The Feast of Unleavened Bread · Chag HaMatzot
The Feast of Unleavened Bread
For seven days, no leaven in the house, and bread baked too fast to rise. Luke calls the whole eight-day span by one name: “the feast of unleavened bread, which is called the Passover”. Paul later takes the household chore of clearing out old leaven and runs its own logic straight onto the church.
One Feast, Two Names
Exodus 12:14-20: instituted the same night as Passover, and never really separated again
Passover and Unleavened Bread are two commands given in the same chapter, on the same night, and Scripture treats them as one occasion from the start. Passover is the fourteenth of the month: the lamb, slain and eaten. Unleavened Bread follows immediately, the fifteenth through the twenty-first: seven days with no leaven anywhere in an Israelite house. By the time of the Gospels the fusion is complete enough that Luke can name the whole span with a single title.
And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and ye shall keep it a feast to Jehovah: throughout your generations ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever. Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel. And in the first day there shall be to you a holy convocation, and in the seventh day a holy convocation; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done by you. And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day throughout your generations by an ordinance for ever. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even. Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a sojourner, or one that is born in the land. Ye shall eat nothing leavened; in all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread.The feast instituted: a memorial, an ordinance forever, seven days, and the penalty for eating leaven.
Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover.One name for both feasts: this is how the New Testament actually speaks of the week.
- 7 days15-21 Nisan, the feast's full span
- 2holy convocations, first day and seventh
- h4682matstsah, unleavened bread, 53 occurrences
- 1 nameLuke 22:1 for both feasts together
Seven Days Without Leaven
Exodus 13:3-10 and Leviticus 23:6-8: the ordinance restated, and folded into the whole calendar
And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand Jehovah brought you out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten. This day ye go forth in the month Abib. And it shall be, when Jehovah shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee, a land flowing with milk and honey, that thou shalt keep this service in this month. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to Jehovah. Unleavened bread shall be eaten throughout the seven days; and there shall no leavened bread be seen with thee, neither shall there be leaven seen with thee, in all thy borders. And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying, It is because of that which Jehovah did for me when I came forth out of Egypt. And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thy hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the law of Jehovah may be in thy mouth: for with a strong hand hath Jehovah brought thee out of Egypt. Thou shalt therefore keep this ordinance in its season from year to year.Moses retells the command the day of the exodus itself: no leavened bread, kept as a sign on the hand.
There shall no leavened bread, &c.--The words are elliptical, and the meaning of the clause may be paraphrased thus:--"For by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place, in such haste that there could or should be no leavened bread eaten."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Exodus 13:3
And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto Jehovah: seven days ye shall eat unleavened bread. In the first day ye shall have a holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work. But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto Jehovah seven days: in the seventh day is a holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work.The feast set inside the whole year's calendar of appointed times.
The care and strictness enjoined in this matter were designed, (1.) To make the feast the more solemn, and consequently the more taken notice of by their children, who would ask, "Why is so much ado made?" (2.) To teach us how solicitous we should be to put away from us all sin, 1 Cor. v. 7 .
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Puritan
Exodus 13:6-7
Two reasons for the ordinance stand side by side in the text, and neither erases the other. The bread was baked in haste, because Israel left Egypt with no time to let dough rise. And the law's own strictness, Henry notices, already reaches toward the reading Paul will give it: a house searched clean of leaven, on the way to becoming a picture of a life searched clean of sin.
The Bread of Affliction
Deuteronomy 16:3-4, 16: the loaf given its own name
Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life. And there shall be no leaven seen with thee in all thy borders seven days; neither shall any of the flesh, which thou sacrificest the first day at even, remain all night until the morning.The bread of affliction, eaten so the exodus is remembered for life.
Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before Jehovah thy God in the place which he shall choose: in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles; and they shall not appear before Jehovah empty:One of three pilgrimage feasts an Israelite male could not skip.
Bread of affliction - Because, being baked without leaven, it was unsavoury, and put them in mind of their afflictive bondage in Egypt.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Methodist
Deuteronomy 16:3
Deuteronomy gives the loaf a name Exodus and Leviticus do not: “the bread of affliction.” Plain, fast-baked bread, without the comfort of leaven, eaten deliberately so the memory of bondage in Egypt travels with every bite, every year, for as long as the nation exists.
What Leaven Is, and Why It Leaves the House
two Hebrew words, and the search that still happens every spring
The law legislates against two things, not one. שְׂאֹר seor is the leavening agent itself, the old dough or starter that makes bread rise; Exodus 12:15 and 19 both command it put away and kept out of the house. חָמֵץ chametz is the product of that agent, the bread already leavened; it is what a person is forbidden to eat. The house must be clear of the starter, not only the finished loaf.
Jewish households keep this to the present day. On the night before Passover, homes are searched for every trace of leaven by candlelight, and the last crumbs are burned the next morning: a custom called bedikat chametz, “the checking for leaven.” The Mishnah, the first written code of Jewish oral law, opens its whole Passover tractate with this search.
The search, from the site's own Hebraic floorMishnah Pesachim 1:1
“Before Passover, to this day, Jewish homes are cleaned of every crumb of leaven (chametz): the Mishnah opens its Passover tractate with the search for leaven by candlelight on the night before the feast (Pesachim 1:1), and the search is still done, traditionally by candle, with the last crumbs burned in the morning.”
Cut off - The penalty inflicted on those who transgressed the command may be accounted for on the ground that it was an act of rebellion; but additional light is thrown upon it by the typical meaning assigned to leaven by our Lord, Mat 16:6.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832-1869Presbyterian
Exodus 12:19
Barnes points straight at the reason leaven becomes a moral symbol rather than staying a kitchen ingredient: Jesus Himself gives it a typical meaning, warning His disciples to “beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matthew 16:6). Once the Lord names it a figure for corrupting teaching, Paul’s later use of the same picture for corrupting sin stands on ground Jesus already marked out.
Christ Our Passover
1 Corinthians 5:6-8: Paul does not invent the picture, he runs the custom's own logic
Paul is writing to a church that kept the actual yearly custom: searching a house clean of every trace of leaven before the feast. He does not compare the church to that chore. He takes the chore itself and hands it back to the Corinthians as an argument.
Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened. For our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ: wherefore 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.Purge the old leaven. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. Keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Christ our passover being sacrificed for us, and we having participated in the blessed fruits of that sacrifice to our comfort, let us keep the feast in a holy conversation, free from the leaven of malice towards our brethren and hypocrisy towards God, and with the unleavened bread of sincerity and love.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Puritan
1 Corinthians 5:8
Let us keep the feast - Let us feed on him by faith. Here is a plain allusion to the Lord's supper, which was instituted in the room of the passover.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
1 Corinthians 5:8
Wesley draws the line straight to the Lord’s Supper, kept “in the room of the passover.” The feast Israel keeps with an actual clean house is, in Paul’s hands, the same feast the church keeps with a clean life: not with old leaven, not with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Buried in the Feast
the crucifixion week falls inside this feast, and a picture some teachers draw from the loaf itself
Luke 22:1 already places the whole crucifixion week inside the fused feast: the Last Supper, the trial, the death and the burial all fall within Passover and Unleavened Bread, kept as one occasion. That timing is walked in full on the Last Supper’s own page and is not repeated here.
A picture some modern teachers draw from the loaf itself is worth naming honestly, because it is widely taught and easily overclaimed. Matzah, hand-baked or machine-baked, is pierced through with small holes and marked with baked stripes, done so the dough cannot rise and bakes through evenly. Teachers in the Messianic and evangelical stream, including Chuck Missler and Rabbi Jason Sobel, read the pierced, striped loaf against Isaiah 53:5, “with his stripes we are healed,” and against the piercing of Zechariah 12:10 and John 19:37.
Held honestly
This is a modern reading of a modern loaf’s baking method, not a claim about what unleavened bread looked like or meant at Sinai. No rabbinic source assigns this meaning to the bread, and no biblical text describes the loaf’s appearance at all. The page names the teaching, and names who teaches it, without presenting it as a scriptural fact.
The Words Underneath
the Hebrew behind the feast, each a door to its full word study
matstsâh: properly, sweetness
Matstsah, unleavened bread: plain flour-and-water dough baked too fast to rise. The word the feast is named for.
53 occurrences · open the word study →
sᵉʼôr: barm or yeast-cake (as swelling by fermentation)
Seor, the leavening agent itself: old dough or starter, commanded put away, not only the finished loaf.
5 occurrences · open the word study →
châmêts: ferment, (figuratively) extortion
Chametz, the leavened product: what results once seor has worked through the dough, forbidden to be eaten.
11 occurrences · open the word study →
The Voices
the commentators quoted above, with the work named
Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)
Ties the ordinance's own strictness to Paul's later reading of it, and gives 1 Corinthians 5:8 its fullest gloss on this page.
Commentary on the Bible (1832)
The short, exact gloss on “the bread of affliction.”
Notes, Explanatory and Practical (1832-1869)
Points from the cut-off penalty straight to Jesus' own use of leaven as a figure, Matthew 16:6.
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
Unpacks the haste behind Exodus 13:3's command.
Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)
Draws the direct line from “keep the feast” to the Lord's Supper.
Among modern teachers, Chuck Missler taught the spring feasts as fulfilled at the first coming, Unleavened Bread named among them (Learn the Bible in 24 Hours), and Rabbi Jason Sobel reads the same calendar from inside its Jewish setting in Aligning with God’s Appointed Times.
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