unleavened bread

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “unleavened bread” in English is translated in various ways:

  • Chichimeca-Jonaz: “bread that doesn’t have its medicine that makes it puff up”
  • Teutila Cuicatec: “bread without its sour”
  • Tepeuxila Cuicatec: “bread that has no mother” (source for this and above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
  • Mairasi: “bread without other ingredient” (source: Enggavoter 2004)

complete verse (Exodus 12:18)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 12:18:

  • Kupsabiny: “From sunset on the fourteenth day of the first month, until the twenty first day at sunset in that month, no one should eat bread which has risen.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Eat only bread without yeast from the evening of the fourteenth day of the month until the evening of the twenty first of the month.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “You (plur.) are-to-start to-celebrate this from twilight/dusk of the 14th day of the first month until twilight/dusk of the 21st day, and you (plur.) are-to-eat bread that has-none of that-which-causes-to-expand.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Bariai: “And in the afternoon on this month’s fourteenth day, and going until the afternoon on the twenty-first day, you (pl.) must be eating bret not having yis existing in it.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Opo: “On month one, beginning on the14of day at evening until the21of day at evening, you will eat bread which lacks yeast.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
  • English: “In the first month of the year, on the 14th day of that month, the only bread you may eat is bread that has no yeast in it. You must keep doing that each day until the 21st day of that month. For those seven days you must not have any yeast in your house. During that time, if anyone, either an Israeli or a foreigner, eats bread made with yeast, you must consider that person no longer to be an Israeli.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Exod 12:18

In the first month is literally “in the first,” but it refers to the month of Abib (as in verse 2). On the fourteenth day corresponds to verse 6. At evening really places it on the fifteenth day, since the next day began at sunset (as discussed at verse 14). You shall eat unleavened bread corresponds to verse 8, the Passover meal. And so until the twenty-first day simply repeats the instruction given in verse 15.

At evening may present a problem if it is understood to include the evening of the twenty-first day, which was already the twenty-second day. That would be a total of eight evenings, which does not agree with the “seven days” emphasized again in the following verse. The preposition at also means “until” (New Revised Standard Version), “to the evening,” or “when the sun sets on the twenty-first day.” New English Bible and Revised English Bible insist on “the evening which begins the fourteenth day until the evening which begins the twenty-first day,” but this does not agree with the eating of the Passover meal, which was the evening following the slaying of the animal on the fourteenth day. (See verse 6 and the comment on verse 14). Another model is “From when the sun sets on the fourteenth day in the first month until it sets on the twenty-first day of that month, you must not eat….”

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

• You must refrain from eating bread made with yeast, beginning from the time the sun sets on the fourteenth day of the first month, until it sets on the twenty-first day of that same month.

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 .