The Showbread: Who They Represent, Were They Unleavened, and

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 

T S: W T R,

W T U,  W I M

istorians tell us that in the time of Jesus the twelve breads (later called the

“Showbread” in English) were actually unleavened—even though they were

always called “breads” in scripture. Made from the grain oerings of the Israelites,

these breads were always present in the Temple. In this Course, we will consider if

God really meant for these twelve breads to be made unleavened when He gave His

commandment to Moses, or if He intended something else. Along these same lines,

we will consider if making the Showbread unleavened was one of the doctrines of the

Pharisees who, as the Messiah said, made void the word of God by their traditions

(Mark 7:13).

e twelve breads were a part of the pattern that God gave to Moses and, just

like other aspects of the Tabernacle and Temple, they point forward to spiritual truth

in the New Covenant:

NAS

Hebrews 8:5 who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly

things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect

the tabernacle; for, “See,” He says, “that you make all things accord-

ing to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.”

NAS

Hebrews 10:1 For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the

good things to come and not the very form of things, can never by

the same sacrices year by year, which they oer continually, make

perfect those who draw near.

Before we look at what these breads foreshadow and the “good things” to which they

point, it’s crucial to rst see what these breads were in the natural or literal sense.

NAS

1 Corinthians 15:46 However, the spiritual is not rst, but the

natural; then the spiritual.

e reason it’s so critical to see what these twelve natural breads in the Temple point-

ed to is they show forth God’s plan and pattern for the spiritual bread, being all those

who love Him and are lled with His spirit.

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Important doctrines have been clouded by a failure to understand the dierence

between the word “bread” in its normal usage as daily leavened bread and its gura-

tive usage, when on rare occasions it refers to something that is actually unleavened.

is Course sets out to make this dierence clear, because understanding it will

help shed light on many scriptures and therefore on various truths. ese truths

include what Jesus intended with the Last Supper bread, what the twelve Temple

breads pointed to spiritually, and what “breaking bread” referred to for early Jewish

believers. It even sheds more light on how the modern-day ritual of Communion (or

“Blessed Eucharist”) with unleavened bread was inherited from Rome and was not a

ritual kept by the early Messianic Jews.

e Twelve Breads in the Natural Sense

ese twelve breads, or Showbread, were made from the grain that the Israelites

would harvest from their elds and bring into the Temple as tithes and oerings

in “an everlasting covenant for the sons of Israel” (Leviticus 24:8). In King David’s

day, they were baked by the Levite family of the Kohathites (1 Chronicles 9:32)

and brought fresh each Sabbath into the Holy Place within the Temple. ere, the

priests would divide and partake of the previous week’s twelve breads that were now

replaced by the new ones.

God commanded that this oering be continually in His presence, near to where

He symbolically dwelt. e new breads were placed in two rows on the golden over-

laid table of Showbread.

e McClintock and Strong Cyclopedia explains the various items in the Holy

Place of the Temple, including the twelve breads:

e table stood in the sanctuary, together with the seven branched

candlestick and the altar of incense. Its position, according to Jo-

sephus (Ant. iii, 6, 6), was on the north side of the sanctuary, not

far from the veil that opened into the most holy place. Besides the

twelve loaves, the showbread table was adorned with dishes, spoons,

bowls, etc., which were of pure gold (Exod. XXV, 29). ese, how-

ever, were evidently subsidiary to the loaves, the preparation, pre-

sentation, and subsequent treatment of which manifestly constitut-

ed the ordinance of the showbread.

170

A container of frankincense was initially set upon each of these two rows of bread;

later its contents were placed on the altar in the re (Leviticus 24:5–9) as a memo-

170 McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia, vol. 9, p. 710.

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rial oering to God. Aaron and his descendants would then eat the bread. Together,

the Showbread and frankincense were called a “re oering,” even though only the

frankincense actually went into the re (Leviticus 24:9).

e table itself upon which these twelve hallowed breads were placed had a turbu-

lent history; the scriptural and historical details remain somewhat uncertain. It was

most likely taken away when Babylon destroyed the Temple in 586 BC; then after

the Babylonian captivity it was probably restored to Jerusalem around 519 BC (Ezra

5:14; 15: 6:5).

e rst-century Jewish historian Josephus further explained the table’s history

that took place a few centuries after the Jews returned from their captivity in Baby-

lon. He wrote that the king of Egypt, Ptolemy Philadelphus (283 BC–246 BC), was

seeking to procure all the books of the world for a library in Alexandria. Ptolemy

wanted the Old Testament Hebrew scriptures translated into Greek so they would

be accessible to most people. To encourage the High Priest Eleazar to be amenable to

this, he freed approximately 120,000 Jews who, years before, had been taken captive

by the Persians and were later brought to Egypt as slaves. He also ordered that an

elaborate Showbread table be made out of solid gold, along with other vessels as gifts

for the Temple in Jerusalem.

171

To fulll Ptolemy’s translation request, the Israelite High Priest Eleazar sent 72

Jewish scholars (six from each tribe) to perform this task. e result—the Septua-

gint—pleased Ptolemy and all Greek-speaking Jews living in Alexandria, Israel, and

throughout the Diaspora.

e solid gold table ordered by Ptolemy was meant to replace the wooden table

(which was overlaid with gold) that was still in the Temple (Antiquities 12.2.8).

is may explain why the Old Testament Hebrew scriptures say the table was wood

overlaid with gold (Exodus 25:23, 24), yet the Greek Septuagint translation for these

verses leaves out the wood, saying it was pure gold.

Years later the Maccabees wrote of the evil king Antiochus Epiphanes attacking

Israel and taking the vessels from the house of the Lord (around 167 BC), including

the Showbread table (1 Maccabees 1:20–25). Subsequently the Maccabees brought

in a new table for the Showbread (1 Maccabees 4:48, 49).

In 70 AD, when Israel was conquered by Rome and the Temple that had been

rebuilt by Herod was destroyed, the Showbread table was carried to Rome and placed

in a new temple built by the emperor Vespasian. McClintock and Strong write that

the table later survived a re there and then was subsequently taken by the Vandals

171 Whiston, e New Complete Works of Josephus, “Jewish Antiquities,” 2.2.1–11, pp. 388–393.

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to Africa. Later it was then said to have been taken to Constantinople (520 AD) and

from there eventually remitted back to Jerusalem.

172

e Twelve Breads Are Symbolic of the Twelve Tribes

Josephus and the rst-century Jewish philosopher Philo both believed that the twelve

breads symbolized the twelve months of the year. However, no scriptural basis exists

for this belief. In the law given to Moses, God repeatedly directed him to use the

number twelve in the Tabernacle to represent the twelve tribes of Israel.

Albert M. Shulman in his Gateway to Judaism states the reason for

twelve breads: “for the twelve tribes of Israel”

173

e McClintock and Strong Cyclopedia concurs with this understanding of the Show-

bread:

e twelve loaves plainly answer to the twelve tribes (comp. Revela-

tion 22:2). But, taking this for granted, we have still to ascertain the

meaning of the rite, and there is none which is left in Scripture so

wholly unexplained.

174

Since we always want to prove our doctrine using the scriptures, let’s see what they

show. Notice below in all of these scriptures given to Moses and in many concerning

the Tabernacle, the number twelve keeps appearing in reference to the twelve tribes:

NAS

Exodus 24:4 And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD.

en he arose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot

of the mountain with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.

NAS

Exodus 28:9 “And you shall take two onyx stones and engrave

on them the names of the sons of Israel,

NAS

Exodus 28:10 six of their names on the one stone, and the

names of the remaining six on the other stone, according to their

birth.

172 McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia, vol. 10, p. 153.

173 Shulman, Gateway to Judaism, vol. 1, p. 41, s.v. “e Table of Showbread.”

174 McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia, vol. 9, p. 711, s.v. “Showbread.”

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e names of these twelve tribes of Israel were also engraved like seals on these twelve

stones on the high priest’s garment:

NAS

Exodus 28:15 “And you shall make a breastpiece of judgment,

the work of a skillful workman; like the work of the ephod you shall

make it: of gold, of blue and purple and scarlet material and ne

twisted linen you shall make it.

NAS

Exodus 28:17 “And you shall mount on it four rows of stones;

the rst row shall be a row of ruby, topaz and emerald;

NAS

Exodus 28:21 “And the stones shall be according to the names

of the sons of Israel: twelve, according to their names; they shall

be like the engravings of a seal, each according to his name for the

twelve tribes.

is description of the high priest with twelve stones on his garment points forward

to Christ in type (John 15:13) as the true high priest, keeping the sons of Israel (the

twelve stones) close to his heart as he yields to God in the ministry that he was called to:

NAS

Exodus 28:29 “And Aaron shall carry the names of the sons of

Israel in the breastpiece of judgment over his heart when he enters

the holy place, for a memorial before the LORD continually.

NAS

Exodus 28:38 “And it shall be on Aaron’s forehead, and Aaron

shall take away the iniquity of the holy things which the sons of

Israel consecrate, with regard to all their holy gifts; and it shall al-

ways be on his forehead, that they may be accepted before the

LORD.

Time and time again we see this number twelve pointing back to the Israelite peo-

ple—the nation descended from Abraham that was walking in the covenant:

NAS

Numbers 1:44 ese are the ones who were numbered, whom

Moses and Aaron numbered, with the leaders of Israel, twelve men,

each of whom was of his father’s household.

NAS

Numbers 7:84 is was the dedication oering for the altar

from the leaders of Israel when it was anointed: twelve silver dishes,

twelve silver bowls, twelve gold pans,

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NAS

Deuteronomy 1:23 “And the thing pleased me and I took

twelve of your men, one man for each tribe.

NAS

Joshua 4:8 And thus the sons of Israel did, as Joshua com-

manded, and took up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan,

just as the LORD spoke to Joshua, according to the number of the

tribes of the sons of Israel; and they carried them over with them

to the lodging place, and put them down there.

From this, it’s abundantly clear that these twelve breads point to the twelve tribes.

is is assuredly not to cause anyone who is not of Israel to feel excluded from God’s

plan, for God is no respecter of persons. God did not call Abraham because of his

DNA, but because of his heart for God and his willingness to be led by Him.

When God summoned Abraham, nobody else was willing to walk with Him. God

called him in part because He knew Abraham would command his children after him

(Genesis 18:19). Although the Israelites often fell short of God’s will, such as in the wil-

derness, they were the only nation that sought to truly walk with God, and His mercy was

with them. A necessary part of God’s plan was to have a separated people out of which to

bring the Messiah. Other nations were unwilling to walk with God at this time, but His

plan was to use Israel and the Messiah as a light to the nations (Isaiah 42:6, 49:6, 60:3).

Keeping Israel separate from the ungodly nations was crucial so that it would not become

corrupted before the Messiah could fulll God’s plan of redemption for all people.

is requirement for separation from the nations changed after the Messiah came

and fullled God’s plan; this removed the wall of separation between the Jewish New

Covenant believers and the believers among the nations (Galatians 3:28, Ephesians

2:14). For several years after the Resurrection, Peter refused to eat with Gentiles until

the Lord gave him a vision, which he understood to mean that the believing Gentiles

were no longer to be considered unclean (Acts 10). He realized this after the Holy

Spirit was poured out on those uncircumcised Gentiles who believed (Acts 10:44–46;

11:1–18) and he was then able to move forward in New Covenant understanding.

Now returning to the number twelve, the Messiah also chose twelve sons of Is-

rael, probably as a spiritual fulllment of what the twelve tribes were called to:

NAS

Matthew 10:1 And having summoned His twelve disciples, He

gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to

heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.

NAS

Matthew 10:2 Now the names of the twelve apostles are these:

e rst, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; and

James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother;

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And concerning heaven and the New Covenant description of it, we see the twelve

tribes represented there as well:

NAS

Revelation 21:12 It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates,

and at the gates twelve angels; and names were written on them,

which are those of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel.

When Judas died, Peter considered it important to keep the number of apostles at

twelve, so one more apostle—Matthias—was chosen (Acts 1:15–26).

Why It Matters Whether ese Twelve Breads Were Leavened or Not

Now that we’ve seen that the twelve breads denitively point to the twelve tribes of Is-

rael, let’s turn our attention to why it matters whether the breads were leavened or not.

Some argue that Jesus eating bread at the Last Supper (which they believe was

the Passover) would have been ne, because in the Old Testament scriptures matzah

was sometimes called “bread.” ey say that the “bread of God,” which was given as

a re oering on the altar to God, was commanded by Him to be made unleavened;

yet it was sometimes referred to guratively as “bread.”

Others also argue that, since they believe the Showbread was matzah and was

always called “bread” in scripture, it would have been normal for the Jewish disciples

to announce that they and Jesus had eaten bread at Passover. ese people claim that

bread is bread, which can mean either unleavened or leavened. But even today, one

would never go around the orthodox sections of Jerusalem announcing they were

eating bread during Passover, and in Jesus’s day the Jewish nation was much more

strict concerning the laws of Moses.

ese twelve breads were a commandment of God that pointed to spiritual

truths in the New Covenant, just as those things in the rst covenant under Moses

(the Passover, three Festivals, sacrices, altar, lamp stand, etc.) point forward and

show spiritual truth in the New Covenant.

If the Last Supper was not the Passover, and Jesus was therefore eating regular

bread as all the scriptures show, then it shows that someone else came up with the rit-

ual of Communion using unleavened bread; it was not Jesus or the Jewish disciples.

Jesus said some of the Pharisees’ traditions made the word of God void. One

of these traditions was likely their making of the twelve breads unleavened. is

changed the breads to matzah, voiding the word of God by leaving no typology that

could accurately be drawn out.

Typology is a method of biblical interpretation whereby an element

found in the Old Testament is seen to pregure one found in the

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New Testament. e initial one is called the type and the fulllment

is designated the antitype. Either type or antitype may be a person,

thing, or event, but often the type is messianic …

175

A simple example would be the lamb sacrices being a “type” of Christ, who was

called the “lamb of God” and also Christ “our Passover.” He was the fulllment of

what these sacricial lambs pregured.

Below we will see which typology ts better for these twelve breads that repre-

sent the twelve tribes: regular leavened breads or matzah.

Moses, David, and all the scriptures continually refer to these loaves as “bread.” e

Messiah and Paul also called them bread. If these twelve breads were commanded

by God to be unleavened, that would point out certain spiritual truths. If they were

leavened, that would indicate other spiritual truths and types.

But the fact is that in the scriptures, He does not command for them to be either

unleavened or leavened. God leaves this mysteriously unspoken. erefore, it would

have been the legal decision of the Israelite leaders throughout history to decide how

the twelve breads were made.

However, while many scriptures refer to these twelve breads as “bread” (lechem

in Hebrew), not a single scripture calls them “matzah” (unleavened). is alone is a

huge hint as to their original makeup at the time the instruction was given to Moses.

If God had expected the twelve breads to be made as matzah, He would not have

called them “bread” without qualifying that they were to be unleavened. If God re-

quired this, clearly He would have commanded it to Moses and made it unambigu-

ous for future leaders and other believers.

While it is true that certain rare oerings were referred to guratively as “bread”

when they were actually matzah, we will see later in this Course that in each of those

instances, God clearly qualied the “bread” to be matzah.

e twelve Temple breads (Showbread) are dierent, though, because they were

never once called “matzah,” nor were they commanded to be made without leaven,

whereas the “bread of God” (such as in Leviticus 21:6) that was placed directly on

the altar as a re oering to the Lord was commanded by God always to be made

without leaven. erefore, the word “bread” in the phrase “bread of their God” is

obviously being used guratively.

175 Adapted from eopedia.com, s.v. “Biblical typology.”

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NAS

Leviticus 2:11 ‘No grain oering, which you bring to the

LORD, shall be made with leaven, for you shall not oer up in

smoke any leaven or any honey as an oering by re to the LORD.

NAS

Leviticus 21:6 ‘ey shall be holy to their God and not profane

the name of their God, for they present the oerings by re to the

LORD, the bread of their God; so they shall be holy.

e dierence is this: e twelve breads (Showbread) were not oered in the re to

God, but rather they were eaten by the priests. Only the frankincense in the bowls

on top of the breads actually went in the re to God (Leviticus 24:7), so no com-

mandment or any inferred command existed for these twelve breads to be made

unleavened.

Pharisaic Tradition at the “Breads” Are to Be Unleavened

If you read Josephus or Philo, who both lived near the time of Christ, you’ll notice

that these breads were unleavened at that time, as the authoritative McClintock and

Strong Cyclopedia relates:

II. e Bread and its Signicance. — Whether the bread was to be

leavened or unleavened is not said. e Jewish tradition holds it

to have been unleavened (Josephus, Ant. iii, 6, 6; 10, 7; Philo, De

Congr. V, 1); and as Josephus and Philo could scarcely be ignorant

of what on such a matter was customary in their time, it is not to

be doubted that, according to the later practice at least, the bread

was unleavened, aording ground for the inference that the same

was the case also in earlier times.

176

McClintock and Strong Cyclopedia says that since (according to Josephus and Philo)

the breads were unleavened at that time, it could be inferred that they were also un-

leavened in earlier times. Our concern is not with how these breads were made dur-

ing the rule of the Pharisees, but with how they were made under the more spiritual

leaders such as Moses and David before the legalism of the Pharisees was established.

Josephus and Philo both lived during the time when the Pharisees exercised

much control, and Jesus often rebuked the Pharisees and their scribes because they

forced certain traditions on the people that were not from God. Jesus spoke of this

as he quoted from the Jewish prophet Isaiah:

176 McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia, vol. 9, p. 711, s.v. “Showbread.”

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NAS

Mark 7:7 ‘But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doc-

trines the precepts of men.’

Josephus and other sources documented the Pharisees’ great power over their people

during the time of Christ. e Sadducees, descended from the high priestly lineage

of Aaron through Zadok, were given authority over the twelve breads according to

God’s law. ey were seen as a wealthy ruling class who had some authority as min-

isters in the Temple, but the Pharisees exerted even more control, which they used to

instill their doctrines, as Josephus relates:

What I would now explain is this, that the Pharisees have delivered

to the people a great many observances by succession from their

fathers, which are not written in the law of Moses; and for that

reason it is that the Sadducees reject them and say that we are to

esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the writ-

ten word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradi-

tion of our forefathers. (298) And concerning these things it is that

great disputes and dierences have arisen among them, while the

Sadducees are able to persuade none but the rich, and have not the

populace obsequious to them, but the Pharisees have the multi-

tude on their side;

177

Jesus also bears witness to this, telling how the scribes and the Pharisees inserted

themselves into the place of authority by taking the “chair” of Moses:

NAS

Matthew 23:2 saying, “e scribes and the Pharisees have seat-

ed themselves in the chair of Moses;

It must also be remembered that the Pharisees were jealous of the Sadducees and

greatly despised them (this can be seen both in the New Testament and in the Tal-

mud). e Pharisees may have been jealous of the Sadducees’ authority over these

hallowed breads (see also Ezekiel 44:15, 16), and this jealousy probably led in part to

the eventual making of the twelve breads as matzah, without leaven.

e legalistic Pharisees could have felt justied in wanting these breads to be

more “holy” by making them unleavened. is would also have forced the Sadducees

to then eat the much less avorful matzah (i.e., the “bread of aiction” as mentioned

in Deuteronomy 16:3). is parallels the Roman Catholic Church changing the

177 Whiston, e New Complete Works of Josephus, “Jewish Antiquities,” 13.10.6, p. 441.

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Communion bread from leavened to unleavened after the ninth century.

178

ese

two disparate groups both preferred the unleavened bread of aiction—the bread of

liturgy and ritual—over the more pleasing (leavened) breads of God’s presence and

true spiritual communion with Him.

Below, Josephus writes of the Essenes and their regular bread (not matzah) service

which, as we saw in Course 6, emulated the Showbread:

ey work until about 11 A.M. when they put on ritual loincloths

and bathe for purication. en they enter a communal hall,

where no one else is allowed, and eat only one bowlful of food for

each man, together with their loaves of bread. ey eat in silence.

Afterwards they lay aside their sacred garment and go back to work

until the evening. At evening they partake dinner in the same man-

ner. During meals they are sober and quiet and their silence seems a

great mystery to people outside.

179

A historical connection runs from the Zadokite priests under David (who I believe

ate their Showbread leavened as it had been since the time of Moses) all the way

down to the Sadducees, then to the Essenes, and thus to the Dead Sea Sect (who all

ate regular leavened bread in their service that emulated the Showbread).

Course 6 documented that the Dead Sea sect was another Jewish group that

held a reverent service with bread and wine that most likely emulated the Showbread

and denitely pointed to a Messianic banquet. Most scholars agree that Josephus’s

account of the Essenes shows a close and similar belief system to the Dead Sea Sect.

Judaic scholar Lawrence Schiman states that the Dead Sea Sect was probably

started by Sadducees.

180

e Sadducees derived their name from Zadok (meaning

“righteous”), the high priest who remained faithful to David. (e Greek word for

“Zadok” is Saddouk, and for “Sadducee” is Saddoukaios.)

If it is true that the Showbread was made as regular leavened bread in David’s

day, then the Zadokite priests—the forerunners of the Sadducees—would have

passed down this same understanding of the breads being leavened to the Essenes as

well as the Dead Sea Sect. is would explain why all these groups ate regular leav-

ened breads that emulated the Showbread.

178 See the chapter “e Ritual—Why Didn’t the Jewish Disciples Teach It?” for more on this.

179 Josephus, “Wars,” 2.8.5, http://essene.com/History/AncientHistoriansAndEssenes.html.

180 Schiman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 75.

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Naturally, the requirement to eat these breads as the far less appetizing matzah

would have angered some Sadducees. is could have played a part in their eventual

withdrawal from Pharisaic control at the Temple services. Hence, these sects that

withdrew from the Temple services to protest the Pharisaic injunctions would con-

tinue with their own communal bread service using regular leavened breads, which

is what we see.

Philo (20 BC–AD 50), who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, wrote of another Jew-

ish group in Egypt called the erapeutae. ey also held a holy meal with regular

leavened bread (as mentioned in Course 6) that emulated the Showbread table in

the Temple:

… Philo describes the erapeutae as deliberately introducing

slight dierences in their practices from those at the Temple, as a

mark of respect for the Temple’s shewbread.

181

Philo put it thus:

(81) And when each individual has nished his psalm, then the

young men bring in the table which was mentioned a little while ago,

on which was placed that most holy food, the leavened bread, with

a seasoning of salt, with which hyssop is mingled, out of reverence

for the sacred table, which lies thus in the holy outer temple ….

182

Philo, who lived when the Pharisees were in control (and the twelve breads were

unleavened), asserted that the erapeutae ate their bread leavened out of reverence

for the table of Showbread in the Temple (i.e., to be slightly dierent). However,

another possibility is that they were a similar oshoot of the Zadokites/Sadducees/

Essenes/Dead Sea Sect. And if this were true, it would explain the true reason their

breads were leavened. Otherwise, it would make no sense for the erapeutae and

the other groups to “taint” God’s plan by making their breads leavened.

One further point: In the Talmud (which was written by rabbinic successors

of the Pharisees), there is discussion and debate among the rabbis about a previous

rabbinic school’s decision concerning not having “large loaves” during the Passover.

ey deliberate over what this meant and what size is considered “large,” to which

one rabbi responds that it meant the size of the Showbread. Another retorts that it

would not have meant this because the Showbread bakers were very careful (using

181 Wikipedia, s.v. “erapeutae.”

182 Yonge, e Works of Philo Judaeus, “On the Contemplative Life or Suppliants,” 10:81,

http://earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book34.html.

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many oscillations, hot ovens, etc.) to ensure that these breads remained unleavened;

thus, the prohibition of “large” more likely applied to the breads made by the com-

mon people, who might not be skilled enough to keep larger loaves unleavened.

183

However, it is also possible that this previous rabbinic school’s writing referred

to an earlier time when the twelve breads were made leavened (“large loaves” would

thus have referred to the risen Showbread). If this is accurate, then what was actually

intended was that the breads were not to be made as the usual “large loaves” but rath-

er unleavened during the Passover Festival (when all leaven was forbidden). Jewish

scholars often had to decide which law superseded or took precedence when a con-

ict occurred. Since God did not command the Showbread to be either leavened or

unleavened, it would have been acceptable to have them unleavened during Passover.

It is true that the Mishnah (the rst major written record of Jewish oral tra-

ditions) mentions a complex contraption with 28 ventilation tubes placed on the

Showbread table to prevent the twelve matzahs from leavening. However, God never

gave Moses instruction for such a device in the scripture, so it would have been a

later addition by the Pharisees when they changed these breads to unleavened (mat-

zah). Most likely the Pharisees took a few scriptures out of context (such as Ezekiel

4:13, Hosea 9:4, or Malachi 1:7) to justify making the twelve breads as matzah; in

these scriptures the Hebrew speaks of “deled bread.”

Since God never commanded these breads to be unleavened, it makes sense that

the priests who lived in those earlier, less legalistic days would have preferred the

more avorful leavened breads to matzah. Knowing the true nature of God’s heart

as to this oering, the leaders like Moses, Samuel, and David would have made

the breads leavened, as this was both allowable and more appetizing for the priests.

ey would have understood that the truths God was showing in the twelve breads

did not require them to eat these breads unleavened. e fact that they were called

“breads” in the Torah without ever being qualied as matzah would have strength-

ened this understanding.

e scripture continually refers to these twelve breads in the Temple as “bread”

(lechem in Hebrew), and not once as “matzah” (unleavened). Even the English term

for them is “Show-bread,” not “Show-matzah.” So we should consider the possibility

that this making of the twelve breads unleavened in the time of Jesus was a tradition

forced by the Pharisees, one that actually made void God’s word by painting a false

picture and invalidating what these breads pointed to:

NAS

Mark 7:13 thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition

which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.”

183 is debate is covered in the Babylonian Talmud, Book 4, Tract Betzah or Yom Tob [Feast Days]

ch. 2, pp. 41–43, http://sacred-texts.com/jud/talmud.htm#t04.

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With this invalidation of God’s word by making these breads matzahs, the spiritual

truths these breads pointed to became lost to the Jewish scholars who followed. For

instance, here is what prominent Jewish Torah scholar Moses Maimonides wrote

concerning these twelve breads in his book e Guide for the Perplexed:

“e use of the altar for incense and the altar for burnt-oering and

their vessels is obvious; but I do not know the object of the table

with the bread upon it continually, and up to this day I have not

been able to assign any reason to this commandment.”

184

It is very possible that the forcing of these breads to be made unleavened, when

God’s commandments did not require it, hid their true spiritual meanings to succes-

sive generations.

God Commanded Certain Breads to Be Made with Leaven

Let us consider two other Tabernacle and then Temple oerings that were com-

manded by God to be baked with leaven. Like the twelve breads, they too were

always called “bread” and never “matzah.” e original Hebrew referred to them as

lechem and in the Greek Septuagint as arton (i.e., regular bread).

e rst of these was a sacricial oering of thanksgiving that was commanded

to be made with leaven and was called “bread”:

NAS

Leviticus 7:12 ‘If he oers it by way of thanksgiving, then along

with the sacrice of thanksgiving he shall oer unleavened cakes

mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers spread with oil, and cakes of

well stirred ne our mixed with oil.

NAS

Leviticus 7:13 ‘With the sacrice of his peace oerings for

thanksgiving, he shall present his oering with cakes of leavened

bread.

e other oering, also called “bread,” was for the Festival of Pentecost (Shavout)

and was commanded to consist of two leavened breads. e Greek word Pentecost

means “50,” as this festival under Moses happened after the 50 days counting from

the morrow of the rst regular Sabbath after Passover:

184 Maimonides, e Guide for the Perplexed, ch. 45, p. 356,

http://sacred-texts.com/jud/gfp/gfp181.htm.

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NAS

Leviticus 23:16 ‘You shall count fty days to the day after the

seventh sabbath; then you shall present a new grain oering to the

LORD.

It was on this day, following the true Passover of Christ, that God began to pour out

His spirit on all esh (Joel, Acts 2, 10), causing the two leavened “breads” (Jews and

Gentiles) to become “one bread,” i.e., the spiritual body of Christ (Acts 2:16).

ese two breads were made with the same measure of our as the Showbread

and were baked with leaven. And like the Showbread, and the leavened sacrice for

thanksgiving, they were never called “matzah” but always “bread”:

NAB

Leviticus 23:17 For the wave oering of your rst fruits to the

LORD, you shall bring with you from wherever you live two loaves

of bread made of two tenths of an ephah of ne our and baked

with leaven.

NAS

Leviticus 23:18 ‘Along with the bread, you shall present seven

one year old male lambs without defect, and a bull of the herd, and

two rams; they are to be a burnt oering to the LORD, with their

grain oering and their libations, an oering by re of a soothing

aroma to the Lord.

Since the thanksgiving oering (also called “thank oering”) and the Festival of Pen-

tecost oering are both made with leaven, it makes sense that they are never called

“matzah” (unleavened). Along the same lines, since the twelve breads were called

“bread” and never “matzah,” this aords some proof that in the time of Moses they

were made as regular leavened bread. Some say that the leaven in bread always refers

symbolically to malice and wickedness, but then this would have God commanding

oerings to Him of malice and wickedness.

At some point in history an argument began between the Pharisees and the Sad-

ducees concerning the true starting point for the countdown to Pentecost, which

began with the waving of the sheaf (Leviticus 23:12) and the rst-fruits oering.

e Pharisees argued that this 50-day counting was to begin after the Sabbath

of the Passover (i.e., the Sabbath of the 15th special day of rest when the Israelites

came out of Egypt). e Sadducees argued that since in Hebrew the regular word for

the Sabbath (i.e., Saturday Sabbath) was used, that the rst Saturday Sabbath in the

Festival is what was meant.

God decided the matter by raising Christ from the dead on the morrow of the Sat-

urday Sabbath, and Paul called Christ our “rst fruits.” us Pentecost also would al-

ways fall on a Sunday. e scriptures also bear this out, because Leviticus 23:16 says to

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count 50 days until the “day after the seventh Sabbath,” and for that 50-count to end

on the day after a Sabbath, it had to begin on the day after a regular Saturday Sabbath.

It is possible that the Pharisees changed this date so that events did not align so

closely with Christ being both sacriced at the 14th-day Passover and then resur-

rected, fullling the unleavened rst-fruits oering on the morrow of the Sabbath

(i.e., Sunday). is change to the Pharisaic doctrine probably took place sometime

shortly after Christ fullled this rst-fruits oering, but either way the change was

not scriptural.

God Also Clearly Commanded When Unleavened Was Required

As we saw in Course 1, God commanded to eat only matzah during the Passover and

the seven-day Festival of Unleavened Bread—26 Old Testament verses listed there

bore this out. So the question to ask is why the twelve Temple breads were always

called “bread” and never “matzah” if they were really matzah under Moses?

When comparing the two leavened bread oerings (the thank oering and those

breads at the Feast of Pentecost) to the Festival of Unleavened Bread, we see a marked

contrast. Although the English translations add the word “Bread” to this Festival of

Unleavened, the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures never connected the word

“bread” at all to this festival name.

Here are a couple of examples where the Hebrew text simply says “matzah”

(unleavened) and the Greek Septuagint says azumwn (unleavened), but the word

“bread” has been added to the English translation:

KJV

Leviticus 23:6 And on the fteenth day of the same month is

the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must

eat unleavened bread.

LXT

Leviticus 23:6 kai. evn th/| pentekaideka,th| h`me,ra| tou/ mhno.j

tou,tou e`orth. tw/n avzu,mwn tw/| kuri,w| e`pta. h`me,raj a;zuma e;desqe

KJV

Exodus 12:8 And they shall eat the esh in that night, roast with

re, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.

LXT

Exodus 12:8 kai. fa,gontai ta. kre,a th/| nukti. tau,th| ovpta. puri.

kai. a;zuma evpi. pikri,dwn e;dontai

Whether or not the word “bread” was added to bolster the translator’s concept of

Jesus supposedly eating bread at what the translator believed to be the Passover, it has

created confusion. In reality, bread had nothing to do with this seven-day festival.

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So you would have to ask yourself why is the exact opposite true with the Show-

bread? Why are they never called “matzah” in any scripture (Hebrew or Greek)? And

why are they never qualied by God or any prophet as being unleavened? On the

contrary, they are simply called breads (lechem in Hebrew), just like the other two

leavened grain oerings seen earlier—the thank oerings and the Feast of Pentecost

bread oerings.

Are we to believe that this exact opposite usage is just a coincidence?

One more thing—in addition to all the times the twelve breads are called “bread”

in scripture, there is an occasion when they are called “cakes” or challah in Hebrew

(Leviticus 24:5). However, this doesn’t add much to our investigation since “cakes”

in the Temple oerings were either leavened or unleavened depending on God’s di-

rection, but the scripture specically qualies them each time as either leavened or

unleavened (Leviticus 7:13; Exodus 29:2).

Twelve Breads Show Forth Aspects of God’s Plan for His People

Let’s now consider this picture through a typological, symbolic interpretation—in

other words, how certain elements in the Old Covenant pregure those in the New

Covenant. We’ll start with the possibility that the twelve breads were leavened and

what this would symbolically portray for the twelve tribes, and then consider the

same if the breads were unleavened.

In the rst scenario we would see that the twelve tribes of Israel were still leav-

ened in the gurative sense since they fell short of God’s will at times (read any book

in the Jewish Bible to conrm this). Yet God still accepted them in His presence

because they performed the legally commanded blood sacrices, and their heart was

to walk in God’s covenant and in the light He had shown. us, the Showbread that

symbolized the twelve tribes was placed face-to-face before Him, in His presence:

NAS

Exodus 25:30 “And you shall set the bread of the Presence on

the table before Me at all times.

LXT

Exodus 25:30 kai. evpiqh,seij evpi. th.n tra,pezan a;rtouj

evnwpi,ouj evnanti,on mou dia. panto,j

ese two rows of six breads sat side by side in the rst room (Leviticus 24:6) facing

the second room, which contained the Ark of the Covenant, where God was con-

sidered to reside; thus they were symbolically situated toward His face in the place

where He said He would dwell (Exodus 25:22). However, a veil hung between these

two rooms, separating the innermost sacred room from the room containing the

Showbread portion. is was true in the movable Tabernacle and later in the xed

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Temple. e priests would enter into the larger room called the Holy Place (where

the Showbread dwelt). And when the High Priest passed beyond the veil on the Day

of Atonement into the Most Holy Place (also called the Holy of Holies), he would

see the Ark of the Covenant, considered the dwelling place of God.

NIV

Hebrews 9:7 But only the high priest entered the inner room,

and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he oered

for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance.

DBY

Hebrews 9:8 the Holy Spirit shewing this, that the way of the

holy of holies has not yet been made manifest while as yet the rst

tabernacle has its standing;

So Paul is saying that under the law and the rst covenant, only the high priest could

enter the Holy of Holies, and never without blood. is kept the other priests (and

symbolically the twelve breads) away from the direct presence of God in this holiest

place. Paul then explains that the Holy Spirit was showing that the way directly into

God’s presence was not yet available while the rst covenant law still had its legal

standing. When the Holy Spirit tore this veil in half at the time of the Messiah’s

death, it showed that the way into God’s direct presence was now fully available

because the full price had just been paid:

NAS

Matthew 27:50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice,

and yielded up His spirit.

NAS

Matthew 27:51 And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in

two from top to bottom, and the earth shook; and the rocks were

split,

With the veil torn in two, the twelve breads were now face-to-face with God, show-

ing that all who believed in the Messiah’s sacrice had direct access to God’s pres-

ence. In fact, not only could believers enter directly into the holiest place where His

full presence dwells, but His spirit could actually inll them.

After the 50-day counting following the sheaf oering (Leviticus 23:15) that we

discussed earlier and the coming of the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured

out for all believers to receive, and anyone—male, female, and proselytes (Acts 1:14,

15; 2:10)—could now be lled with God’s spirit:

NAB

Acts 2:1 When the time for Pentecost was fullled, they were

all in one place together.

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NAB

Acts 2:4 And they were all lled with the holy Spirit and began

to speak in dierent tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.

en an event occurred that was quite shocking to these Jewish Messianic believers: God

actually lled uncircumcised Gentile believers (Acts 10 and 11) with the Holy Spirit:

NAS

Acts 10:45 And all the circumcised believers who had come

with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been

poured out upon the Gentiles also.

ey were all lled with the spirit of God (with the evidence of speaking in tongues).

Peter says that this fullled what Joel had prophesied (Acts 2:16; see also Isaiah 28:9–

12): that a time was coming when God would pour out His spirit on all people—not

just the high priest, but on everyone from shermen to tax collectors to uncircum-

cised Gentiles—anyone who would receive His forgiveness and His gift. us God’s

Spirit would be poured out on all mankind:

NAS

Joel 2:28 “And it will come about after this at I will pour

out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will

prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will

see visions.

In the New Covenant, whosoever desires to enter God’s house through the door may

come in (the Messiah said he is the door, John 10:9). us the prophecy was fullled

that God’s house would be a house of prayer for all nations:

NIV

Isaiah 56:7 these I will bring to my holy mountain and give

them joy in my house of prayer. eir burnt oerings and sacrices

will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house

of prayer for all nations.”

In Course 2 we saw what Jesus was referring to with the pieces of the one regular

leavened bread that he broke: that we are the body of Christ. Remember that when

interpreting typology or gurative teachings, only the portion of the teaching that

ts and is meant by the spirit of God should be applied. When something is in ques-

tion, Jesus said the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth, so we always of course want

to be led by God’s spirit. e word of God comes rst, and typology can be gleaned

from what is already true in God’s word.

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So when Jesus refers to himself as the living “bread” in John 6, he obviously does

not mean anything negative by using the Greek word for regular leavened “bread.”

He is only pointing to bread as daily sustenance, and in this context comparing

himself to the true manna (the spiritual provision sent from God) called the “bread

of heaven.” e same is true when John refers to Jesus as the “lamb of God.” Lambs

often have white curly hair and are easily led astray. However, you could not ap-

ply those traits to the Messiah, because that is not what John meant in the type or

symbolic language that he used. John was using “lamb” typologically in the positive

sense, that Christ was perfectly led by God, never resisting (Isaiah 53:7), and also

pointing to Christ as the true Passover lamb.

Jesus warned the disciples about the “leaven” of the Pharisees (Matthew 16:6–

12), and eventually they understood that he was not referring to the leaven of bread

but to the Pharisees’ teachings. Paul uses leaven guratively in a much harsher sense

in referring to the man who commits gross sin (1 Corinthians 5). Paul guratively

equates this sin to having leaven at Passover, saying malice and wickedness should

not be a part of this spiritual feast that they, and we, have entered into.

None of this presents the twelve tribes symbolized by the Showbread as bad

people containing leaven. It only acknowledges that all have sinned, and no one is

righteous by himself or able to perfectly keep the law. is is why the virgin birth was

needed (Isaiah 7:14)—to bypass the genetic disposition toward sin that is in every

son and daughter of Adam. e natural man at his best is not perfectly subject to

God and the law, neither can he be (Romans 8:7, as seen in the original Greek text).

However, God loves and accepts us into His presence when we follow His com-

mandments and are covered by the blood. is was true in the Old Covenant, and it

remains so in the New Covenant, yet with a dierent blood.

If the Twelve Breads Were Unleavened …

We have considered the typological truths seen in the twelve Temple breads being

leavened. Now we will examine the typology if the twelve breads were matzah and

what symbolic picture this would show forth.

If the twelve breads were really matzah (unleavened), then in this typological

picture the twelve tribes would be without sin, malice, pride, or any false doctrine.

ey would always make the right choice as God leads them and they would repre-

sent His nished plan revealed—holy and complete, never once falling short of the

law but ready to ascend as an unleavened re oering to God.

Now the Jewish writers of scripture deserve a great deal of credit because they do not

hide what really happened. e ups and the downs, the good and the bad—it’s all there

for us to read. In both Testaments of the Bible, you can open pretty much any book and

see that the tribes of Israel (as well as the believers in the Messiah) were not yet perfected.

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Bible history clearly shows that from a typological gurative picture, regular

leavened bread ts better for the twelve breads, so let’s consider why God did not

specify whether they should be leavened or not, and yet He still called them “breads.”

We could say that God did not command that these twelve breads be leavened

because He was showing that, for the believers, a time would come when they would

be unleavened before Him (legally or by experience). Leaving this one oering un-

said as to leaven could indicate that God was symbolically showing that the believers

could become spiritually unleavened one day.

God knew the twelve tribes under the law would symbolically still have leav-

en; therefore these twelve breads were called “breads” (lechem in Hebrew—regular

leavened breads) and never matzah (unleavened). God did not command for these

twelve breads to be made unleavened, for this could wrongly imply that God saw the

twelve tribes as holy and pure in and of themselves at that time.

By not directly commanding that the breads be made unleavened or leavened,

God shows that the twelve tribes had free will before Him to strive individually to be

holy and clean under the law, without implying that they had actually succeeded in

this. Calling them “breads” in the scriptures is just being real with what they repre-

sented—and that they were not yet completely unleavened.

rough the blood sacricial system, God saw the twelve tribes as consecrated

and acceptable before Him and thus able to come into His presence, but only be-

cause this same system pointed forward to the true deliverer from sin—Messiah the

true Passover.

In addition, by not giving Moses any direct command to make the twelve breads

without leaven, it would have been legal to bake them as the priests saw t. If they de-

cided it was God’s will to make them unleavened (bread of aiction), then they could

do that. And if they felt that the leavened breads were much more appetizing and did

not oppose the spirit of any of the commandments, then they could bake them as the

more avorful loaves that would be a blessing to the priests from Aaron every Sabbath.

Later, under the Pharisees’ legalistic leadership (and thus not led by God’s spir-

it to understand what God, Moses, and David meant in calling the twelve loaves

“bread” without any qualifying description), the Sadducee ministers could be forced

to eat them unleavened, as matzah, every Sabbath.

Figurative Uses of Bread

Before we get to the one gurative occurrence of bread used during the Festival of

the Unleavened (Deuteronomy 16:3), let’s rst look at some other gurative uses of

bread in the Jewish idiom.

Some have tried to argue that because manna was called “bread”—and in their

logic it would have been unleavened—they think this is another example of bread

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being actually unleavened. However, this misses the fact that manna was only gu-

ratively called “bread.” It was obviously not baked in an oven in heaven, with or

without leaven, so this does not apply to the argument as to whether or not the

Showbread was leavened.

NAS

Exodus 16:4 en the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I will

rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and

gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or

not they will walk in My instruction.

NAS

Deuteronomy 29:5–6 “And I have led you forty years in the

wilderness; your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandal

has not worn out on your foot. You have not eaten bread, nor have

you drunk wine or strong drink, in order that you might know that

I am the LORD your God.

us the scriptures say they ate no bread for 40 years in the wilderness, but they did

eat the manna that was called “bread”; but this is not a contradiction as manna was

called “bread” only in a gurative sense.

JPS

Numbers 21:5 And the people spoke against God, and against

Moses: ‘Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the

wilderness? for there is no bread, and there is no water; and our

soul loatheth this light bread.’

So the people rst say “there is no bread,” then they say they loathe this “light bread.”

e Hebrew word for “light” means “contemptible, worthless, wretched,” and each

mention of bread in this verse is lechem, the normal Hebrew word for “bread.” So

when they declare that there is no “bread,” this does not contradict the fact that they

loathe the bread, because manna was not actual bread—it was only called “bread”

in a gurative sense.

Several other verses exist in which “bread” appears in the gurative sense. For in-

stance:

NAS

Psalm 80:5 ou hast fed them with the bread of tears, And

ou hast made them to drink tears in large measure.

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is, of course, doesn’t mean that people cried bread or breadcrumbs, but it is used

in a symbolic, gurative, and descriptive sense.

Many more such examples exist:

KJV

Psalm 127:2 It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to

eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

KJV

Proverbs 4:17 For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink

the wine of violence.

KJV

Proverbs 20:17 Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but after-

wards his mouth shall be lled with gravel.

In the verse below, the Canaanite woman came to Jesus for healing, and he symboli-

cally spoke of healing as the “children’s bread,” meaning that healing from God was

symbolically “bread” for those who are in covenant with God:

KJV

Matthew 15:26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take

the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.

Although this Canaanite woman was outside of the covenant, she did not retreat but

instead pressed forward, asking the Messiah to heal her daughter:

NAS

Matthew 15:27 But she said, “Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed

on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”

NAS

Matthew 15:28 en Jesus answered and said to her, “O wom-

an, your faith is great; be it done for you as you wish.” And her

daughter was healed at once.

Bread of sorrows, bread of wickedness, bread of deceit, children’s bread, and other

such gurative usages for bread were commonly spoken and understood in the idi-

omatic sense among the Jews.

“Bread of Aiction” Used Figuratively in Deuteronomy 16:3

In the original Hebrew or Greek scriptures, neither the Hebrew nor the Greek words

for “bread” are ever connected to the name of the feast that we call the Festival

of Unleavened Bread. Yet there is one time when the matzah is guratively called

“bread” (as in the “bread of aiction”) in connection with this Festival:

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DBY

Deuteronomy 16:3 ou shalt eat no leavened bread along

with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread with it, bread of

aiction; 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.

In the verse above, the rst two instances of “bread” are italicized (by me) to indicate

that they do not appear in the original Hebrew or Greek text but were added to the

English translation. en we see the term “bread of aiction,” which clearly de-

scribes the matzah (badly translated above as “unleavened bread”). us the matzah

is guratively called “bread of aiction.” No reputable Jewish scholar of the Torah

would cite this scripture as armation that it’s acceptable to eat bread at Passover,

or that it’s ne for the Jews to go around Jerusalem saying they ate bread at Passover.

In both Hebrew and Greek the words for matzah and azumwn are plural, where-

as “bread” (as in the “bread” of aiction) is singular. If this verse were referring to

matzah as actual “bread,” the grammatical rules (of Greek at least) would require

“bread” to be plural, too. Instead, the sentence structure conrms that God is refer-

ring to the matzah guratively as the “bread” of aiction.

ose who think that the Last Supper was the Passover regard the Messiah’s eat-

ing of bread at that meal as normal behavior. ey look at this scripture in Deuter-

onomy and say, “See, bread is bread.”

However, the Jewish scribes were never confused as to this one gurative use of

the word “bread.” ey knew that “bread of aiction” described the matzah only

in a gurative sense; they never proclaimed, “I guess it’s ne to go around Jerusalem

saying we eat bread during Passover now.”

is verse in Deuteronomy is a prime example that some commentators cite to

prove that “bread is bread.” Although Jesus ate bread at what they believe was the

Passover, they insist the bread was unleavened because of rare cases like this, where

“bread” refers to something that was unleavened.

It doesn’t occur to them that under no circumstances would Jewish Messianic

followers proclaim to the Jewish nation that they, together with Jesus, ate bread at

the Passover (had the Last Supper actually been the Passover). e Talmud is clear

that if even the high priest ate leaven at the Passover, he would be taken out and

whipped.

185

To go around Jerusalem saying they had eaten bread at the Passover

would have been shocking in the rst-century Jewish idiom, and then to leave it

unqualied—by not clarifying that it was supposedly matzah—could have led to

whippings and worse.

185 Babylonian Talmud, Book 9, Tract Maccoth, ch. 3, p. 35, http://sacred-texts.com/jud/t09/mac08.htm.

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Why was it not qualied as matzah? Because it was regular leavened bread served

at this Last Supper meal—which actually took place on the night before the Passover

sacrice.

“Bread of God” Is Used Figuratively

As we have seen before in this Course, the Levitical re oering to God, called the

“bread of God,” was clearly commanded to be unleavened since God specied that

nothing leavened was ever to be placed on the altar in the re to Him:

NAS

Leviticus 2:11 ‘No grain oering, which you bring to the LORD,

shall be made with leaven, for you shall not oer up in smoke any

leaven or any honey as an oering by re to the LORD.

Some of the grain oerings from the people would be made into the Showbread, and

some of that same grain (ground into our) went directly on the altar as a re oering

to God. us God was showing Himself as partaking with His people by referring

guratively to His portion in the re as “bread.” God plainly qualied that these re

oerings to Him be unleavened, so the priests would not be confused or accidentally

break a commandment (even though He loosely referred to them as His “bread”).

As was already mentioned, several scriptures appear where the word “bread” is

used guratively for the matzah that went into the re oering to God:

NAS

Leviticus 21:6 ‘ey shall be holy to their God and not profane

the name of their God, for they present the oerings by re to the

LORD, the bread of their God; so they shall be holy.

NAS

Leviticus 21:8 ‘You shall consecrate him, therefore, for he oers

the bread of your God; he shall be holy to you; for I the LORD,

who sancties you, am holy.

NAS

Leviticus 21:21 ‘No man among the descendants of Aaron the

priest, who has a defect, is to come near to oer the LORD’s oer-

ings by re; since he has a defect, he shall not come near to oer the

bread of his God.

e previous Course discussed that Jewish communal meals during the festivals were

not just meals among the Jews, but that God Himself was regarded more than just

a guest since the entire Temple was God’s house. us in the Showbread communal

meal they partook of bread together, the priests with their “presence breads” and

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God with His “bread” in the re oering on the altar, both of which came from the

same grain tithes of the people.

With God’s commandment that nothing leavened was ever to be oered in the

re to Him, it is clear that His bread was only guratively called “bread,” just as the

manna was. God could then also refer to His portion of the sacrices guratively as

His “bread,” partly to show that He was joining in the communal meals with them. e

Jews were not confused by God calling his portion “bread”; they did not say, “Oh, I

guess this means bread is bread and we can oer it in the re to God either leavened

or unleavened.”

Below, in Leviticus 3, the Hebrew word for “bread” is used guratively for the kid-

neys from the animal sacrice that went in the re to God, as this was God’s portion:

NAS

Leviticus 3:10 and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them,

which is on the loins, and the lobe of the liver, which he shall re-

move with the kidneys.

YLT

Leviticus 3:11 and the priest hath made it a perfume on the

altar—bread of a re-oering to Jehovah.

e “bread of God” also points to Christ, the only man who could be said to be un-

leavened, who ascended to God directly through the re. Christ was the only sinless

one that this oering pointed to. And Jesus also referred to himself as the “bread of

God”—as in the true spiritual manna (also itself guratively called “bread,” Psalm

105:40). He guratively comes down as manna from God bringing God’s teaching

and spiritual provision:

NIV

John 6:33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from

heaven and gives life to the world.”

So we cannot use these gurative occurrences of bread in the scriptures to claim that

“bread is bread” and therefore the twelve breads were unleavened, or that the bread

Jesus ate at the Last Supper was unleavened. We cannot do this because, when it was

important to know, God always qualied in the scriptures whether something was

unleavened or not. Of the more than 300 times that “bread” is used in the scriptures

for regular leavened bread, only on a few rare occasions does it refer loosely or gu-

ratively to something unleavened. But as we cover each one, we will see that every

single time it is clearly qualied in the text.

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Other Figurative Uses of Bread

Now we will examine the remaining scriptures used by some people to try to prove

that bread is bread, since these unleavened items mentioned below are occasionally

referred to guratively or in a loose, generic sense as “bread.” ere’s one important

distinction, however: God clearly qualies that each of them are to be made unleav-

ened.

“Bread” is used a few rare times to refer to a basket of various unleavened things

(cakes, wafers, etc.) that are all called “matzahs,” some of which will go in the re

to God. ese are guratively called “breads.” However, just as with the unleavened

“bread of God” that went in the re to Him, God always indicates specically when

something is actually to be unleavened, as in this priestly ordination service:

NAS

Exodus 29:1 “Now this is what you shall do to them to conse-

crate them to minister as priests to Me: take one young bull and two

rams without blemish,

NAS

Exodus 29:2 and unleavened bread and unleavened cakes

mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers spread with oil; you shall

make them of ne wheat our.

NAS

Exodus 29:3 “And you shall put them in one basket, and pres-

ent them in the basket along with the bull and the two rams.

NAS

Exodus 29:23 and one cake of bread and one cake of bread

mixed with oil and one wafer from the basket of unleavened

bread

186

which is set before the LORD;

NAS

Exodus 29:25 “And you shall take them from their hands, and

oer them up in smoke on the altar on the burnt oering for a

soothing aroma before the LORD; it is an oering by re to the

LORD.

I counted 36 times where most English translations say “unleavened bread” in the

Old Testament, but in 35 of them the original Hebrew only says “matzah.” Verse

2 above is the only instance where both words—matzah and lechem (unleavened

bread)—actually appear together. However, three points make it obvious that once

again “bread” is being used guratively for this basket of matzah.

186 In the original Hebrew of the above verse, the text reads “basket of matzah” instead of “basket of

unleavened bread.”

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First of all, in the Greek Septuagint text, “bread” is a noun, whereas unleavened

(azumos) is an adjective. erefore the Jewish scholars who translated the Septuagint

show that “unleavened” qualies that this is not regular bread. Secondly, as we see

in verse 23, these breads that were placed in a basket were already called the “basket of

matzah” in Hebrew, leaving no question that they were unleavened. irdly, each of

the items in the basket was placed on the altar as a re oering to God (as seen in verse

25) and, as we know, re oerings were commanded to be unleavened (Leviticus 2:11).

So for any scholar to say, “See, bread is bread, and in these scriptures it’s unleav-

ened so that proves the twelve breads must have been unleavened” does not accurate-

ly reect the meaning of these scriptures. Taking gurative uses of the word “bread”

to prove that the twelve breads were therefore matzah does not logically follow.

Likewise, you cannot extend these gurative uses to insist that it was normal

for Jesus to eat bread at Passover, or that the disciples went around Jerusalem telling

everyone that they and Jesus ate bread during Passover. When it was important to

know, God always qualied the type of bread (as we saw in the scriptural examples

above). During Passover, knowing the dierence between matzah and bread was

critical, lest one be cut o from the nation (Exodus 12:15, 19); God made it espe-

cially clear that only matzah was allowed.

is same priestly ordination service we just saw in Exodus was also mentioned in Levit-

icus, where the items again were guratively called “bread,” yet placed on the re to the

Lord—and therefore necessarily unleavened (Leviticus 2:11)—as the “bread of God”:

NAS

Leviticus 8:2 “Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the gar-

ments and the anointing oil and the bull of the sin oering, and the

two rams and the basket of unleavened bread;

In the Hebrew for this scripture, the word “bread” does not appear; it’s just the bas-

ket of matzahs. Similarly, in verse 26 below the Hebrew says “basket of matzah”; the

word “bread” is inserted in most English translations:

187

NAS

Leviticus 8:26 And from the basket of unleavened bread that

was before the LORD, he took one unleavened cake and one cake of

bread mixed with oil and one wafer, and placed them on the portions

of fat and on the right thigh.

187 I have found the NAS to be a very good translation overall, but in our English idiom, saying

“unleavened bread” has become so common that it sounds strange to not add the word “bread.”

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Verse 28 refers to this same basket of matzahs, with Moses oering one of each as a

re oering to the Lord:

NAS

Leviticus 8:28 en Moses took them from their hands and

oered them up in smoke on the altar with the burnt oering.

ey were an ordination oering for a soothing aroma; it was an

oering by re to the LORD.

Remember we saw in the previous “bread of God” section that when matzah went

up to God as a re oering, it was referred to guratively as the “bread of God.” In

verse 31, Aaron and the priests partook of the remaining matzah in the basket after

God’s portion of this re oering went up in the smoke to Him, showing a joint par-

ticipation. Since God symbolically partook of this oering with them, it is referred

to as “bread” in a generic or gurative sense:

NAS

Leviticus 8:31 en Moses said to Aaron and to his sons, “Boil

the esh at the doorway of the tent of meeting, and eat it there

together with the bread which is in the basket of the ordination of-

fering, just as I commanded, saying, ‘Aaron and his sons shall eat it.’

e Jewish priests were never confused about this gurative usage of the word

“bread.” Only later was this usage clouded by those who said that the Showbread was

to be unleavened, and by others who said that the Last Supper bread was unleavened.

As we’ve seen, many of the gurative uses of the word “bread” were taken out of con-

text and used as apparent proofs that bread is bread. For the true meaning to emerge,

the scriptures must be understood from within the Jewish idiom and by ascertaining

whether God meant “bread” literally or guratively, by qualifying it.

One portion of scripture sums it all up: e angel of the Lord (i.e., God mani-

festing as an angel) comes down to Manoah and his wife, having already promised

that they would have a son, Samson, who would deliver Israel. e angel of the Lord

then speaks about man’s “bread”:

KJV

Judges 13:15 And Manoah said unto the angel of the LORD,

I pray thee, let us detain thee, until we shall have made ready a kid

for thee.

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KJV

Judges 13:16 And the angel of the LORD said unto Manoah,

ough thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread: and if thou

wilt oer a burnt oering, thou must oer it unto the LORD. For

Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the LORD.

NIV

Judges 13:19 en Manoah took a young goat, together with

the grain oering, and sacriced it on a rock to the LORD. And the

LORD did an amazing thing while Manoah and his wife watched:

NIV

Judges 13:20 As the ame blazed up from the altar toward

heaven, the angel of the LORD ascended in the ame. Seeing this,

Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground.

So when Manoah speaks of having an earthly meal with this angel of the Lord (i.e.,

God manifesting as an angel), the Lord in eect says, “I do not eat of man’s bread.”

e “bread of God” is that which goes in the re to God. God has given regular

bread to man as a provision of food, but God does not eat man’s bread (or man’s

food). e bread of God is pure and unleavened, and while the bread of man is good

and avorful (not necessarily evil), God only partakes of man’s bread guratively.

Christ was the true “bread of God” that He was looking for, and God sees Christ

in those of us who have received him, which makes us acceptable in God’s presence.

Because the penalty was paid, He is no longer mindful of our sin as to require pay-

ment (Jeremiah 31:34). He casts it away “as far as the east is from the west,” never to

remember it against us (Psalm 103:12).

Jesus guratively called himself “bread,” for he was “made like unto his brethren”

(i.e., the twelve “breads” of Israel, Hebrews 2:17), yet without sin. Jesus was the sin-

less “bread of God” without leaven that can go right up in the re to God; he was

“bread” in the sense of the manna (the “bread of heaven”). He is “bread” because he

is our daily sustenance.

ose who are “caught up” to God without seeing death (1 essalonians 4:17,

Revelation 12:5) can go straight to Him, because they are the spiritual “body of

Christ” and legally unleavened. ey represent the spiritual fulllment of what the

twelve breads pointed to, and Christ—as the true frankincense that went in the re

to God—sanctied them, thus making the whole oering an acceptable re oering

to Him.

In the Old Covenant, 11 of the Israelite tribes were excluded from partaking of

these breads, as were all Gentiles and many Levites (except those of Aaron’s lineage).

is shows that partaking of the twelve breads was a high calling, yet it is something

we are all invited to fulll in the spiritual sense.

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In the New Covenant all are called, but not all will hear the calling and move

into it. Jesus showed this in the parables of Matthew (22:1–14) and Luke (14:16–

24) when many began to make excuses as to why they could not come to the Lord’s

wedding feast. e Lord will have a bride, however, and in the New Covenant this

position is open to everyone (John 6:37).