The Bread of Affliction
1 Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to Yahweh your God; for in the month of Abib Yahweh your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 You shall sacrifice the Passover to Yahweh your God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which Yahweh shall choose to cause his name to dwell there. 3 You shall eat no leavened bread with it. You shall eat unleavened bread with it seven days, even the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste) that you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. 4 No yeast shall be seen with you in all your borders seven days; neither shall any of the meat, which you sacrifice the first day at evening, remain all night until the morning. 5 You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates which Yahweh your God gives you; 6 but at the place which Yahweh your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell in, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at evening, at the going down of the sun, at the season that you came out of Egypt. 7 You shall roast and eat it in the place which Yahweh your God chooses. In the morning you shall return to your tents. 8 Six days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to Yahweh your God. You shall do no work.
The Passover is moved from the household to the one chosen place, and the bread eaten there is named for the distress it recalls.
The month is named first, and the reason with it. In the month of Abib Yahweh your God brought you out of Egypt by night Deuteronomy 16:1. The calendar is anchored to an event.
What is new here is the location. The original Passover was eaten in houses, with blood on the doorposts of each one Exodus 12:7. Now it is not to be kept locally at all: you may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates Deuteronomy 16:5. It must be brought to the place God chooses.
That is a real change, and it belongs to the settled life they are entering. A festival kept in a thousand villages becomes a thousand slightly different festivals. Kept in one place, it stays one thing, and everyone present sees the same rite.
The timing is fixed as tightly as the place: at evening, at the going down of the sun, at the season that you came out of Egypt Deuteronomy 16:6. The hour of the year is matched to the hour of the deliverance.
The unleavened bread is given a name, and it is not a flattering one. It is the bread of affliction Deuteronomy 16:3, and the reason is domestic: for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste. There was no time for dough to rise.
So the annual feast is built around the taste of an emergency. A prosperous farming family, generations later, in a country of wheat and vines, eats flat bread for a week because their ancestors left in a hurry. And the purpose is stated: that you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.
The memory is not left to sentiment. It is attached to a food, a date, an hour and a place, and repeated every year — which is how this book expects anything to survive a generation.
The last instruction is the quietest and the most human. After the night of the feast, in the morning you shall return to your tents Deuteronomy 16:7. They go home. The week continues with unleavened bread and ends in an assembly with no work Deuteronomy 16:8.
settled What this mark means