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mannafest.faith

Exodus 12:15

For seven days you must eat unleavened bread. On the first day you are to remove the leaven from your houses. Whoever eats anything leavened from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.

BSB

Parallel translations (2) ▾

ASV

Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

KJV

Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

Commentary

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Hebraic traditional view

The night Israel still keeps

This chapter founds Passover, in Hebrew Pesach, the spring feast that remembers the night God struck Egypt's firstborn and passed over the blood-marked houses. Jewish families keep it to this day with a ceremonial meal called the seder (Hebrew for “order”): unleavened flatbread (matzah), bitter herbs, cups of wine, and the retelling of this chapter's story, with the children asking the questions.

Honesty about the timeline helps the reader: in the Bible's own period the center of the feast was the lamb, slain and eaten as this chapter commands. The seder as now practiced took its shape after the Temple fell in AD 70 and the lamb could no longer be offered; its oldest written outline is in the Mishnah, the first code of Jewish oral law (about AD 200), which already includes the four cups and the rule that “in every generation a person must see himself as if he personally came out of Egypt.”

Sources: Mishnah Pesachim 10 (the seder's oldest outline) · Mishnah Pesachim 10:5 (“in every generation”) · The Feasts of the LORD (this site's study)

Original language & word study

23 tagged words
OriginalTransliterationMeaningWord study
שִׁבְעַ֤תshiv.'AtsevenH7651
יָמִים֙ya.MimdaysH3117
מַצּ֣וֹתma.Tzotunleavened bread<s>H4682
תֹּאכֵ֔לוּto.Khe.luyou will eatH398
אַ֚ךְ'akhsurelyH389
בַּיּ֣וֹםbai.Yomon the dayH3117
הָרִאשׁ֔וֹןha.ri.Shon<the> firstH7223
תַּשְׁבִּ֥יתוּtash.Bi.tuyou will removeH7673
שְּׂאֹ֖רse.'OrleavenH7603
מִבָּתֵּיכֶ֑םmi.ba.tei.Khemfrom houses yourH1004
כִּ֣י׀kiforH3588
כָּל־kol-anyH3605
אֹכֵ֣ל'o.Khel[one who] eatsH398
חָמֵ֗ץcha.MetzleavenH2557
וְנִכְרְתָ֞הve.nikh.re.Tahand he will be cut offH3772
הַנֶּ֤פֶשׁha.Ne.feshthe personH5315
הַהִוא֙ha.hi.V'<the> thatH1931
מִיִּשְׂרָאֵ֔לmi.Yis.ra.'Elfrom IsraelH3478
מִיּ֥וֹםmi.Yomfrom [the] dayH3117
הָרִאשֹׁ֖ןha.ri.Shon<the> firstH7223
עַד־'ad-untilH5704
י֥וֹםYom[the] dayH3117
הַשְּׁבִעִֽי׃ha.she.vi.'I<the> seventhH7637

The walk

About Exodus

The Firstborn of the Egyptians Are Slain — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain
The Firstborn of the Egyptians Are Slain — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain