Bitter Herbs

Bitter herbs are eaten with the Passover meal. They appear in two passages — the original Passover instructions in Exodus and the make-up Passover regulation in Numbers — and in both they sit alongside the roasted lamb and unleavened bread as a fixed component of the meal.

In the First Passover

The instructions for the night of the exodus name the three foods together: "And they will eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; with bitter herbs they will eat it" (Ex 12:8). The verse stands inside the broader Passover prescription — blood on the lintel and side-posts (Ex 12:7), the lamb roasted whole and not boiled (Ex 12:9), nothing left until morning (Ex 12:10), eaten in haste with loins girded (Ex 12:11). The bitter herbs are not separately explained; they are listed as part of the meal, not as a side dish.

In the Second-Month Passover

The Numbers regulation provides for those who could not keep Passover at its appointed time because of corpse-defilement or travel. The provision keeps the meal-components fixed: "If any man of you⁺ or of your⁺ generations will be unclean by reason of a soul, or be on a journey far off, yet he will keep the Passover to Yahweh. In the second month on the fourteenth day at evening they will keep it; they will eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs" (Nu 9:10-11). The closing rule then names the make-up meal as full Passover by statute: "they will leave none of it to the morning, nor break a bone of it: according to all the statute of the Passover they will keep it" (Nu 9:12). The make-up Passover keeps the bitter herbs as part of the meal, alongside the unleavened bread, exactly as in Exodus.