feast whereof it was the principal part, were to be termed "the Passover." It has been proposed to connect the Hebrew pesach with the Egyptian pesh , "to stretch, or extend (protection)"; but the name "Tiphsach," borne by the place of passage over the Euphrates ( 1 Kings 4:24 ), would seem to indicate that "crossing," or "passing over" is the primary meaning of the root.