---
title: Exodus 12:38
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/exodus-12-38/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/exodus-12-38.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Exodus 12:38
testament: OT
section: Law
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Exodus 12:38

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> And a mixed multitude also went up with them, along with great droves of livestock, both flocks and herds.

## JW Usage

The Watchtower typically reads the Exodus narrative as establishing a strict covenant boundary around ethnic Israel, which supports the two-class framework for the new covenant: only spiritual Israel (the 144,000) are parties; the Great Crowd, like OT alien residents, are merely beneficiaries.

## Protestant Usage

Exodus 12:38 opens a quiet hole in the "strict ethnic boundary" reading. "And a vast mixed company also went up with them, as well as flocks and herds, a very large amount of livestock." Non- Israelites — Egyptians, other nationalities, the slave-class of empire — walked out of Egypt with Israel under the Passover blood. The exodus itself was not a single-nation event. And verse 48 makes the implication explicit: foreigners circumcised to covenant were to participate in Passover equally. The OT boundary was more permeable than the "only spiritual Israel" reading requires. Hebrews 8:6 then says the new covenant is a *better* covenant — not a more restrictive one. And Jeremiah 31:34 describes its scope: "from the least of them to the greatest." The "mixed company" of the first exodus is the template for the "great multitude out of every nation" of Revelation 7 — one people redeemed by one Passover blood, not a two-tier salvation.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Mediator Restriction](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/mediator-restriction.md) — 1 Timothy 2:5 — One Mediator for All [Authority]