Exodus 12’s Passover meal is simple. YHWH asked Israel to eat their roasted lamb with bitter herbs and unleavened bread. Although later traditions introduced additional symbolic foods, the basic menu remained the same. In this blog, I will look at these three ingredients and their meaning.

Menu: lamb, bitter herbs, and unleavened bread (Exo. 12:8, Num. 9:11)

Lamb

An unblemished, one-year-old male lamb was chosen by each Israelite family on the 10th of Abib and kept in the home for four days. On the eve of Abib 14 at twilight, it was slaughtered, and its blood was collected in a basin and struck onto the lintel and side posts of the door to the family’s home using a branch of hyssop. That night, the blood protected the life of the firstborn within the house from death, thereby preserving the family lineage. The entire lamb was roasted over the fire without breaking its bones. This process usually took about four hours, depending on the weight¹, which means the family ate its flesh close to midnight. The lamb’s remains were burned to ashes by morning. The Passover ordinances and statutes are all related to the handling of the lamb.

The lamb is a young sheep that is gentle, blameless, and vulnerable. Isaiah’s Suffering Servant is portrayed as a lamb being quietly led to the slaughter. Over eighty times, the Torah associates the lamb with sacrifice. Yeshua is called “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29, 36), who takes away the sins of the world, the Passover Lamb of God sacrificed for us (1 Cor. 5:7). We are redeemed by “the precious blood of Yeshua, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Pet. 1:19). Mentioned twenty-seven times in John’s Book of Revelation, “the Lamb” through sacrifice makes possible humanity’s victorious return to Eden by destroying those who destroy the earth through their worship of false gods. By linking the Lamb of the new exodus to the holy city coming down out of heaven to the new earth, John reveals that the Passover’s glory is the Eighth Day, the new beginning where only the true God is worshiped (Rev. 22:9).

The Lamb of God said to us: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven — not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever” (Jhn. 6:53-58).

Bitter Herbs
List: marjoram, lettuce, endive, horseradish, dandelion greens, chicory, parsley, green onion, and celery²

As was customary, bitter herbs (known for their cleansing properties) were dipped into a bowl of saltwater and eaten at the start of the Passover meal, symbolizing the hyssop dipped in the lamb’s blood. Both water and blood served as cleansing agents in Israel’s worship practices. Eating dipped bitter herbs represented an internal cleansing of the heart and mind—a display of repentant humility (‘anah), acknowledging one’s helplessness and great need. Before eating the Passover today, we examine ourselves by reflecting on and judging our ways, just as the priests examined people’s sicknesses so they could return to the camp of Israel. When we do not discern Yeshua’s tabernacle and sacrifice as holy, we drink judgment to ourselves, becoming weak and sick, and even die (1Co.11:29-30). If our sacrifice is not to YHWH but to false gods, then we fellowship with demons. Eating bitter herbs with the lamb points to the inner purity of heart and mind needed to ingest the blameless Passover lamb in worship, so that Yeshua’s cup and table of God are not mingled with the polluted cup and table of idols (1Co. 10:21).

Unleavened Bread

The Scriptures use leaven as a symbol of corruption and sinful pride. When yeast ferments, it spreads through the dough, creating a sour taste. Unlike leavened bread, which is puffed up with yeast, unleavened bread remains sweet and pure. It symbolizes humility and trust, qualities necessary for walking with God. During their escape from Pharaoh, Israel ate unleavened bread for seven days, following God’s pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. God granted them purity and sinlessness—unleavenedness—by grace, so they could be in His Presence. Unleavened bread is connected to manna and God’s Word. By eating it, the mind of God is absorbed into us, and He leads us by the Spirit of truth, washing us, engraving His words on our hearts, and anchoring us in His eternal grace. God opposes the proud (leavened) but gives grace to the humble—the unleavened (James 4:6). An unleavened, circumcised, pure heart enables us to see God and walk with Him, clothed in His holiness, and to overcome the decay (leaven) of evil. By eating His Word—unleavened bread—we can walk before God and be blameless, just as Abraham did.

Paul urged the Corinthian church,

“Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. 8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1Co. 5:6-8).

Takeaway:

The Passover meal menu emphasizes that, to eat the Passover lamb with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, we must be pure, cleansed by the unleavened Word of God. Eating Yeshua’s flesh (symbolic of the lamb and unleavened bread) and drinking His blood (symbolic of wine mixed with water) imparts us with His life force. By YHWH’s favor, Israel left Egypt after the Passover. When we come under the blood of the Lamb on the gates and doorposts of our minds and partake of Him, we are, by grace, free to leave the bondage of sin and death. The Lamb’s ultimate victory in covenant faithfulness is portrayed in the Book of Revelation.

Fun Factors:
The three items on the Passover menu, lamb (seh, שֶׂה, letter sum 305, 7² + 16²), bitter herbs (marorim, מְרֹרִים, letter sum 490, 7² + 21²), and unleavened bread (matsowt, מַצּוֹת, letter sum 536, 2³ × 67) when added equal 1331 or 11³.

1331 or 11³ equals, “The Spirit of knowledge and the fear of YHWH” (Isa. 11:2d).

13 × 31 = 403 equals, “and God called” the light (Gen. 1:5). Naming the light called it into existence.

13 × 31 = the 403 letters of Exodus 25:31-37’s seven verses, the construction of the menorah.

3 × 13 × 31 × 3 = 3627 equals “So he [Moses] cried out to YHWH, and YHWH showed [root of torah] him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There He set for them a statute and an ordinance and there He proved them,” 18 Hebrew words of Exodus 15:25. (On Passover, Yeshua hung on a tree, giving His life, and by His stripes we are healed, Exodus 15:26, Isaiah 53:5.)

3 × 13 × 31 × 3 = 3627 equals, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” 17 Greek words of John 1:1. John’s Gospel is about the new creation through the Lamb of God.

John began his gospel account by introducing the Word of God, Yeshua, as “the Lamb of God” twice and said that His life was the light of humans. He was the true Light, the menorah, that shines in the darkness giving light to every human, so we do not walk in darkness but have the light of life (Jhn. 8:12). As many as did accept Him, letting His light transform us, to us He gave the right to become children of God (Jhn. 1:12). Receiving His Light is numerically connected to the Passover menu, the lamb, bitter herbs, and unleavened bread (sum 1331, 11³), the reality of “the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of YHWH” (sum 1331, 11³; Isa. 11:2). To eat of Him is life.

Yeshua’s Wednesday Passover (day 4 of the week, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) and mid-week of the 19-year Metonic cycle’s leap years (3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, 19) are the centers, the focus of the menorah’s 3-1-3 pattern, the pattern of Genesis 1:1’s seven words. Squaring the mid-point numbers, 4² + 11² = 137, the universe’s constant of how light interacts with matter, equal to the “day of atonements,” 137. Eleven cubed (11³) numerically symbolizes the reality of Light, YHWH’s sacrifice.