Exodus 12:20

20 anything fermented ye do not eat, in all your dwellings ye do eat unleavened things.'

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 `In the first [month], in the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, ye do eat unleavened things until the one and twentieth day of the month, at evening;

19 seven days leaven is not found in your houses, for any [one] eating anything fermented -- that person hath been cut off from the company of Israel, among the sojourners or among the natives of the land;

20 anything fermented ye do not eat, in all your dwellings ye do eat unleavened things.'

21 And Moses calleth for all the elders of Israel, and saith unto them, `Draw out and take for yourselves [from] the flock, for your families, and slaughter the passover-sacrifice;

22 and ye have taken a bunch of hyssop, and have dipped [it] in the blood which [is] in the basin, and have struck [it] on the lintel, and on the two side-posts, from the blood which [is] in the basin, and ye, ye go not out each from the opening of his house till morning.