The Torah issues a distinctive command about the Passover sacrifice: "And a bone shall you not break in it" (Exodus 12:46). The Mekhilta asks a deceptively simple question — does this prohibition apply to all bones, or only to bones that still have meat on them?
The reasoning proceeds step by step. The Torah already states that the Israelites "shall eat the flesh on this night" (Exodus 12:8). The flesh referred to is clearly the meat on the outside of the bone. But what about the marrow — the flesh inside the bone? To access marrow, you must break the bone open.
If the prohibition against breaking bones applied only to bones with marrow inside, then an empty bone — one with no internal flesh — could be freely broken. The Mekhilta rejects this reading. The Torah says "a bone you shall not break" without qualification: whether or not it has flesh inside, whether or not it has meat still clinging to it. The prohibition is absolute. Every bone of the Pesach (Passover) lamb must remain intact.
This ruling creates a striking visual. The Passover lamb arrives at the table whole and leaves whole. Its skeleton is never shattered, never cracked open for marrow, never reduced to fragments. The rabbis understood this as a mark of dignity — the sacrifice that commemorates Israel's liberation must be treated with a completeness that mirrors the wholeness of the redemption itself. A broken bone would mar the symbol of an unbroken deliverance.