In the second month on the fourteenth day in the evening they shall keep it: See verses 2-3. Those who are unable to celebrate the Passover in the first month may do it the next month. For the second month in the Hebrew calendar, see the comments on 1.1. The Hebrew verbs in verses 11-12 are third person plural, so Revised Standard Version uses the pronoun they. Although the pronoun “you” (Good News Translation) may be more natural in some languages, we recommend using the pronoun they if possible; it shows more clearly that future generations are included as well.

They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs: Unleavened bread and bitter herbs could be prepared quickly, recalling the hasty departure of the Israelites from Egypt (see Exo 12.11). For unleavened bread, see 6.15. The bitter herbs are not identified. According to A Handbook on Numbers at Exo 12.8, Jewish tradition permitted the following five plants as food at the Passover meal: lettuce, chicory, pepperwort, snakeroot, and dandelion. However, translators should not mention any particular herb or spice by name. It is best to use a generic term or descriptive expression for bitter herbs; for example, Chewa has “bitter relish of leaves [that is, leafy plants].”

Quoted with permission from de Regt, Lénart J. and Wendland, Ernst R. A Handbook on Numbers. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .