When your children ask you, ‘What does this service mean to you?’
Parallel translations
- WEB It will happen, when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’
- KJV And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service?
- NKJV And it shall be, when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’
- NASB And when your children say to you, ‘What does this rite mean to you?’
- NLT Then your children will ask, ‘What does this ceremony mean?’
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God anticipates children asking what this service means, providing an occasion for teaching.
Overview
The Passover is designed to provoke questions from the young and to open the door for instruction in God's redemptive acts. Worship becomes a means of catechesis, handing down the faith. This verse models intentional family discipleship, ensuring that the meaning of redemption is explained rather than merely observed by rote.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Exod 13:14–15In the future, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you are to tell him, ‘With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
- Deut 32:7Remember the days of old; consider the years long past. Ask your father, and he will tell you, your elders, and they will inform you.
- Ps 145:4One generation will commend Your works to the next, and will proclaim Your mighty acts—
- Josh 4:6–7to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’
- Ps 78:3–6that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us.
- Isa 38:19The living, only the living, can thank You, as I do today; fathers will tell their children about Your faithfulness.
- Eph 6:4Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath; instead, bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
- Josh 4:21–24Then Joshua said to the Israelites, “In the future, when your children ask their fathers, ‘What is the meaning of these stones?’
- Deut 6:7And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
- Deut 11:19Teach them to your children, speaking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
- Exod 10:2and that you may tell your children and grandchildren how severely I dealt with the Egyptians when I performed miraculous signs among them, so that all of you may know that I am the LORD.”
- Exod 13:22Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place before the people.
- Exod 13:8–9And on that day you are to explain to your son, ‘This is because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.’
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Passover lamb whose blood turns away death, the exodus through the sea, the manna, the rock, and the tabernacle where God dwells with his people all foreshadow Jesus — our Passover, our redemption, the bread from heaven, and God-with-us in the flesh.
How Exodus 12:26 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.