Historically, it seems clear that Jesus would have used unleavened bread at the Last Supper. The ancient Jews were instructed to use unleavened bread during the feast of Passover. This is scripturally and historically linked to the fact that, in their hasty exodus from Egypt, there was no time to fully knead the dough and allow the bread to rise before baking it (see Dt 16:3). Thus they baked it quickly without yeast.
The Passover meal that commemorated the Exodus was therefore to be eaten with unleavened bread (see Ex 29:2; Nm 9:11).
Theologically and spiritually, yeast, or leaven in the New Testament, is often equated with sin, impurity and hypocrisy (see Mt 16:6; Lk 12:1). And thus unleavened bread comes to symbolize sincerity, purity and integrity.
Regarding what the bread was like, we must keep in mind several factors. In the first place, wheat bread, which is most common today, was far less common in the ancient world. Breads were more often made from other grains such as barley. Second, bread can be baked in such a way that it has a dry, crackerlike quality. Or, bread can be baked in such a way that it has a doughy, more pitalike, quality. And this is so for both leaven and unleavened bread. Thus, other than affirming the bread at the Last Supper was unleavened, we cannot be utterly certain of its other qualities.
Unlike the flat matzo bread, no amount of stripes and piercings could hold Yeshua down. There was no pride in him at all, but he rose again, and is lifted to the right hand of the Father now in glory, exalted higher than any other name, because of the incredible sacrifice he made to free you and me from slavery, sin and death.
Bread of remembrance
In the Passover meal, part of the ceremony is to eat the matzo bread together and remind each other by saying, “This is the bread of affliction that our fathers ate in Egypt”. It symbolises affliction, slavery, and lack of luxury. It is designed, along with the whole Passover meal, to help the children of Israel re-enact the Passover event year after year, each generation telling the story to the next. It was an issue of remembering what God had done for them in rescuing them from slavery and death.
In time, Yeshua would hold this same Passover matzo up and say to his followers, not “This is the bread of affliction our fathers ate in Egypt”, but “This is my body, broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me”.
It is no coincidence that Yeshua’s death was at the time of the Passover sacrifice, for the whole redemption story was a grand echo of an even greater redemption to come, planned by the same composer who orchestrated the miraculous Exodus.
If there is one Passover food that can present a dining challenge, it would be matzoh, or unleavened bread. Though it really shines at breakfast when combined with eggs to make one of my wife’s favorites, fried matzoh, it makes a messy sandwich. The boards break easily, and she tells me it was no fun eating tuna salad or peanut butter on matzoh during Passover when she was growing up. Exactly why do Jewish people avoid leaven (yeast) for these eight days?
First, God commanded it. The Israelites were to eat the Passover lamb “with unleavened bread” (Ex.12:8). They also were to remove all leaven from their homes and eat unleavened bread for an additional seven days: “On the first day you shall remove leaven from your hous-es. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel” (v. 15).
The Hebrew word for “leaven” is hametz. Observant Jewish people around the world literally remove all hametz from their premises. Some even will sell their baked goods to a Gentile friend and buy them back after the holiday.
Second, the Jewish people “came out of the land of Egypt in haste” (Dt. 16:3) and had no time to wait for their bread to rise. So the holiday commemorates the Exodus with unleavened bread.
However, another plausible reason why leaven is forbidden is because God often associates it with sin.
Jesus told His disciples, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees” (Mt. 16:6). The disciples did not immediately grasp that He was speaking of the religious leaders’ doctrine, which was characterized by sin and hypocrisy. Jesus later told the Pharisees, “For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves” (23:15).
Jesus wanted His followers to be different. He wanted them to be holy. Later in the New Testament, the apostle Paul (also Jewish) wrote to the church at Corinth: “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” (1 Cor. 5:6). A tiny package of yeast can produce two large loaves of bread. Leaven permeates the other ingredients, begins to ferment, and expands. Sin is similar. It begins small, like a little germ or infection, then grows bigger and bigger. In many cases, it can totally overtake an individual.
God required His people to eat unleavened bread for eight days to remind them that they were to be separate from the world. God had redeemed them from bondage in Egypt via the 10 plagues. Then He commanded Israel, “You shall be holy, for I the Lᴏʀᴅ your God am holy” (Lev. 19:2). He also told them, “I am the Lᴏʀᴅ, I do not change” (Mal. 3:6).
He is the same “yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8) and still desires holiness from those who are called by His name.
Home > Index > Holidays > Miscellaneous > unleavened bread
Unleavened bread is bread that is made without leaven, which is another word for yeast. Yeast makes bread rise, so when bread is unleavened, it remains flat and dense. The Israelites ate unleavened bread as part of the Passover celebration. It was symbolic of the haste with which the Israelites fled Egypt during the Exodus—they left so quickly that the bread did not have time to rise. God instructed them to commemorate the event by eating unleavened bread: "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" (Deuteronomy 16:3). Other verses that command the eating of unleavened bread are found in Exodus 12:8; 29:2; and Numbers 9:11. Leaven is also a symbol of sin, and the way sin spreads through its host, affecting the entire organism. Even a small amount of leaven is sufficient to affect an entire lump of dough, and likewise, a little sin will affect an entire church, nation, or the whole of a person's life (Galatians 5:9). Sin starts out small, in the thoughts, and then affects the will and the actions, and leads eventually to spiritual death (James 1:14-15). Paul warns the Corinthians that "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" and exhorts them to "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" (1 Corinthians 5:6-7). Now, once a lump has been leavened, it is not possible to cleanse out the leaven, because it has permeated the dough. What Paul is asking the Corinthians to do in "cleansing out the old leaven" is impossible, for sin cannot be eliminated by human effort or obedience to the law. The law was given to make us aware of sin (Romans 3:20; Romans 7:7). The law is not meant to discourage us, but to encourage us toward Christ, who is the propitiation for our sins. His sacrifice on the cross paid for our sin and made it possible for us to remove the leaven from the lump, as Paul puts it. Another word for this is sanctification (Hebrews 10:10, 14). As we come into the light, and confess that we are indeed stained by sin, He is "faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Thankfully, unleavening is His work, not ours (Ephesians 2:8-10). The Bible teaches that we do not have the power to remove sin. It has permeated us completely, from birth, because—despite future good or evil actions—every person is born in sin simply because we are members of Adam's race. The first Adam brought this death to humanity, but the second Adam (Jesus Christ) brought life (1 Corinthians 15:22).
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