Exodus 12:20

20 During those days you must not eat anything made with yeast. Wherever you live, eat only bread made without yeast.”

Exodus 12:20 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 12:20

Ye shall eat nothing leavened
Bread or anything else that had any leaven in it: in all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread,
that is, if they eat any bread at all, it must be such; otherwise they might eat cakes of almonds or of eggs mixed with sugar, provided there was no leaven used, and this the Jews call the rich unleavened bread ^F16: this is repeated over and over, that they might be the more careful of observing this precept; but as this was limited for a certain time, it plainly appears to be a mistake of Tacitus ^F17 the Roman historian, who represents unleavened bread as the bread the Jews eat of in common.

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FOOTNOTES:

F16 See Leo Modena's History of the Rites of the Jews, par. 3. c. 3. sect. 5.
F17 Hist. l. 5. c. 4.

Exodus 12:20 In-Context

18 The bread you eat must be made without yeast from the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month until the evening of the twenty-first day of that month.

19 During those seven days, there must be no trace of yeast in your homes. Anyone who eats anything made with yeast during this week will be cut off from the community of Israel. These regulations apply both to the foreigners living among you and to the native-born Israelites.

20 During those days you must not eat anything made with yeast. Wherever you live, eat only bread made without yeast.”

21 Then Moses called all the elders of Israel together and said to them, “Go, pick out a lamb or young goat for each of your families, and slaughter the Passover animal.

22 Drain the blood into a basin. Then take a bundle of hyssop branches and dip it into the blood. Brush the hyssop across the top and sides of the doorframes of your houses. And no one may go out through the door until morning.