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Exodus 12:18

in Exodus 12

In the first month you are to eat unleavened bread, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even.

KJV

In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even.

This verse in Exodus 12

Commentary

4 notes on this verse

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

Now, 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

keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread

on Exodus 12:17-20

The feast rests on a date, since on this very day I brought your divisions out of the land of Egypt. The word divisions, a military term used of unarmed slaves, returns at verse 51.

This site's exposition

from the evening of the fourteenth day

The dates run evening to evening, seven full days. John Gill uses that reckoning to place the meal of verse 8 at the start of the fifteenth day. Leviticus 23:5 and 6 later name the fourteenth for the Passover and the fifteenth for the feast.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice

In the first month,....

How the passage was read

On Exodus 12:1-51

On 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

14 Hebrew words

Every 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.

  • בָּרִאשֹׁ֡ןin the first [month]

    barishonH7223 →182 times

  • בְּאַרְבָּעָה֩on [the] four-

    bearbaahH702 →318 times

  • עָשָׂ֨רteen

    ʾasarH6240 →338 times

  • י֤וֹםday

    yomH3117 →2304 times

  • לַחֹ֙דֶשׁ֙of the month

    lachodeshH2320 →284 times

  • בָּעֶ֔רֶבin the evening

    baerevH6153 →134 times

  • תֹּאכְל֖וּyou will eat

    tokheluH398 →810 times

  • מַצֹּ֑תunleavened bread<s>

    matzotH4682 →53 times

  • עַ֠דuntil

    ʾadH5704 →1261 times

  • י֣וֹם[the] day

    yomH3117 →2304 times

  • הָאֶחָ֧ד<the> one

    haechadH259 →971 times

  • וְעֶשְׂרִ֛יםand twenty

    veesrimH6242 →315 times

  • לַחֹ֖דֶשׁof the month

    lachodeshH2320 →284 times

  • בָּעָֽרֶב׃in the evening

    baarevH6153 →134 times

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

The walk

5 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    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…

    it leads to

    • Deuteronomy 16:3

      You must not eat leavened bread with it; for seven days you are to eat with it unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left the land of Egypt in haste—so that you…

    • Genesis 17:14

      But if any male is not circumcised, he will be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”

    • Exodus 34:18

      You are to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, you are to eat unleavened bread as I commanded you. For in the…

    • Exodus 23:15

      You are to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread as I commanded you: At the appointed time in the month of Abib you are to eat unleavened bread for seven days, because that was…

    • Numbers 28:17

      On the fifteenth day of this month, there shall be a feast; for seven days unleavened bread is to be eaten.

Where this verse is studied

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

This page draws on John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; 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.