Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

In my opinion, leavened bread was forbidden by God during the commemoration of the Passover for two primary reasons:

First, the prohibition against leaven was meant to bring to the memory of the Israelites the circumstances of the exodus, in which Israel departed from Egypt in haste, following the final plague of the death of all the Egyptian first-born. This hurried departure did not provide the time needed for the bread that the people took with them to be leavened with yeast and rise, as would normally be done with bread before consumption. The Israelites hurried because the Egyptian Pharaoh and the Egyptian people were eager for them to leave the land following the final plague, as recounted in Exodus 12:31-34.

Also, yeast (or leaven, as it is commonly called in the Bible) is used in Scripture as a figurative symbol of sin, since yeast itself is a bacterium that permeates the dough in which it is placed, just as sin, once it has been introduced into the life of people, corrupts their whole being, and makes them entirely unacceptable to God, requiring the redemption that God accomplished through the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus and Paul employed this imagery when Jesus spoke of the false teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees who opposed Him as leaven that people should avoid (Matthew 16:5-12), and when Paul compared the false teaching that people still had to obey the Law (in addition to their faith in Christ) in order to be saved to leaven (Galatians 5:1-12).

March 10 2016 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report