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:
Speak ye unto all the congregation. The Israelites in Egypt were an organized people, under leaders of their own race. [The whole body was divided into tribes; these into mishpaachowt (H4940), properly part of a tribe (Deuteronomy 29:17; Judges 18:9; Judges 21:24), but frequently in the restricted sense of families; which again were subdivided into smaller sections, called beeyt (H1004) 'aabowt (H1), fathers' houses.] (See Gesenius for the Hebrew constructions.) This last phrase does not designate a household presided over by an individual father-for in that case the word х 'aab (H1)] father would have been in the singular (cf. Genesis 24:23; Genesis 31:30) - but it means ancestral houses (Numbers 1:2). Kurtz holds a different opinion, considering Beth-aboth the same as tribes. But a distinct term is used for tribes (Joshua 7:14). These divisions, which may be illustrated by a corresponding classification in Roman antiquities-namely, tribus, gens, familia, had each of them among the Israelites their own х raa'shiym (H7218)], chiefs, or heads (Exodus 6:14; Numbers 1:4). To these, as representatives of the people, the communications Moses was instructed to make were addressed in the first instance. The recent events had prepared the Israelite people for a crisis in their affairs, and, impressed with a profound belief in his divine commission, as attested by the extraordinary powers he possessed, they seem to have yielded implicit obedience at this time to Moses. It is observable that, amid all the hurry and bustle of such a departure, their serious attention was to be given to a solemn act of religion.
A lamb for an house. It appears from Exodus 12:5 that a kid might, in emergencies, be taken, though, as a general rule, a lamb was the species preferred. The service was to be a domestic one, because the deliverance was to be from an evil threatened to every house in Egypt, and every Israelite was to participate individually in the blessings of deliverance.