Unleavened Bread is the bread baked without yeast that Israel ate with the Passover lamb and throughout the seven days that followed.
The Lord commanded them to put away leaven from their houses and to eat unleavened bread as a memorial of the night they left Egypt in haste.
The feast is bound to Passover: judgment, blood, and a clean break from the old life.
Paul told the church to cleanse out the old leaven,
because Christ our Passover has been sacrificed,
and to keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
On the night of the Exodus there was no time for dough to rise. Israel ate the lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, belts fastened, staff in hand.
The Lord then set the Feast of Unleavened Bread beside Passover as a seven-day statute. On the first day they were to remove leaven from their houses. Whoever ate what was leavened would be cut off from Israel. The bread of affliction would remind them, all their days, of the day the Lord brought them out.
Jesus kept this feast. In the upper room, during the meal of Unleavened Bread, He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body.”
The apostles later used the image for the Christian life. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. The church is to be a new lump, unleavened, because the Lamb has already been slain. Unleavened bread is therefore history, holiness, and a call: leave the old mixture behind and live as those who have been brought out.
- Unleavened bread belongs to Passover and remembers the haste of redemption.
- Leaven had to be removed from the house; the break with Egypt was to be complete.
- The feast lasted seven days: a full week of remembered deliverance.
- Jesus took unleavened bread in the upper room and gave it as His body.
- In the New Testament, leaven often pictures sin and false teaching that spreads.
- The church keeps the meaning of the feast by sincerity and truth, not by a return to shadows.
- Christ the Passover Lamb is the reason the old leaven must go.
- Bread of Haste – Baked without waiting for the dough to rise, because redemption would not delay.
- Bread of Affliction – Eaten in remembrance of bondage and of the night God brought them out.
- Removal of Leaven – Every trace of the old mixture was to be put out of the house.
- Seven Days – A complete period of holy eating after the Passover night.
- Cut Off – Eating leaven during the feast brought exclusion from the congregation.
- Upper Room – The bread Jesus broke was the bread of this feast.
- Sincerity and Truth – The church’s unleavened life in light of the slain Lamb.
- Exodus 12:8, 15, 17-20 – “They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it… Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel… And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt… In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses.”
- Exodus 12:34, 39 – “So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders… And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait…”
- Exodus 13:6-8 – “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord… You shall tell your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’”
- Deuteronomy 16:3 – “You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt.”
- Leviticus 23:6 – “And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.”
- Luke 22:1, 7, 19 – “Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover… Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed… And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”
- Matthew 26:17 – “Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, ‘Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?’”
- 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 – “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
- Galatians 5:9 – “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.”
- Matthew 16:6, 12 – “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees… Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
- Luke 12:1 – “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”
- Exodus 12:18-19 – No leaven found in the houses for seven days; the sojourner and the native alike must keep the statute.
- Numbers 28:17 – “And on the fifteenth day of this month is a feast. Seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten.”
- Joshua 5:10-11 – Israel kept the Passover in the land and ate of the produce the day after—unleavened cakes and parched grain.
- 2 Chronicles 30:21-22 – Judah kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with great gladness in the days of Hezekiah.
- John 6:35 – “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.’”
- Matthew 13:33 – The kingdom parable of leaven hidden in flour—an image of spreading influence, used there of the kingdom itself.
Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses. Israel ate in haste because God was bringing them out. The church is told to cleanse out the old leaven because Christ our Passover has already been sacrificed. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Do not keep malice and evil in the house. Keep the feast with sincerity and truth. The bread Jesus broke was the bread of this memorial, and He gave it as His body. Remember the night you were brought out. Leave the old mixture behind. Live as a new lump, because the Lamb has been slain.
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