Exodus 12:19
For seven days there must be no leaven found in your houses. If anyone eats something leavened, that person, whether a foreigner or native of the land, must be cut off from the congregation of Israel.
BSB
Parallel translations (2) ▾
ASV
Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a sojourner, or one that is born in the land.
KJV
Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the land.
⋯
Commentary
2 voicesVoices on this verse
loading…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
18 tagged words| Original | Transliteration | Meaning | Word study |
|---|---|---|---|
| שִׁבְעַ֣ת | shiv.'At | seven | H7651 → |
| יָמִ֔ים | ya.Mim | days | H3117 → |
| שְׂאֹ֕ר | se.'Or | leaven | H7603 → |
| לֹ֥א | lo' | not | H3808 → |
| יִמָּצֵ֖א | yi.ma.Tze' | it will be found | H4672 → |
| בְּבָתֵּיכֶ֑ם | be.va.tei.Khem | in houses your | H1004 → |
| כִּ֣י׀ | ki | for | H3588 → |
| כָּל־ | kol- | any | H3605 → |
| אֹכֵ֣ל | 'o.Khel | [one who] eats | H398 → |
| מַחְמֶ֗צֶת | mach.Me.tzet | a thing leavened | H2556 → |
| וְנִכְרְתָ֞ה | ve.nikh.re.Tah | and he will be cut off | H3772 → |
| הַנֶּ֤פֶשׁ | ha.Ne.fesh | the person | H5315 → |
| הַהִוא֙ | ha.hi.V' | <the> that | H1931 → |
| מֵעֲדַ֣ת | me.'a.Dat | from [the] congregation of | H5712 → |
| יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל | Yis.ra.'El | Israel | H3478 → |
| בַּגֵּ֖ר | ba.Ger | in the sojourner | H1616 → |
| וּבְאֶזְרַ֥ח | u.ve.'ez.Rach | and in [the] native-born of | H249 → |
| הָאָֽרֶץ׃ | ha.'A.retz | the land | H776 → |
The walk
Featured studies on this passage
On Exodus 12:19
Passover
The night a lamb's blood turned judgment aside — and the Lamb it was always drawing toward.
Open the study →
On Exodus 12:19
The Lamb — Revelation's Christology
Open the study →
On Exodus 12:19
The Ten Plagues
Open the study →
Walks through Exodus 12
Jesus: Titles & Roles
No single title carries him. Scripture names Jesus by a constellation of titles — Christ, Son of Man, Lamb of God, Logos, High Priest, King of Kings — and each one is a door. This hub gathers every title page on the site and anchors the rest to the verses that confer them.
Open the study →
Walks through Exodus 12
The Scarlet Thread: MannaFest
Open the study →
Walks through Exodus 12
Taw — The Mark of God
The last letter of the Hebrew alphabet — drawn in the Sinaitic script as a cross — appears at the decisive moments of judgment and rescue: the doorposts of Goshen, the foreheads in Jerusalem, the sealing of the 144,000, and the cross at Golgotha.
Open the study →
About Exodus
