Exodus 12:8 - Exposition

Roast with firs . The meat of sacrificial meals was commonly boiled by the Hebrews ( 1 Samuel 2:14 , 1 Samuel 2:15 ). The command to roast the Paschal lamb is accounted for:

1 . By its being a simpler and quicker process than boiling;

2 . By a special sanctity being regarded as attaching to fire;

3 . By the difficulty of cooking the animal whole unless it were roasted. Justin Martyr's statement that for roasting two wooden spits were required, placed at right angles the one to the other, and thus extending the victim on a cross, will seem to many a better ground for the direction than any of these. And unleavened bread . See below, verse. 18. With bitter herbs . Literally, "with bitternesses." That herbs, or vegetables of some kind, are intended, there is no reasonable doubt. The Mishna enumerates endive, chicory, wild lettuce, and nettles among the herbs that might be eaten. It is a strange notion of Kurtz's, that the bitter herbs were a condiment, and "communicated a more agreeable flavour to the food." Undoubtedly they were a disagreeable accompaniment, and represented at once the bitterness of the Egyptian bondage ( Exodus 1:14 ) and the need of self-denial, if we would feed on Christ.