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Sunday, July 27th, 2025
the Week of Proper 12 / Ordinary 17
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Bible in Basic English

Exodus 12:8

And let your food that night be the flesh of the lamb, cooked with fire in the oven, together with unleavened bread and bitter-tasting plants.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Bitter Herbs;   Blood;   Israel;   Month;   Passover;   Symbols and Similitudes;   Scofield Reference Index - Israel;   Leaven;   Sacrifice;   Thompson Chain Reference - Bread;   Unleavened Bread;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Egypt;   Feast of the Passover, the;   Herbs, &C;   Paschal Lamb, Typical Nature of;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Abib;   Exodus;   Passover;   Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Feasts;   Lamb;   Passover;   Plague;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Animals;   Bread, Bread of Presence;   Celebrate, Celebration;   Lamb, Lamb of God;   Remember, Remembrance;   Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Passover;   Pentateuch;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Bitter;   Cook;   Food;   Frontlets;   Herb;   Sacrifice;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Bread;   Food;   Passover;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Bitter Herbs;   Cooking and Heating;   Exodus, Book of;   Herbs, Bitter;   Salvation;   Unleavened Bread;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Bitter Herbs;   Exodus;   Food;   Mary;   Moses;   Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Last Supper;   Passover (I.);   Samaria, Samaritans;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Bitter Herbs;   Passover, the;   The Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary - Bread;   Passover;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Bitter herbs;   Passover;   Plagues of egypt;   Smith Bible Dictionary - Bitter Herbs;   Cooking;   Law of Moses;   Pass'over,;   Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types - Fire;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Bitter Herbs;   Bread;   Plagues of Egypt;  

Encyclopedias:

- Condensed Biblical Cyclopedia - Exodus, the;   On to Sinai;   Hebrew Calendar;   Sabbath and Feasts;   Priesthood, the;   Moses, the Man of God;   Conquest of Canaan;   Law of Moses, the;   International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Bitter;   Bitter Herbs;   Fire;   Food;   Lord's Supper (Eucharist);   Moses;   Passover;   Sacrifice;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Ceremonies and the Ceremonial Law;   Commandments, the 613;   Festivals;   Fire;   Food;   Hafṭarah;   Haggadah (Shel Pesaḥ);   Law, Reading from the;   Maẓẓah;   Parashiyyot, the Four;   Passover Sacrifice;   Priestly Code;   Samuel B. Meïr (Rashbam);   Targum;  

Parallel Translations

Hebrew Names Version
They shall eat the flesh in that night, roasted with fire, and matzah. They shall eat it with bitter herbs.
King James Version
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
Lexham English Bible
And they will eat the meat on this night; they will eat it fire-roasted and with unleavened bread on bitter herbs.
New Century Version
On this night they must roast the lamb over a fire. They must eat it with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast.
New English Translation
They will eat the meat the same night; they will eat it roasted over the fire with bread made without yeast and with bitter herbs.
Amplified Bible
'They shall eat the meat that same night, roasted in fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
New American Standard Bible
'They shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
Geneva Bible (1587)
And they shal eate the flesh the same night, roste with fire, and vnleauened bread: with sowre herbes they shall eate it.
Legacy Standard Bible
And they shall eat the flesh that night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
Contemporary English Version
That night the animals are to be roasted and eaten, together with bitter herbs and thin bread made without yeast.
Complete Jewish Bible
That night, they are to eat the meat, roasted in the fire; they are to eat it with matzah and maror.
Darby Translation
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; with bitter [herbs] shall they eat it.
Easy-to-Read Version
"On this night you must roast the lamb and eat all the meat. You must also eat bitter herbs and bread made without yeast.
English Standard Version
They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.
George Lamsa Translation
And they shall eat the meat in that night, roasted with fire, with unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
Good News Translation
That night the meat is to be roasted, and eaten with bitter herbs and with bread made without yeast.
Christian Standard Bible®
They are to eat the meat that night; they should eat it, roasted over the fire along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
Literal Translation
And they shall eat the flesh in this night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
And so shal they eate flesh ye same night, rosted at the fyre, & vnleuended bred, and shal eate it with sowre sawse.
American Standard Version
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
And they shall eate the fleshe the same nyght, rost with fire, and with vnleauened bread: and with sowre hearbes they shall eate it.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
King James Version (1611)
And they shall eat the flesh in that night roste with fire, and vnleauened bread, and with bitter herbes they shall eate it.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And they shall eat the flesh in this night roast with fire, and they shall eat unleavened bread with bitter herbs.
English Revised Version
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
Berean Standard Bible
They are to eat the meat that night, roasted over the fire, along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
and in that niyt thei schulen ete fleischis, roostid with fier, and therf looues, with letusis of the feeld.
Young's Literal Translation
`And they have eaten the flesh in this night, roast with fire; with unleavened things and bitters they do eat it;
Update Bible Version
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
Webster's Bible Translation
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roasted with fire; and unleavened bread, [and] with bitter [herbs] they shall eat it.
World English Bible
They shall eat the flesh in that night, roasted with fire, and unleavened bread. They shall eat it with bitter herbs.
New King James Version
Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
New Living Translation
That same night they must roast the meat over a fire and eat it along with bitter salad greens and bread made without yeast.
New Life Bible
They must eat the meat that same night, made ready over a fire. They will eat it with bread made without yeast and with bitter plants.
New Revised Standard
They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Then shall they eat the flesh, in the same night, - roast with fire, and with unleavened cakes, with bitter herbs, shall they eat it.
Douay-Rheims Bible
And they shall eat the flesh that night roasted at the fire, and unleavened bread with wild lettuce.
Revised Standard Version
They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
'They shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

Contextual Overview

1 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 Let this month be to you the first of months, the first month of the year. 3 Say to all the children of Israel when they are come together, In the tenth day of this month every man is to take a lamb, by the number of their fathers' families, a lamb for every family: 4 And if the lamb is more than enough for the family, let that family and its nearest neighbour have a lamb between them, taking into account the number of persons and how much food is needed for every man. 5 Let your lamb be without a mark, a male in its first year: you may take it from among the sheep or the goats: 6 Keep it till the fourteenth day of the same month, when everyone who is of the children of Israel is to put it to death between sundown and dark. 7 Then take some of the blood and put it on the two sides of the door and over the door of the house where the meal is to be taken. 8 And let your food that night be the flesh of the lamb, cooked with fire in the oven, together with unleavened bread and bitter-tasting plants. 9 Do not take it uncooked or cooked with boiling water, but let it be cooked in the oven; its head with its legs and its inside parts. 10 Do not keep any of it till the morning; anything which is not used is to be burned with fire.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

eat the: Matthew 26:26, John 6:52-57

roast: Deuteronomy 16:7, Psalms 22:14, Isaiah 53:10

unleavened: Exodus 13:3, Exodus 13:7, Exodus 34:25, Numbers 9:11, Deuteronomy 16:3, Amos 4:5, Matthew 16:12, 1 Corinthians 5:6-8, Galatians 5:9

with bitter: Exodus 1:14, Numbers 9:11, Zechariah 12:10, 1 Thessalonians 1:6

Reciprocal: Exodus 12:9 - but roast with fire Exodus 12:15 - Seven Exodus 23:18 - blood Exodus 29:2 - bread Leviticus 2:4 - the oven Leviticus 6:16 - unleavened Deuteronomy 16:1 - the passover 2 Chronicles 35:13 - roasted Mark 14:12 - the first

Cross-References

Genesis 4:26
And Seth had a son, and he gave him the name of Enosh: at this time men first made use of the name of the Lord in worship.
Genesis 12:12
And I am certain that when the men of Egypt see you, they will say, This is his wife: and they will put me to death and keep you.
Genesis 12:14
And so it was that when Abram came into Egypt, the men of Egypt, looking on the woman, saw that she was fair.
Genesis 12:15
And Pharaoh's great men, having seen her, said words in praise of her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into Pharaoh's house.
Genesis 12:16
And because of her, he was good to Abram, and he had sheep and oxen and asses, and men-servants and women-servants, and camels.
Genesis 13:4
To the place where he had made his first altar, and there Abram gave worship to the name of the Lord.
Genesis 21:33
And Abraham, after planting a holy tree in Beer-sheba, gave worship to the name of the Lord, the Eternal God.
Genesis 28:19
And he gave that place the name of Beth-el, but before that time the town was named Luz.
Genesis 35:3
And let us go up to Beth-el: and there I will make an altar to God, who gave me an answer in the day of my trouble, and was with me wherever I went.
Joshua 7:2
Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is by the side of Beth-aven, on the east side of Beth-el, and said to them, Go up and make a search through the land. And the men went up and saw how Ai was placed.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

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 be received with hearts inflamed with love to him:

and unleavened bread; this also was to be eaten at the same time, and for seven days running, even to the twenty first day of the month,

Exodus 12:15, where see more concerning this: the reason of this also was, because they were then in haste, and could not stay to leaven the dough that was in their troughs; and was significative of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, with which the true passover lamb is to be eaten, in opposition to the leaven of error, hypocrisy, and malice, 1 Corinthians 5:7:

and with bitter herbs they shall eat it; the Vulgate Latin version renders it, "with wild lettuces", which are very bitter; and the worst sort of which, for bitterness, Pliny says p, is what they call "picris", which has its name from the bitterness of it, and is the same by which the Septuagint render the word here: the Targum of Jonathan is,

"with horehound and endive they shall eat it;''

and so the Targum on Song of Solomon 2:9. Wild endive; of which Pliny says q, there is a wild endive, which in Egypt they call cichory, and bids fair to be one of these herbs; according to the Misnah r and Maimonides s, there were five sorts of them, and anyone, or all of them, might be eaten; their names with both are these, Chazoreth, Ulshin, Thamcah, Charcabinah, and Maror; the four first of which may be the wild lettuce, endive, horehound, or perhaps "tansie"; and cichory the last. Maror has its name from bitterness, and is by the Misnic commentators t said to be a sort of the most bitter coriander; it seems to be the same with "picris": but whatever they were, for it is uncertain what they were, they were expressive of the bitter afflictions of the children of Israel in Egypt, with which their lives were made bitter; and of those bitter afflictions and persecutions in the world, which they that will live godly in Christ Jesus must expect to endure; as well as they may signify that as a crucified Christ must be looked upon, and lived upon by faith, so with mourning and humiliation for sin, and with true repentance for it as an evil and bitter thing, see

Zechariah 12:10.

p Nat. Hist. l. 19. c. 8. & 21. 17. & 32. 22. q Ibid. r Misn. Pesach. c. 2. sect. 6. s Hilchot, Chametz Umetzah, c. 7. sect. 13. t Maimon. & Bartenora in Misn. Pesach. ut supra. (c. 2. sect. 6.)

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

In that night - The night is thus clearly distinguished from the evening when the lamb was slain. It was slain before sunset, on the 14th, and eaten after sunset, the beginning of the 15th.

With fire - Among various reasons given for this injunction the most probable and satisfactory seems to be the special sanctity attached to fire from the first institution of sacrifice (compare Genesis 4:4).

And unleavened bread - On account of the hasty departure, allowing no time for the process of leavening: but the meaning discerned by Paul, 1 Corinthians 5:7-8, and recognized by the Church in all ages, was assuredly implied, though not expressly declared in the original institution. Compare our Lord’s words, Matthew 16:6, Matthew 16:12, as to the symbolism of leaven.

Bitter herbs - The word occurs only here and in Numbers 9:11, in reference to herbs. The symbolic reference to the previous sufferings of the Israelites is generally admitted.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 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 honour of Osiris. The AEthiopians 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 this and other occasions, that the bread being less agreeable to the taste, it might be emblematical of their bondage and bitter servitude, as this seems to have been one design of the bitter herbs which were commanded to be used on this occasion; but this certainly was not the sole design of the prohibition: leaven itself is a species of corruption, being produced by fermentation, which in such cases tends to putrefaction. In this very light St. Paul considers the subject in this place; hence, alluding to the passover as a type of Christ, he says: Purge out therefore the old leaven - for Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8.

Bitter herbs — What kind of herbs or salad is intended by the word מררים merorim, which literally signifies bitters, is not well known. The Jews think chicory, wild lettuce, horehound, and the like are intended. Whatever may be implied under the term, whether bitter herbs or bitter ingredients in general, it was designed to put them in mind of their bitter and severe bondage in the land of Egypt, from which God was now about to deliver them.


 
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