Unleavened Bread
Overview
- Testament: Both
- Book: Leviticus, Exodus
- Chapters: Leviticus 23:6-8; Exodus 12-13
- Summary: The seven-day feast immediately following Passover, during which no leaven was eaten, commemorating Israel’s hasty departure from Egypt.
Details
The Feast of Unleavened Bread began on the fifteenth of Nisan (the day after Passover) and lasted seven days. All leaven was to be removed from Israelite homes before it began. The first and seventh days were holy convocations with no ordinary work permitted. The feast recalled the night of the Exodus, when Israel left Egypt so quickly there was no time for their bread to rise.
Paul explicitly connects unleavened bread to Christian living in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8: “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” The leaven/unleavened contrast becomes a metaphor for the old life of sin versus new life of holiness.
Cross-References
- Birth of Jesus — In Luke, the Passover-Unleavened Bread season frames Jesus’ final week
- Feast Days Appointed — The full calendar of appointed feasts
- Related books: Leviticus, Exodus 12-13, 1 Corinthians 5
Notes
- Leaven in the NT is consistently used as a metaphor for pervasive influence, usually negative (Matthew 16:6; Galatians 5:9).
- The Feast of Unleavened Bread and Passover were so closely linked in practice that the two names were used interchangeably by the first century.