In this manner refers to what follows, as the colon in Revised Standard Version indicates. Good News Translation omits this phrase and rearranges the sequence, beginning with “You are to eat it quickly.” (The word “quickly” is advanced from in haste later in the verse.) You shall eat it is plural. The meaning of In this manner may also be expressed with the word “When”; for example, “When you [plural] eat the meal” or “When you eat the animal.” Your loins girded is explicit but too literal to be easily understood. The loins refers to that part of the body below the waist, including the hips and abdomen. Girded means to have made ready, or to have put on a belt. So the expression means “with your cloak tucked into your belt” (New International Version). Since this was what the people at that time had to do to prepare for action, Good News Translation has “You are to be dressed for travel.” Contemporary English Version translates this first sentence as “When you eat the meal, be dressed and ready to travel.”

Your sandals on your feet uses the same word for “shoes” in 3.5. They were open footwear tied with straps. Your staff in your hand refers to a “walking stick.” It is a different word from that used for Moses’ rod, but the meaning is the same. Both staff and hand are singular, but your is plural, indicating one “walking stick” per person. And you shall eat it in haste means “quickly” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version), implying that everyone should be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. But the word in haste also implies fear, so Fox has “you are to eat it in trepidation,” and Translator’s Old Testament has “You must eat it hurriedly, in fear and trembling.” But most translations simply follow the meaning of “hurriedly” (New Revised Standard Version).

It is the LORD’s passover is literally “pesach it to [or, for] Yahweh.” The word may refer either to the Passover animal or to the Passover observance. Revised Standard Version is ambiguous here, but in verse 21 the word pesach clearly refers to the animal. New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh removes the ambiguity here by translating “it is a passover offering to the LORD.” Good News Translation, however, has chosen the other possible meaning with “it is the Passover Festival to honor me, the LORD.” Contemporary English Version is similar: “This is the Passover Festival in honor of me, your LORD.” The noun pesach is probably derived from the verb pasach, used in verse 13, which may have meant “to pass,” “to leap,” or “to limp.” (See the discussion at verse 27, where both the noun and the verb are used in a play on words. Also see the discussion on Passover under the section heading at the beginning of this chapter.)

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .