The name of the Pesach offering is usually translated "the sacrifice of the passing over." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 12:27 renames it in a way that catches the heart. In the Aramaic, it becomes "the sacrifice of mercy before the Lord, who had mercy in His Word upon the houses of the sons of Israel in Mizraim."
That shift from passover to mercy is not a mistranslation. It is an interpretation. The rabbis understood that what God was doing on that night was not simply skipping the marked houses but actively saving them. The Memra held back the destroying angel. The blood on the doorpost was a request, and the mercy that answered it was a deliberate act.
Then the people bow down. The Aramaic keeps the gesture short but deliberate: when Israel heard this explanation from the mouth of Moses, they bowed and worshipped. This is not yet the bow of the grateful redeemed. They are still in Egypt. The firstborn have not yet died. But they already understand what is about to happen, and they respond with worship.
The rabbis read this bow as the first communal act of prayer by the whole nation of Israel. Up to this moment, prayer has been the work of individuals — the patriarchs, Moses at the bush. Here, the entire house of Israel bends together. The nation is being formed in the very act of bowing.
Takeaway: Passover is the festival of mercy before it is the festival of liberation. The people bowed in worship before the first firstborn fell.