Exodus 12:11-20

The Precept Pertaining to Unleavened Bread

v. 11. And thus shall ye eat it: with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, literally, "shod on your feet," and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste, in hasty flight, as such that were about to flee, in readiness for speedy flight. It is the Lord's Passover. These instructions concerned the celebration in Egypt and were afterward dropped as unessential. Only the name for the festival, the Passover of the Lord, was not changed, a perpetual reminder of the miracle which the Lord performed in delivering His people.

v. 12. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. As the avenging, almighty Judge the Lord intended to traverse the entire land of Egypt, to strike down all the first-born, to punish the princes with the common people, and thus to expose all the Egyptian idols as helpless delusions.

v. 13. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. Thus the Lord Himself explained the meaning of the Passover. Wherever there was a sign of blood, as He had commanded, there He would pass by, or over, and the blow would not strike the inmates of a house thus designated to work destruction in their midst. The slaughter would come upon the land of the Egyptians only.

v. 14. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, the evening of the fourteenth day of Abib; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations, a festival of commemoration from one generation to the next; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever. It was to be celebrated as the festival of Israel's redemption and of its being set aside as the people of God's covenant.

v. 15. Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses; for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel. This is the solemn ordinance relating to the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was thus from the beginning connected with the Festival of Passover. The exact period of the seven days is later fixed by many further ordinances.

v. 16. And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation, a solemn festival assembly, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to you, another service of worship; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you. That was the only labor which was permitted, that connected with the preparation of foods, according to the necessities of the day, the ordinance thus being less strict than that concerning the Sabbath. Cf Leviticus 23:7.

v. 17. And ye shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt; therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance forever. While the Passover commemorated the dreadful night of judgment and deliverance, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, so closely connected with it, reminded the children of Israel of the Exodus itself, of the chief circumstances connected with the departure of their armies out of Egypt.

v. 18. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even.

v. 19. Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses; that was the order which was to apply for the future, when they would have reached the Land of Promise ; for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, in any solid food, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger or born in the land. The naturalized, that is, the circumcised foreigner was obliged to submit to the ordinance in just the same manner as the native Israelite.

v. 20. Ye shall eat nothing leavened; in all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread. The ordinance was certainly not lacking in clearness and emphasis, for it was the intention of the Lord to symbolize the entire consecration of His people, as based upon their redemption.