What Does Exodus 12:6 Mean?

"And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight." The four-day keeping period followed by communal slaughter at twilight on the fourteenth creates Israel's first liturgical day: the fourteenth of Nisan, late afternoon into evening. "Twilight" (Hebrew: bein ha'arbayim, between the evenings) is approximately 3-6 PM. The slaughter at twilight means the blood is on the doorposts before midnight, when YHWH will go out.

The "whole assembly of Israel shall kill their lambs" is the communal simultaneity of the Passover slaughter: every household in Israel killing at the same time. The coordination of thousands of household slaughters at a single defined time is the first communal synchronized religious act in Israel's existence as a people. The simultaneity is part of the Passover's theological meaning: all Israel participates in the same act at the same time, creating community through synchronized liturgical action.

John's Gospel dates Jesus' crucifixion to the time of the Passover Lamb slaughter (John 19:14): the "preparation day" for Passover, at approximately the ninth hour (3 PM) when the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the Temple. The chronological correlation in John between Jesus' death and the Passover lamb slaughter is the Gospel's most direct identification of Jesus as the Passover lamb: he dies at the same hour the lambs die. The between-the-evenings slaughter of Exodus 12:6 sets the schedule that John's Gospel narrates Jesus fulfilling.