Deuteronomy 16:5-9

16:5 You may not sacrifice the Passover in just any of your villages ¹  that the Lord your God is giving you, 16:6 but you must sacrifice it ²  in the evening in ³  the place where he ⁴  chooses to locate his name, at sunset, the time of day you came out of Egypt. 16:7 You must cook ⁵  and eat it in the place the Lord your God chooses; you may return the next morning to your tents. 16:8 You must eat bread made without yeast for six days. The seventh day you are to hold an assembly for the Lord your God; you must not do any work on that day. ⁶ 

The Festival of Weeks

16:9 You must count seven weeks; you must begin to count them ⁷  from the time you begin to harvest the standing grain.

---

¹ tn Heb “gates.”

² tn Heb “the Passover.” The translation uses a pronoun to avoid redundancy in English.

³ tc The MT reading אֶל (’el, “unto”) before “the place” should, following Smr, Syriac, Targums, and Vulgate, be omitted in favor of ב (bet; בַּמָּקוֹם, bammaqom), “in the place.”

⁴ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 16:1.

⁵ tn The rules that governed the Passover meal are found in Exod 12:1-51, and Deut 16:1-8. The word translated “cook” (בָּשַׁל, bashal) here is translated “boil” in other places (e.g. Exod 23:19, 1 Sam 2:13-15). This would seem to contradict Exod 12:9 where the Israelites are told not to eat the Passover sacrifice raw or boiled. However, 2 Chr 35:13 recounts the celebration of a Passover feast during the reign of Josiah, and explains that the people “cooked (בָּשַׁל, bashal) the Passover sacrifices over the open fire.” The use of בָּשַׁל (bashal) with “fire” (אֵשׁ, ’esh) suggests that the word could be used to speak of boiling or roasting.

⁶ tn The words “on that day” are not in the Hebrew text; they are supplied in the translation for clarification (cf. TEV, NLT).

⁷ tn Heb “the seven weeks.” The translation uses a pronoun to avoid redundancy in English.