Unleavened Bread: The Feast of Unleavened Bread
An annual seven-day festival, beginning the day after Passover, when every trace of yeast was cleared from Israelite homes – a living
reminder of a hurried escape from Egypt and a lasting picture of leaving an old life of sin behind.
A Perpetual Memorial
The feast was established as a lasting ordinance: 'this day shall be for you a memorial day… throughout your generations you shall observe it as a statute, a perpetual ordinance' (Ex 12:14,17). Each generation kept it as though the escape were its own, telling the story to their children – 'It is because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt' (Ex 13:8,14-15) – and wearing it 'as a memorial between your eyes', never to be forgotten (Ex 13:9,16).
A memorial
never forgotten
Scripture calls this festival the "Feast of Unleavened Bread" (Ex 23:15; Lev 23:6). It was observed in Abib, the month when spring grain ripens (Ex 13:4, 34:18). By New Testament times, the names Passover and Unleavened Bread were used almost interchangeably to refer to the same season (Lk 22:1). It commemorated Israel's hasty exit, when the dough had no time to rise (Ex 12:8,39).
Keeping the Feast
On the eve of the feast every household searched out and removed all leaven; nothing made with yeast was eaten or found in the home for the full seven days (Ex 12:15,19-20). The first and seventh days were sacred assemblies with no ordinary work (Ex 12:16; Num 28:17-25), and within the week the first sheaf of the barley harvest was presented to the LORD as firstfruits (Lev 23:9-14).
Search for every crumb
and leave nothing behind
Jesus warned of the 'yeast of the Pharisees' – a little wrong teaching spreads quickly and leads many astray (Mt 16:12; Lk 12:1). Because 'Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed', believers must clear out the 'old leaven' of malice and wickedness (1 Cor 5:6-8); small compromises, tolerated quietly, spread until they shape the whole (Gal 5:9).
Fulfilment and Hope
Jesus kept the feast with His disciples; at the Last Supper, a meal of unleavened bread, He took bread and said, 'this is My body' (Mt 26:17-26; Lk 22:7-20), giving the bread new meaning as 'the bread of life' (Jn 6:35,48). The sinless Lamb, 'without blemish or spot' (1 Pet 1:19), fulfils what the flat bread pictured (1 Cor 5:7).
Christ, our
unleavened bread
Believers celebrate 'with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth' (1 Cor 5:8), continually clearing out the old (Col 3:5-9). The first sheaf anticipated the resurrection, 'the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep' (1 Cor 15:20); from that day Israel counted seven weeks to Pentecost (Lev 23:10-16; Deut 16:9-10), when the Spirit came on the church (Acts 2:1-4). In the sanctuary, too, grain offerings and the Bread of the Presence were unleavened (Lev 2:11, 24:5-9).
Reflection and Application
- Invite God to search out the hidden 'leaven' in your life, just as every Israelite home was examined (Ps 139:23-24).
- Purify yourself from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God (2 Cor 7:1).
- Throw off the sin that so easily entangles, and run with perseverance the race marked out for you (Heb 12:1).
- Offer yourself daily as a living sacrifice, no longer conforming to the old pattern of this world (Rom 12:1-2).