Exodus 12:20
in Exodus 12You are not to eat anything leavened; eat unleavened bread in all your homes.”
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Ye shall eat nothing leavened; in all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread.
KJV
Ye shall eat nothing leavened; in all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread.
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This verse in Exodus 12
Commentary
4 notes on this verseNow, without doubt, there was much of the gospel in this ordinance; it is often referred to in the New Testament, and, in it, to us is the gospel preached, and not to them only, who could not stedfastly look to the end of these things, Heb. iv. The paschal lamb was typical. Christ is our Passover, 1 Cor. v. 7 .
This site's exposition
ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread
on Exodus 12:17-20
The feast is grounded on a date rather than on a season, since in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. The word armies for a body of unarmed slaves is the text's own and it returns at verse 51. The rule already reaches the stranger as well as the man born in the land, which is the first sign of what verses 48 and 49 will say outright.
The record, by era
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
30 And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead.
quarantine:scripture (2026-07-29) — verbatim-scripture
Ye shall eat nothing leavened,....
How the passage was read
On Exodus 12:1-51On Exodus 12:1-51
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.”
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
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)
The words behind it
8 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| כָּל־ | kol- | any | H3605 → | 5413 times |
| מַחְמֶ֖צֶת | machmetzet | thing leavened | H2556 → | 8 times |
| לֹ֣א | lo' | not | H3808 → | 5168 times |
| תֹאכֵ֑לוּ | tokhelu | you will eat | H398 → | 810 times |
| בְּכֹל֙ | bekhol | in all | H3605 → | 5413 times |
| מוֹשְׁבֹ֣תֵיכֶ֔ם | moshevoteikhem | dwelling places your | H4186 → | 44 times |
| תֹּאכְל֖וּ | tokhelu | you will eat | H398 → | 810 times |
| מַצּֽוֹת׃ פ | matzot | unleavened bread<s> | H4682 → | 53 times |
כָּל־any
kol-H3605 →5413 times
מַחְמֶ֖צֶתthing leavened
machmetzetH2556 →8 times
לֹ֣אnot
lo'H3808 →5168 times
תֹאכֵ֑לוּyou will eat
tokheluH398 →810 times
בְּכֹל֙in all
bekholH3605 →5413 times
מוֹשְׁבֹ֣תֵיכֶ֔םdwelling places your
moshevoteikhemH4186 →44 times
תֹּאכְל֖וּyou will eat
tokheluH398 →810 times
מַצּֽוֹת׃ פunleavened bread<s>
matzotH4682 →53 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
Where this verse is studied
About Exodus
This page draws on John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.