Exodus 12:18
בָּרִאשֹׁן בְּאַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר יוֹם לַחֹדֶשׁ בָּעֶרֶב תֹּאכְלוּ מַצֹּת עַד יוֹם הָאֶחָד וְעֶשְׂרִים לַחֹדֶשׁ בָּעָֽרֶב׃
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✦ The same verse in five languages
בָּרִאשֹׁ֡ן בְּאַרְבָּעָה֩ עָשָׂ֨ר י֤וֹם לַחֹ֙דֶשׁ֙ בָּעֶ֔רֶב תֹּאכְל֖וּ מַצֹּ֑ת עַ֠ד י֣וֹם הָאֶחָ֧ד וְעֶשְׂרִ֛ים לַחֹ֖דֶשׁ בָּעָֽרֶב׃
ἀναρχομένου τῇ τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ μηνὸς τοῦ πρώτου ἀφ’ ἑσπέρας ἔδεσθε ἄζυμα ἕως ἡμέρας μιᾶς καὶ εἰκάδος τοῦ μηνὸς ἴως ἑσπέρας.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Primo mense, quartadecima die mensis ad vesperam, comedetis azyma usque ad diem vigesimam primam ejusdem mensis ad vesperam.
Comerán pan sin levadura desde el atardecer del día catorce del primer mes hasta el atardecer del día veintiuno del mismo mes.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
En el mes primero, el día catorce del mes por la tarde, comeréis los panes sin levadura, hasta el veintiuno del mes por la tarde.
In the first month you are to eat unleavened bread, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Exodus 12:18 specifies the time frame for eating unleavened bread: from the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month until the evening of the twenty-first day of the same month. The verse frames this period with two identical evening markers, creating a symmetrical boundary of "evening to evening."
Key words
- ba.Rishon ("in the first [month]", H7223G) — ordinal number with prefixed preposition ba ("in the", H9003), locating the entire instruction within the first month.
- to.khe.Lu ("you will eat", H0398) — Qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural, expressing an ongoing or future obligation directed at a plural group ("you all").
- ma.Tzot ("unleavened bread", H4682) — feminine plural noun, the direct object of the eating, plural form indicating the category of food generally rather than a single loaf.
- 'E.rev ("evening", H6153) — masculine singular noun, appearing twice (word 10 and word 22) with the preposition ba ("in the"), marking both the starting and ending boundary of the period.
- Yom ("day", H3117G) — masculine singular noun, used in construct form before "the one and twenty" (word 14), forming the compound date expression "day of the one-and-twenty."
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence structure places the temporal phrase before the verb: "In the first [month], on the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, you will eat unleavened bread, until the day of the twenty-first of the month, in the evening." This is a single long temporal clause governing the verb to.khe.Lu ("you will eat", H0398), with the object ma.Tzot ("unleavened bread", H4682) following.
The date "fourteenth day" is built from 'ar.ba.'Ah ("four", H0702) and 'a.Sar ("teen", H6240) combined as a compound cardinal, while "twenty-first" uses Yom ("day", H3117G) in construct with ha.'e.Chad ("the one", H0259) and ve.'es.Rim ("and twenty", H6242) — literally "the day of the one and twenty." Both boundary points are anchored by 'E.rev ("evening", H6153), repeated identically at the start (word 10) and end (word 22) of the verse, producing a grammatical parallelism that frames the entire eating period as running from evening to evening.
Differences between versions
The LXX begins with a genitive absolute construction, ἀναρχομένου ("beginning"), which is not represented as a separate lexical item in the Hebrew text provided; the Hebrew instead opens directly with ba.Rishon ("in the first", H7223G) referring to the month. The Vulgate's Primo mense ("in the first month") and the Hebrew ba.Rishon align closely in placement and meaning. The LXX renders the closing time marker as ἴως ἑσπέρας ("until evening"), while the Hebrew's final word 'A.rev ("evening", H6153) lacks an explicit "until" at that point, since 'ad ("until", H5704) appears earlier (word 13) governing the whole clause up to the second 'E.rev.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.