What Does Exodus 23:18 Mean?
You shall not slaughter upon leaven the blood of my sacrifice, nor shall the fat of my feast lodge until morning.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning.THE KEY
What the KJV calls “remain” is a verb for lodging: the fat is not allowed to spend the night as residue.
THE MEANING
This verse keeps an offering within two concrete boundaries: its blood is not presented with leaven, and its fat does not pass the night. The wording binds what accompanies the offering to the time its remains may stay.
THE ROOT
חָמֵץ
ḥāmēts
GROWS FROM
ח־מ־ץ
ḥ-m-ṣ
To be sour or fermented; leavened matter.
English makes “leavened” modify bread, while the Hebrew names chametz itself. The same root reaches vinegar, connecting the prohibited leaven with sour fermentation without turning the verse’s concrete restriction into a metaphor.
ALSO GROWS
chametz: Leaven or fermented matter.
חָמֵץ
This is the substance the verse bars from accompanying sacrificial blood.
ḥōmets: Vinegar, a sour fermented liquid.
חֹמֶץ
This branch carries the root’s sour, fermented sense beyond bread.
יָלִין
yālin
GROWS FROM
ל־ו־ן
l-w-n
To lodge or spend the night.
The verb translated “remain” means to lodge overnight. The verse does not merely forbid keeping the fat indefinitely; it names the night as the boundary it may not cross.
ALSO GROWS
lin: To lodge or stay overnight.
לִין
It is the verbal form behind the overnight limit in the verse.
malon: A lodging place or inn.
מָלוֹן
This related noun preserves the root’s sense of staying the night.
תִּזְבַּח
tizbaḥ
GROWS FROM
ז־ב־ח
z-b-ḥ
To slaughter for a sacrifice or sacrificial meal.
“slaughter” in this verse is tizbaḥ. The Hebrew repeats the same root in “offer” and “sacrifice,” where English uses different forms. The action and the offering are joined by one seed; the verse speaks of the blood as belonging to that sacrificial act.
ALSO GROWS
zāvaḥ: To slaughter or sacrifice.
זָבַח
This is the action named by “offer” in the verse.
mizbēaḥ: Altar, the place of sacrifice.
מִזְבֵּחַ
The related word ties the act of slaughter to the place where the offering is brought.
THE PATTERN
An offering is held within its appointed form and time: leaven stays outside, and what is sacrificed does not cross into morning.
No soured bread shall be seen with you in all your borders for seven days. None of the flesh you slaughtered on the first day at evening shall lodge through the night until morning.And the flesh of the slaughter of his wholeness offerings, for the open hand, shall be eaten the same day that it is brought near. He shall not leave any of it until the morning.Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even the Anointed One, our Passover, was slaughtered for us.THE THREAD
No soured bread shall be seen with you in all your borders for seven days. None of the flesh you slaughtered on the first day at evening shall lodge through the night until morning.The same verb לון (l-w-n, “lodge overnight”) names what must not remain into morning, while the first clause excludes leaven across seven days. Their pairing shows the limits on mixture and overnight keeping traveling together.
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