And as they did eat,.... The paschal lamb, and the unleavened bread, just at the conclusion of that feast:
Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it; beginning and instituting a new feast, to be kept in aftertimes, in commemoration of his sufferings and death, now near at hand;
and gave to them, the disciples,
and said, take, eat: the word eat is not in the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Persic, and Ethiopic versions, and is wanting in some copies:
this is body; a figure and representation of it;