to eat (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person common plural
flesh
הַבָּשָׂ֖רha.ba.Sar
H1320
flesh (from its freshness) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
night
בַּלַּ֣יְלָהba.Lay.lah
H3915
properly · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
roast
צְלִיtze.li-
H6748
roasted · noun, common masculine singular construct
fire
אֵ֣שׁ'esh
H784
fire (literally or figuratively) · noun, common both genders singular absolute
bread
וּמַצּ֔וֹתu.ma.Tzot
H4682
properly · conjunction + noun, common feminine plural absolute
bitter
מְרֹרִ֖יםme.ro.Rim
H4844
a bitter herb · adjective, masculine plural absolute
eat
יֹאכְלֻֽהוּyo.khe.Lu.hu
H398
to eat (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Exodus 34:25 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the mornin…
Deuteronomy 16:7 And thou shalt roast and eat it in the place which the LORD thy God shall choose: and thou shalt turn in the morning, and go unto thy tents.
Deuteronomy 16:3-4 Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou cames…
Exodus 1:14 And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, w…
Exodus 13:3 And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the…
Exodus 13:7 Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days; and there shall no leavened bread be seen with thee, neither shall there be leaven seen with the…
Exodus 23:18 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning.
Numbers 9:11-12 The fourteenth day of the second month at even they shall keep it, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Exodus 12:1-20
Moses and Aaron here receive of the Lord what they were afterwards to deliver to the people concerning the ordinance of the passover, to which is prefixed an order for a new style to be observed in their months (Exo 12:1, Exo 12:2): This shall be to you the beginning of months. They had hitherto begun their year from the middle of September, but henceforward they were to begin it from the middle of March, at least in all their ecclesiastical computations. Note, It is good to begin the day, and begin the year, and especially to begin our lives, with God. This new calculation began the year with the spring, which reneweth the face of the earth, and was used as a figure of the coming of Christ,…
roast with fire--for the sake of expedition; and this difference was always observed between the cooking of the paschal lamb and the other offerings (Ch2 35:13).
unleavened bread--also for the sake of despatch (Deu 16:3), but as a kind of corruption (Luk 12:1) there seems to have been a typical meaning under it (Co1 5:8).
bitter herbs--literally, "bitters"--to remind the Israelites of their affliction in Egypt, and morally of the trials to which God's people are subject on account of sin.
Adam Clarke on Exodus 12:8
They shall eat the flesh - roast with fire - As it was the ordinary custom of the Jews to boil their flesh, some think that the command given here was in opposition to the custom of the Egyptians, who ate raw flesh in honor of Osiris. The Ethiopians are to this day remarkable for eating raw flesh, as is the case with most savage nations.
Unleavened bread - מצות matstsoth, from מצה matsah, to squeeze or compress, because the bread prepared without leaven or yeast was generally compressed, sad or heavy, as we term it. The word here properly signifies unleavened cakes; the word for leaven in Hebrew is חמץ chamets, which simply signifies to ferment. It is supposed that leaven was forbidden on th…
But we eat the flesh of the lamb and the unleavened bread with bitter herbs either by being grieved with a godly grief because of repentance for our sins, a grief which produces in us a repentance unto salvation which brings no regret, or by seeking and being nurtured from the visions of the truth which we discover because of our trials.
Finally, the unleavened bread too is commanded to be eaten with bitter herbs; nor is it possible to reach the land of promise unless we pass through bitter things. For just as physicians insert certain bitter ingredients into their medicines with a view to the safety and health of the sick, so too, with a view to our safety, the physician of our souls has willed us to suffer the bitter things of this life in various trials, knowing that the end of this bitterness gains for our soul the sweetness of salvation; just as, on the contrary, the end of the sweetness which is in bodily pleasure, as the example of that rich man has taught, yields a bitter end in the hell of punishments.
Christians every day eat the flesh of the Lamb, that is, they daily take the flesh of the word. "For Christ our Passover has been sacrificed." And because the law of the Passover is such that it should be eaten in the evening, therefore the Lord suffered in the evening of the world, so that you may always eat of the flesh of the word, because you are always in the evening, until the morning comes. And if in this evening you are watchful and lead your life "in weeping and fastings" and in every labor of righteousness, you too will be able to say: "Weeping shall tarry until the evening, and joy until the morning." For you will rejoice in the morning, that is, in the age to come, if in this age you gather "the fruit of righteousness" in weeping and labor.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Bitter — Bitterness is symbolical of affliction, misery, and servitude (Ex. 1:14; Ruth 1:20; Jer. 9:15). The Chaldeans are called the “bitter and hasty nation” (Hab. 1:6). The “gall of bitterness” expresses a…
Bitter Herbs — The Israelites were commanded to eat the Paschal lamb “with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs.” (Exodus 12:8) These “bitter herbs” consisted of such plants as chicory, bitter cresses, hawkweeds,…
Blood — (1.) As food, prohibited in Gen. 9:4, where the use of animal food is first allowed. Comp. Deut. 12:23; Lev. 3:17; 7:26; 17:10-14. The injunction to abstain from blood is renewed in the decree of the…
Cook — A person employed to perform culinary service. In early times among the Hebrews cooking was performed by the mistress of the household (Gen. 18:2-6; Judg. 6:19), and the process was very…
Cooking — As meet did not form an article of ordinary diet among the Jews, the art of cooking was not carried to any perfection. Few animals were slaughtered except for purposes of hospitality or festivity.…
Food — Originally the Creator granted the use of the vegetable world for food to man (Gen. 1:29), with the exception mentioned (2:17). The use of animal food was probably not unknown to the antediluvians.…
Frontlets — Occurs only in Ex. 13:16; Deut. 6:8, and 11:18. The meaning of the injunction to the Israelites, with regard to the statues and precepts given them, that they should “bind them for a sign upon their…
Herb — (1.) Heb. ‘eseb, any green plant; herbage (Gen. 1:11, 12, 29, 30; 2:5; 3:18, etc.); comprehending vegetables and all green herbage (Amos 7:1, 2). (2.) Yarak, green; any green thing; foliage of trees…
Law of Moses — Is the whole body of the Mosaic legislation (1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 23:25; Ezra 3:2). It is called by way of eminence simply “the Law” (Heb. Torah, Deut. 1:5; 4:8, 44; 17:18, 19; 27:3, 8). As a written…
Passover — The name given to the chief of the three great historical annual festivals of the Jews. It was kept in remembrance of the Lord’s passing over the houses of the Israelites (Ex. 12:13) when the first…
on Exodus 12:8
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire,.... The night of the fourteenth of Nisan; and as the Jews reckoned their days from the evening preceding, this must be the beginning of the fifteenth day, which being observed, will serve to reconcile some passages relating to this ordinance. The lamb was to be roasted, not only because its flesh thereby would be more palatable and savoury, but because soonest dressed that way, their present circumstances requiring haste; but chiefly to denote the sufferings of Christ, the antitype of it, when he endured the wrath of God, poured out as fire upon him; and also to show, that he is to be fed upon by faith, which works by love, or to b…
Exodus 12:1-20
1. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,
1. Loquutus est Jehova ad Mosen et ad Abaton in terra Aegypti, dicendo.
2. This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.
2. Mensis iste principium vobis erit mensium, et primus idem vobis in mensibus anni.
3. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their' fathers, a lamb for an house.
3. Loquimini ad totum coetum Israel, dicendo, Decima hujus mensis tollat sibi quisque agnum secundum domum patrum, agnum domatim.
4. And if the house…
Institution of the Passover. - The deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Egypt was at hand; also their adoption as the nation of Jehovah (Exo 6:6-7).
But for this a divine consecration was necessary, that their outward severance from the land of Egypt might be accompanied by an inward severance from everything of an Egyptian or heathen nature. This consecration was to be imparted by the Passover-a festival which was to lay the foundation for Israel's birth (Hos 2:5) into the new life of grace and fellowship with God, and to renew it perpetually in time to come. This festival was therefore instituted and commemorated before the exodus from Egypt. Vv. 1-28 contain the directions for the Pa…
blood: God could not simply exempt his people from this plague as he had preserved them from the other plagues. Death reigns in the world because of sin, and in light of God’s justice, sin cannot be ignored; it must be either punished or atoned for. Since the blood represents life (Lev 17:11), it alone is acceptable for the forgiveness of sins (Heb 9:22). As Deut 6:9 suggests, doorframes represent the totality of life as the place of going in and coming out.
Rashi on Exodus 12:8
את הבשר AND THEY SHALL EAT] THE FLESH — but not the sinews and bones (Mekhilta).
ומצות על מררים AND UNLEAVENED BREAD WITH מררים — Every bitter herb is called מרור. He commanded them to eat something bitter as a reminder of: (Exodus 1:14) “And they made their lives bitter” (Pesachim 116b).
Pentecost — I.e., “fiftieth”, found only in the New Testament (Acts 2:1; 20:16; 1 Cor. 16:8). The festival so named is first spoken of in Ex. 23:16 as “the feast of harvest,” and again in Ex. 34:22 as “the day…
Sacrifice — The offering up of sacrifices is to be regarded as a divine institution. It did not originate with man. God himself appointed it as the mode in which acceptable worship was to be offered to him by…
Bitter Herbs · Eaten symboli — Eaten symboli
Blood · .Sprinkled on door posts — .Sprinkled on door posts
Egypt · History of Israel in: The passover instituted — History of Israel in: The passover instituted
Feast Of The Passover, The · Paschal lamb eaten first day of — Paschal lamb eaten first day of
Herbs, & C · Bitter, used at passover — Bitter, used at passover
Month · .Pas — .Pas
Paschal Lamb, Typical Nature Of · Roasted with fire — Roasted with fire
Passover · Institution of — Institution of
Symbols And Similitudes · ma — ma
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
