Exodus 12:32

Exo 12:32 Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also.

Ver. 32. Bless me also.] So Maximinus, the persecutor, being sorely diseased, sent to beg the prayers of the Church. "In their month you shall find" these wild asses. {Jer 2:24}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

גם צאנכם גם בקרכם קחו TAKE ALSO YOUR FLOCKS AND HERDS — And what is the force of כאשר דברתם AS YE HAVE SPOKEN? It is an allusion to (10:25) “Thou, also, must give into our hands sacrifices and burnt offerings” — it means: take of my cattle also even as ye said.

וברכתם גם אתי AND BLESS ME ALSO — Pray on my behalf that I should not die because I am a firstborn (cf. Targum Jonathan on Exodus 12:32 and Mekhilta).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Pray for me.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

also take your flocks, &c.--All the terms the king had formerly insisted on were now departed from; his pride had been effectually humbled. Appalling judgments in such rapid succession showed plainly that the hand of God was against him. His own family bereavement had so crushed him to the earth that he not only showed impatience to rid his kingdom of such formidable neighbors, but even begged an interest in their prayers.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(32) And bless me also.—Here Pharaoh’s humiliation reaches its extreme point. He is reduced by the terrible calamity of the last plague not only to grant all the demands made of him freely, and without restriction, but to crave the favour of a blessing from those whom he had despised, rebuked (Exo_5:4), thwarted, and finally driven from his presence under the threat of death (Exo_10:28). Those with whom were the issues of life and death must, he felt, have the power to bless or curse effectually.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

32. as ye have said] See Exo_10:9; Exo_10:26 (J).

and bless me also] viz. at the festival which you are about to hold: include me as well as yourselves in the blessings which you will then invoke.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And the people took their dough before it was leavened,.... They had that evening mixed their flour with water, and made it into dough, but had put no leaven into it; and the Egyptians being so very earnest to have them gone, they stayed not to put any leaven into it:

but their kneadingtroughs, or rather "their dough":

being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders; for it is not likely that their troughs should be wrapped up in the skirts of their garments; but their dough might, if their clothes were like the hykes of the Arabs now, as Dr. Shaw (z) thinks they were, and which are pretty much like the plaids of the Scotch, and which are large enough for such a purpose; as even the veil which Ruth wore held six measures of barley, Rut 3:15 and so these clothes of theirs, like the Arabs' hykes, and the Scotch plaids, might be so made, that large lumps of dough being bound up in them might be thrown over their shoulders, and so carried by them when they journeyed.

(z) Travels, p. 224, 225. Edit. 2.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Bless me also - No words could show more strikingly the complete, though temporary, submission of Pharaoh.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Bless me, by exposing me to no further danger by your stay.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Also take your flocks and your herds. Pharaoh thus retracted the prohibition of Exo_10:24, and "gave the sacrifices and burnt-offerings" which Moses had required (ib. ver. 25). Bless me also. Pharaoh was probably accustomed to receive blessings from his own priests, and had thus been led to value them. His desire for a blessing from Moses and Aaron, ere they departed, probably sprang from a conviction based on the miracles which he had witnessed that their intercession would avail more with God than that of his own hierarchy.

HOMILIES BY J. ORR

Pharaoh"s prayer.

It has come then to this, that Pharaoh is glad to beg a blessing from the man whom at first he had so contemptuously spurned. "And bless me also.

I THE WICKED MAN IS OFTEN MADE PAINFULLY AWARE OF THE MISERABLENESS OF HIS OWN PORTION, AS COMPARED WITH THAT OF THE GODLY. He may be, often is, even when he refuses to acknowledge it, secretly conscious of the superior happiness of the good man. There come times, however, when severe affliction, the sense of a gnawing inward dissatisfaction, or special contact of some kind with a man of genuine piety, extorts the confession from him. He owns that the good man has a standing in the Divine favour; enjoys an invisible Divine protection; and is the possessor of a peace, happiness, and inward support, to which his own wretched life is utterly a stranger.

II THE WICKED MAN HAS SOMETIMES DESIRES AFTER A SNARE IN THE GOOD OF GOD"S PEOPLE. He envies them. He feels in his heart that he is wretched and miserable beside them, and that it would be happiness to be like them. He says with Balaam, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and: let my last end be like his". (Num_23:10)

III THE WICKED MAN, IN HIS TIME OF TROUBLE, WILL OFTEN HUMBLE HIMSELF TO BEG THE PRAYERS OF THE GODLY. And this, though but a little before, he has been persecuting them. He feels that the good man has power with God.

IV THESE FEELINGS OF THE WICKED MAN ARE USUALLY TRANSIENT. J.O.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Bless me also - Let me have your prayers, that I may not be plagued for what is past when you are gone.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

AND BLESS ME ALSO. The purport of it is that “when you will sacrifice to the Eternal your G-d as you have said, and you will pray for yourselves that He should not strike you with pestilence or sword, remember me also in your prayers together with yourselves.”Now Rashi commented: “Pray on my behalf that I should not die, for I am a firstborn.” The plain meaning thereof is that they should bless him and his kingdom, for included within the blessing to a king is the state of peace of the whole kingdom. And in the Mechilta we read: “And bless me also. Pray on my behalf that the punishment may desist from me,” meaning that he should no longer be punished on their account.

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.