Bible Strands
Exodus 12:2
“This month is the beginning of months for you; it shall be the first month of your year.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The LORD addresses Moses and Aaron in Egypt, instituting a new chronological marker immediately before detailing the Passover lamb selection.
The words — The verse hinges on רֹאשׁ (rosh, "beginning") and רִאשׁוֹן (rishon, "first"), explicitly naming this month the head and initial month of the annual cycle.
The thread — This calendar decree directly supports subsequent commands to observe the month of Abib for the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread (Exodus 13:4; Deuteronomy 16:1; Exodus 34:18).
Why it lands — The text establishes a new temporal authority for Israel without providing explanation, requiring the reader to acknowledge the shifted calendar before executing the following ritual instructions.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.
Cross-references
- Exodus 13:4 Today, in the month of Abib, you are leaving.
- Deuteronomy 16:1 Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, because in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night.
- Exodus 34:18 You are to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, you are to eat unleavened bread as I commanded you. For in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt.
- Exodus 23:15 You are to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread as I commanded you: At the appointed time in the month of Abib you are to eat unleavened bread for seven days, because that was the month you came out of Egypt. No one may appear before Me empty-handed.
- Leviticus 23:5 The Passover to the LORD begins at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month.
- Numbers 28:16 The fourteenth day of the first month is the LORD’s Passover.
- Esther 3:7 In the twelfth year of King Xerxes, in the first month, the month of Nisan, the Pur (that is, the lot) was cast before Haman to determine a day and month. And the lot fell on the twelfth month, the month of Adar.