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Deuteronomy

About this book
Chapter 16

1 Observe the month Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in that month he brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 You must sacrifice the Passover animal (from the flock or the herd) to the Lord your God in the place where he chooses to locate his name. 3 You must not eat any yeast with it; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast, as symbolic of affliction, for you came out of Egypt hurriedly. You must do this so you will remember for the rest of your lives the day you came out of the land of Egypt. 4 There must not be a scrap of yeast within your land for seven days, nor can any of the meat you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain until the next morning. 5 You may not sacrifice the Passover in just any of your villages that the Lord your God is giving you, 6 but you must sacrifice it in the evening in the place where he chooses to locate his name, at sunset, the time of day you came out of Egypt.⁠ 7 You must boil13 and eat it in the place the Lord your God chooses;⁠ you may return the next morning to your tents.⁠ 8 You must eat bread made without yeast for six days. The seventh day you are to hold an assembly for the Lord your God; you must not do any work on that day. 9 You must count seven weeks; you must begin to count them from the time you begin to harvest the standing grain. 10 Then you are to celebrate the Feast of Weeks before the Lord your God with the voluntary offering that you will bring, in proportion to how he has blessed you. 11 You shall rejoice before him—you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slaves, the Levites in your villages, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows among you—in the place where the Lord chooses to locate his name. 12 Furthermore, remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and so be careful to observe these statutes. 13 You must celebrate the Feast of Shelters for seven days, at the time of the grain and grape harvest. 14 You are to rejoice in your festival,⁠ you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slaves, the Levites, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows who are in your villages. 15 You are to celebrate the festival seven days before the Lord your God in the place he chooses, for he will bless you in all your productivity and in whatever you do; so you will indeed rejoice! 16 Three times a year all your males must appear before the Lord your God in the place he chooses for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Shelters; and they must not appear before him empty-handed. 17 Every one of you must give as you are able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you. 18 You must appoint judges and civil servants for each tribe in all your villages that the Lord your God is giving you, and they must judge the people fairly.⁠ 19 You must not pervert justice or show favor. Do not take a bribe, for bribes blind the eyes of the wise and distort the words of the righteous.⁠ 20 You must pursue justice alone so that you may live and inherit the land the Lord your God is giving you.⁠ 21 You must not plant any kind of tree as a sacred Asherah pole near the altar of the Lord your God which you build for yourself.⁠ 22 You must not erect a sacred pillar, a thing the Lord your God detests.

Texts in conversation

Compare Exodus 12:8 and Deuteronomy 16:7

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Exodus commands that the Passover lamb be roasted over fire and not boiled, while Deuteronomy says it must be boiled. 2 Chronicles attempts to harmonize this by saying the lamb was boiled with fire, showing how this tradition evolved over time.

Passages

Exodus 12:8

Hebrew Bible
6 You must care for it until the fourteenth day of this month, and then the whole community of Israel will kill it around sundown. 7 They will take some of the blood and put it on the two side posts and top of the doorframe of the houses where they will eat it. 8 They will eat the meat the same night; they will eat it roasted over the fire with bread made without yeast and with bitter herbs. 9 Do not eat it raw or boiled in water, but roast it over the fire with its head, its legs, and its entrails. 10 You must leave nothing until morning, but you must burn with fire whatever remains of it until morning.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

Deuteronomy 16:7

Hebrew Bible
5 You may not sacrifice the Passover in just any of your villages that the Lord your God is giving you, 6 but you must sacrifice it in the evening in the place where he chooses to locate his name, at sunset, the time of day you came out of Egypt. 7 You must boil13 and eat it in the place the Lord your God chooses; you may return the next morning to your tents. 8 You must eat bread made without yeast for six days. The seventh day you are to hold an assembly for the Lord your God; you must not do any work on that day. 9 You must count seven weeks; you must begin to count them from the time you begin to harvest the standing grain.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

References

"... Of all the cooking scenarios described in the Hebrew Bible, one might expect that the one most closely and narrowly prescribed would be the cooking of the Passover animal—central to the identity of Israel as remembered in the biblical text. However, it is precisely this act which presents perhaps the most confusion. This confusion arises not from one text alone, but from three different texts all referring to cooking the Passover. These texts are as follows: Exodus 12:8–9; Deuteronomy 16:7; and 2 Chronicles 35:13. First, the Israelites are in Egypt, having been oppressed by Pharaoh and his regime, and they have a deliverer in the person of Moses, who has been commissioned as such by YHWH, the god of their fathers ... YHWH tells his people to prepare a lamb according to certain specifications and to prepare for the final catastrophe, the death of the firstborn ... Second, Deuteronomy’s prescription of the Passover takes place in a very different setting from that of the Exodus. In this case the Israelites are said to be in the wilderness and Moses is explaining YHWH’s teachings to them ... The cooking of the Passover is just one of many such teachings that the Israelites are to follow those who do not read these three texts with a mind to following the directives found in them might miss the problem. Those, however, who would use these texts in order to follow their prescription, would have some difficulty deciding what to do, how to cook the animal. That is, whereas Exodus seems to suggest that the animal should not be בשל-ed, but roasted over fire, Deuteronomy suggests that it ought to be בשל-ed. 2 Chronicles adds to the confusion, saying that at Josiah’s Passover they בשל-ed it with fire, according to custom or ordinance. How does one navigate such a problem? ..."
Kurtis Peters, Hebrew Lexical Semantics and Daily Life in Ancient Israel: What's Cooking in Biblical Hebrew?, BibInt 146 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 177–178.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Exodus 12:8 and Deuteronomy 16:7

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