Bible Studies

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Unleavened Bread
Part Three of the Eight Feasts of YHWH
By David Wiseman
“And you shall observe the unleavened bread, for on this very day I brought out your armies from the land of Egypt. And you shall observe this day for your generations, a statute forever.” (LITV) Exodus 12:17
The Feast of Unleavened Bread is the simplest of all the feasts. But there is an important picture in the feast of Unleavened Bread, or Matza. I Corinthians 5:7-8 says, “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. 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.” (KJV)
In this passage Paul compares leaven to sin. Exodus 12:15 says, “You shall eat unleavened bread seven days. Indeed, on the first day you shall cause leaven to cease from your houses. For anyone eating anything leavened, that soul shall be cut off from Israel, from the first day until the seventh day.”
The “rabbis” have made a ridiculous number of rules and regulations for Unleavened Bread. Everything from not being allowed to eat beans and rice, because they swell, to not being allowed to eat any grain that has been in water for more than eighteen minutes. All of these are ridiculous. It says, “on the first day you shall cause leaven to cease from your houses.” Leaven is what is called yeast. Often, other leavening agents, such as baking soda, are included. But that is the extent of what is not allowed.
The first day of Unleavened Bread is the day after Passover, when the atoning sacrifice is made. After the sacrifice is made, and only then, the leaven, or sin, is removed from the houses. This is parallel to what Y’shua said in John 8:11, “She said, ‘No man, Lord.’ And Jesus said unto her, ‘Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.’” But it is only after atonement is made that the sin can be removed.
Then Unleavened Bread is eaten for seven days. It is not that after a while sinning is okay again. As we see in Genesis 2:2, “And on the seventh day God completed His work which He had made. And He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made.” (LITV) Seven is the number of completion. The seven days without leaven is symbolic of living a whole life for YHWH.
Exodus 12:16, “And on the first day shall be a holy convocation, and in the seventh day a holy convocation shall be to you. Not any work may be done on them. Only what must be eaten by your soul, that alone may be done by you.” The first and last days are High Sabbaths, especially holy days to remember YHWH. These are days to focus on Him, to think about His sacrifice, and to remember why we are not eating leaven. It is also a time to think about the leaven in our lives, and to ask YHWH to help remove the leaven from our lives. This is the essence of the Feast of Matza.
According to Numbers 28 there is a sacrifice to be made every day during Unleavened Bread, and in Deuteronomy 16:16 He commands, “Three times in a year shall all your males appear before Jehovah your 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.” (LITV)
This reminder to not appear empty, that is, without sacrifice, is something to be taken very seriously during Matza, as it is a time to praise Y’shua for His sacrifice.
There are three passages in the gospels regarding Unleavened Bread that do not make sense. But they all occur the same way. Matthew 26:17, “Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the Passover?” (KJV)
Mark 14:12, “And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the Passover, his disciples said unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the Passover?” (KJV)
Luke 22:7, “Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the Passover must be killed.”
The only thing that doesn’t make sense about any of these is that the Passover is killed on Passover, which is not the same as the first day of Unleavened Bread. According to Exodus 12 Passover is the fourteenth day of the month of Aviv, and the first day of Unleavened Bread is the fifteenth day of Aviv. This is not the kind of mistake that puts doubt on the worth of the books themselves, because the mistake is so obvious. But the question remains, what did the authors have in mind when they said this?
In Acts 12 there is another curious statement about Unleavened Bread. Acts 12:3-4, “And seeing that it was pleasing to the Jews, he added also to seize Peter—and they were the days of unleavened bread—also capturing him, he put him into prison, delivering him to four sets of four soldiers to guard him; intending to bring him up to the people after Passover.”
In this case, the King James Version translators mistakenly translated the Greek word Pascha, a transliteration of the Hebrew Pesach, as Easter. They did this because the context is “the days of unleavened bread.” They did not realize, though, that all seven days of Matza are often called the days of Passover. The also did not know that the resurrection took place at the Feast of First Fruits, and if that were the day being referred to, the author would have called it First Fruits, not Passover. Not only that, but why would Herod wait until after a Christian or pagan celebration to prosecute? The only reason he had to wait was because of the Jewish holiday, when the Jewish people would not participate.
The great image of this feast is getting rid of the sin that stained one’s life until meeting Y’shua. The teaching of Matza is “Go! Go! And sin no more!”
Amein

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