Leavenedand Unleavened in Old and New Testaments

Take the words leavened and unleavened. This article proposes to express how these words are used in the Old and New Testaments.

The word leavened in Hebrew from CHAMETZ means dough containing yeast to make bread. Yeast causes the dough to be fermented, risen, swollen. When the word “leavened” is applied to human characteristics one might say, “He or she is aroused or spiritually aroused, excited, awakened, perturbed or drawing public attention.” Leavened bread takes effort and must be kneaded, with a little kept to be added to the next baking.

On the other hand the word unleavened being MATSTAH, means unfermented, unrisen, flat, not sourced with yeast. In human parlance regarding our nature this word “unleavened” could indicate apathy, undisturbed, inactive, indolent, or one suffering mental bondage or paralysis. Unleavened bread is easily made, without effort or thought.

The words leavened and unleavened are used in the Old Testament to describe kinds of bread. In very ancient time, the eating of unleavened bread followed Passover (offering of pascal lamb), the first feast of the Jewish sacred year. It was inaugurated into the tabernacle/temple ceremonials. Unleavened bread following Passover was to be a memorial to commemorate the saving, sacrificial power of a God of love and the liberation of downtrodden, unrisen life of bondage and despair narrated in the Exodus story.


Unleavened Bread

Legend has it that, the congregation of Israel, about to leave Egytpian captivity was instructed to eat unleavened bread along with slaying a lamb and eating its flesh. “And unleavened bread…they shall eat.” “Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread.” “And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread, for in the selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt; therefore ye shall observe this day in your generations (= DOWR, DOR – a revolution of time) by the ordinance forever (= OLAM – a vanishing of point or time out of mind, and ALAM – to veil from sight) Exd. 12:17. “Seven days shall there be no leaven in your houses.” Exd. 12:19. “Moses said unto the people, Remember this day in which ye came out of Egypt, out of the land of bondage, for by strength of hand the Lord (Jehovah, Eternal, Beacon, Hayah – to exist) brought you out of this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten. This day came ye out in the month of Abib.” Exd. 13:3,4.

“This month (Abib) shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you; Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel saying, In the tenth day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb.” Exd.12,2,3. And ye shall keep it up until the fourteeth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.” Exd. 12.6. “In the evening” indicating the beginning of the fifteenth day Abib – see Exd. 12:7-11 for more details.

“Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover unto the Lord thy God: for in the month of Abib, the Lord thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night. Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the Passover unto the Lord thy God, of the flesh of the herd, in the place which the Lord shall choose to place his name there. Though 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…” Deut. 16:1-3.

So we see here the unleavened bread, the inactive or repressed man’s bread, void of exertion or cogitation is also the symbol of affliction. Hence we have it, from the 15th to 21st Abib is the Passover, the sacrifice of the lamb, and the feast of unleavened bread to remember the unrisen life of absolutism in bondage, and a compassionate indwelling sacrificial God that can liberate the human soul from the evil fruits of acquisition and power. All this is presented in a mental picture.

It is interesting to ponder another illustration concerning unleavened bread. In the early Hebraic picturesque drama, Lot (LOWT = a veil or concealed, dark coloured) when living in Sodom, invited visitors into his home, “And made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.”

The narrative is a delineation. The literary composition is telling us that there was only unrisen conscience in Sodom, a place of volcanic burning rocks. In this graphic form the men of the city were physically indifferent towards having a part in bringing forth new life. Plainly this is a vivid description of those unwilling to produce the fruits of the Spirit for the advancement and benefit of struggling humanity. Later in this written production of behavioral guidance a purposeful cry, in the inscribed Hebraic imaginative intellect wrote to the house of Judah, “Arise shine for thy light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” Sadly, such admonition was not understood or even heard in Sodom.

The Books of Exodus and Leviticus give details of the feast of Passover and unleavened bread. This was woven into the commands to build the tabernacle and its ceremonial. Some attention should be given here to clarify the reason for the earthly tabernacle, and also the separate use of leavened and unleavened bread. The Passover demonstrated the sacrificial life to redeem the human conscience, stolen when acquisition, called Cain in the Genesis saga, reared its ugly head and stole mankind’s self-determination.

The Israelite teachers, purported as one called Moses, were able to prepare a pattern or model, “a figure for the time then present” by borrowing from an earlier culture which happened to be Egyptian, Exd. 25:1-9. They kept a little of their inheritance (or comprehension) for future construction. Transforming their borrowings, of using objects in the night sky as tutorial symbols, they built their own discipline of corrective behavior. Henceforth the designers of this teaching-method looked forward and not backward lest they should become a pillar of salt, “a monument of an unbelieving soul.”

The ancient people devised a method of type and antitype. Built around the earthly tabernacle as a “pattern”, the feasts, ritual, sacrifices and graphic Old Testament Bible-history implied something much greater and more excellent. The basic form was type. The New Testament gave substance to the Old Testament-form, showing we are the true and original temple, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.” 1 Cor. 3:16. A cleansed earthly temple, for example, was intended to point to a cleansed heart and mind (the true holy of holies) where the law of love and liberty would abide – see Heb. 10:16 and Jer. 31:33. The temple built, the temple desecrated, pillaged, cleansed, plundered, re-built, re-dedicated are all vivid graphic records of our lives.


Leavened Bread

The earthly tabernacle, we are told, had two compartments – the holy place and the holy of holies or most holy. In the holy place, along with the seven lamps of the candlestick was a table “And thou shalt set upon the table showbread before me alway.” (note, not unleavened bread) – Exd. 25:30.

The word “shewbread” in Hebrew is from LECHEM meaning food for man or beast, bread, grain, loaf. “Shewbread” is also from LACHAM – to feed on, or figuratively to consume, enabling one to triumph and prevail over adversity. The shewbread on the tabernacle table, though veiled in philosophical meaning, being a pattern was a tutorial directive.

The lesson to eat spiritual food empowering one to arise, shake-off apathy with compassion, sincerity and integrity and fight the battle for freedom of conscience and self-resolution over restriction, hopefully to live creatively and in peace and goodwill towards others, is the story of redemption. This is brought to light in the New Testament Gospels with the protagonist, Jesus of Nazareth.

The shewbread was leavened bread, risen bread. It was/is critically important that shewbread be on display until messianic Light actually sweeps aside human nature’s dictates, making both Jew and Gentile one spiritual Jew with a circumcised heart.

The bread of the new meat offering was also leavened or shewbread. “After seven weeks of harvest number fifty days; and ye shall offer new meat offering unto the Lord.” See Lev. 23:15-17.


Leaven in the New Testament

Having briefly considered the eating of unleavened bread noted in the Old Testament’s implicit teaching-beacon, that is to say, the story of the earthly tabernacle and its service, we move on.

Leavened

The word “leavened” in the New Testament does not apply to bread. However, it still signifies something that has caused fermentation, arousal, excitement, or perhaps social uprising. Once yeast is added to dough it rises and rises. The Gospel writers saw a wonderful illustration here and wove it into a parable told by the character called Jesus. “Another parable spake he (Jesus) unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened (risen)” Matt.13:13 & Luke 13:20. If the yeast of insincerity is added to the dough of faithful contributions to humanity, on our behalf, then the dough, the matters of substance, will rise and rise.

Now if leaven can be added to love and liberty, it may also be added to error and destruction. Did the Gospels warn of this?

The Pharisees and Sadducees also had their leaven. “Jesus said unto them (his disciples), Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread. Which when Jesus perceived, he said…How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.” Matt. 16:6-12. A very similar picture is presented in Mark 8:14-21. Luke 12:1 records, Jesus warning his disciples “Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy.”

Jesus said of the scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem, “Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth,and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Matt. 15:7-9. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men.” See Matt. 23 for more details of the Pharisees malevolent leaven. The Sadducees fermentation, or a whipped-up excitement and confusion of the people, is clearly seen “when the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, (Jesus) they cried out saying, Crucify him, crucify him.” John19:6, Luke 23:21.


The leaven of hypocrisy and unleavened bread fall from grace.

When the messianic body was rejected and the Spirit of this excellence and honorableness quelled, the power of the leaven of hypocrisy crumbled and came to a close. The civil unrest that followed brought about the demise of Jerusalem’s temple and service. The long-held status quo of literalism was about to meet an eternal blow. Instead of a fundamentalist approach to indoctrination, a comprehending of the substance in ritual and ceremonial arose.

This prepared the way for us to understand the true meaning, the significance, and result of eating unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, torment and sorrow. At the time of Herod (Agrippa 1, grandson of Herod the Great) early in this era, “the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread).” Acts 12:1-3. Ah! In a stroke of the pen the misleading literalism of unleavened bread, so firmly embedded in the human psyche, was suddenly swept away, and reality glaringly revealed. Unleavened bread was confirmed to be the symbol of the unrisen conscience for tyranny, despotism and murder.



Contrasts of Understanding

Soon to be considered is the scene of Christ’s last supper. But it is important to observe the contrasting mental persuasion of the Jewish approach to the passover compared to that of the messianic body. “And the Jew’s Passover was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep, and doves, and changers of money sitting, And…he drove then out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them…make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise…Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jews answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and thou wilt rear it up in three days? But Jesus spake of the temple of his body.” John 2:13-21.

There were those incensed with materialism and gain, akin to fundamentalism and the products of the stale leaven of hypocrisy. Ah! But there is power in the changers’ money. Might and power absorbs the minds of conditioned literalists.

On the other hand, the character, Jesus, preoccupied with the spiritual or heavenly soul-temple, could not be understood. There was such a wide gulf of conception between the two dispositions that there could be no dialogue. Interesting isn’t it?

Another rather disturbing display from Matt. 26:1-4 is worth recalling. “And it came to pass when Jesus had finished all these sayings (see Matt. 25) he said unto his disciples. Ye know that after two days is the Passover, and the son of man is betrayed to be crucified. Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the place of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, And consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him. “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees,” a very decadent, malignant fermentation, indeed. The story reminds me of the tale of Pharaoh when Moses was born. “And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying , Every (Hebrew) son that is born ye shall cast into the river.” The Pharisees and Sadducees seem to have made no progress since the days of life in Egypt.


The Jews Passover in New Testament versus Christ’s last supper

With Acts 12:1-3 relating the positive meaning of unleavened bread it is alarming to note the difference between the Jew’s Passover of the New Testament and Christ’s last supper.

Matt. 26:18, “Jesus said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at the house of my disciples.” Now to Matt. 26:26 “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and break it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take eat; this is my body.” This “bread” is not unleavened bread. The word “bread” from ARTOS means, bread as raised or a loaf = shewbread. Here “bread” is also from AIRO, a verb meaning, to lift, to take-up; figuratively, to raise. So the text can read, “Take, eat, this risen bread is my body.”
Here is a little about the word “bread”. Remember, “I am the resurrection “ANASTASIS = raised to life again, rising again. “I am that bread of life” – risen bread, shewbread. See John 6:32-58 for more “bread”. For we being many are one bread, ARTOS, and one body – for we are all partakers of that one bread. 1 Cor. 10:17. And now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular. 1 Cor. 12:27.

Just to complete the picture of Christ’s last supper, Matt. 26:27,28 reads: “And he (Jesus) took the cup (POTERION = figuratively meaning, your lot in life) and gave thanks and gave it to them (the disciples) saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood (blood = HAIMA fig. the juice of grapes also meaning, my kindred) of the New Testament. The fruit of the vine being, “I am the true vine.” (“The vine of the earth in Revelation 14:19 is the counterfeit).


Leaven and Unleaven in the Epistles

The messages to the Corinthians and Galatians shall be written with the original meanings inserted.

“Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven (ZUME = ferment, agitations) leaveneth (ZUMOO = fermenteth) the whole lump.”

Purge out therefore the old leaven (the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees, Matt 16:12) that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened (AZUMOS = uncorrupted). For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Sacrificed (THUO = sacrificed by fire = lived the life of a burnt offering) – To those who deny me, “I came not to send peace but a sword.” Matt. 10:34 shows the spirit of self-sacrifice and ferment in the messianic body.

Therefore let us keep the feast (holy day) not with old leaven (the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy) neither with the leaven (ferment or arousal) of malice and wickedness; but with the unleaven (uncorrupted) bread of sincerity and truth.” 1 Cor. 5:6-8.

And to the Galatians the same message, “A little leaven, leaveneth the whole lump.” Gal. 5:9.


Conclusion

Matt. 26:27 tells us we are the kindred of the New Testament, “If ye be Christ’s then are ye Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.” The upright kindred of the New Testament offer as a gift or sacrifice their time, their life’s work, to the benefit, enlightenment and advancement of humanity.

Those who offer their life as a burnt offering do so for the remission of sins. Remission from APHESIS meaning - freedom, pardon, deliverance bringing salvation of the conscience. Sin from HAMARTA meaning offense, a negative particle or to miss the mark and not share the prize.

So, today, partake of the leavened bread, the showbread, freely offered to all. You will find it on the table in the Temple. You see, the showbread is innate. May your God bless you.