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They are to eat the meat that night, roasted over the fire, along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
Exodus 12:8 · Berean Standard Bible
Parallel translations
  • WEB They shall eat the meat in that night, roasted with fire, and unleavened bread. They shall eat it with bitter herbs.
  • KJV And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
  • NKJV Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
  • NASB They shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
  • NLT That same night they must roast the meat over a fire and eat it along with bitter salad greens and bread made without yeast.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Quick answer

That night the lamb is to be eaten roasted, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

Overview

The Passover is not only a sacrifice but a meal in which the people feed on the lamb. Unleavened bread signals haste and the removal of corruption (leaven often pictures sin), while the bitter herbs recall the bitterness of slavery. Together they form a memorial meal that points to Christ, our Passover, on whom believers feed by faith, remembering both bondage to sin and the cost of redemption.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 18

  • Exod 34:25Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to Me along with anything leavened, and do not let any of the sacrifice from the Passover Feast remain until morning.
  • Deut 16:7And you shall roast it and eat it in the place the LORD your God will choose, and in the morning you shall return to your tents.
  • Deut 16:3–4You must not eat leavened bread with it; for seven days you are to eat with it unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left the land of Egypt in haste—so that you may remember for the rest of your life the day you left the land of Egypt.
  • Exod 13:7Unleavened bread shall be eaten during those seven days. Nothing leavened may be found among you, nor shall leaven be found anywhere within your borders.
  • John 6:52–57At this, the Jews began to argue among themselves, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”
  • 1 Cor 5:6–8Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven works through the whole batch of dough?
  • Exod 13:3So Moses told the people, “Remember this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; for the LORD brought you out of it by the strength of His hand. And nothing leavened shall be eaten.
  • Num 9:11–12Such people are to observe it at twilight on the fourteenth day of the second month. They are to eat the lamb, together with unleavened bread and bitter herbs;
  • Exod 23:18You must not offer the blood of My sacrifices with anything leavened, nor may the fat of My feast remain until morning.
  • Exod 1:14and made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar, and with all kinds of work in the fields. Every service they imposed was harsh.
  • Isa 53:10Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush Him and to cause Him to suffer; and when His soul is made a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.
  • Amos 4:5Offer leavened bread as a thank offering, and loudly proclaim your freewill offerings. For that is what you children of Israel love to do,” declares the Lord GOD.
  • Gal 5:9A little leaven works through the whole batch of dough.
  • Matt 16:12Then they understood that He was not telling them to beware of the leaven used in bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
  • Matt 26:26While they were eating, Jesus took bread, spoke a blessing and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is My body.”
  • Zech 12:10Then I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look on Me, the One they have pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
  • Ps 22:14I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed. My heart is like wax; it melts away within me.
  • 1 Th 1:6And you became imitators of us and of the Lord when you welcomed the message with the joy of the Holy Spirit, in spite of your great suffering.

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (6)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Exodus videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Exodus 12:8YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on ExodusMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.

Christ at the center

The Passover lamb whose blood turns away death, the exodus through the sea, the manna, the rock, and the tabernacle where God dwells with his people all foreshadow Jesus — our Passover, our redemption, the bread from heaven, and God-with-us in the flesh.

How Exodus 12:8 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Original language

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.