Appointed time
חַג הַמַּצּוֹת
Unleavened bread
Seven days of bread made without leaven, beginning the day after Passover.
In one minute
A week of eating flat bread, starting the morning after Passover. Leaven has to be cleared out of the house, not just avoided. Exodus explains the bread two different ways: there was no time to let dough rise, and it is the bread of affliction.
Why this matters to anyone
An entire week organised around a small, constant, physical inconvenience. You cannot forget what you are doing, because you run into it at every meal. That is the mechanism: memory enforced by the body rather than by good intentions.
The instruction to search the house and clear something out has outlived its origins in every direction. Spring cleaning, taking stock, getting rid of what has quietly accumulated, all of it rhymes with a week that begins by turning the cupboards out.
Read the text
Start with the words themselves, before anyone explains them to you.
The feast begins on the fifteenth, the day after Passover, and runs a week. The first and seventh days are holy convocations on which no servile work is done; the days between are ordinary in that respect.
Exodus explains the bread twice, and the two explanations are not the same. One is that there was no time to let dough rise. The other is that this is the bread of affliction. The text keeps both, so the week carries haste and hardship at once.
“And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD; seven days ye shall eat unleavened bread.”
“And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt, for it was not leavened; because they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they prepared for themselves any victual.”
“Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for in haste didst thou come forth out of the land of Egypt; that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt.”
Learn three words
You do not need Hebrew to read well, but these few change what you can see.
- מַצָּהmatzahunleavened bread
- Plural matzot, which is why the feast is chag ha-matzot, the feast of the unleavened loaves.
- חָמֵץchametzleavened
- What must be removed from the house for the week.
- לֶחֶם עֹנִיlechem onibread of affliction
- Deuteronomy 16:3. The phrase can also be read as bread of poverty or of answering.
Notice what is odd
The details that do not quite fit are usually where the meaning is.
Leaven removed, not merely avoided
Exodus 12:15 commands that leaven be put away out of the houses, which makes the week a search as well as a diet.
First and seventh days set apart
Leviticus 23:7 and 23:8 mark the opening and closing days as holy convocations with no servile work, framing the week at both ends.
One of the three pilgrimage feasts
Deuteronomy 16:16 names unleavened bread, weeks and tabernacles as the three times a year all males were to appear before the LORD, and not empty handed.
Two explanations, kept side by side
Haste in Exodus, affliction in Deuteronomy. The text does not choose, and reading it well means not choosing either.
How it is kept
What the text requires, and what tradition added afterwards. Worth telling apart in both directions.
- What the Bible requires
- Eat unleavened bread for seven days, remove leaven from the house, and keep the first and last days free of ordinary work.
- What developed later
- Jewish practice extended the principle well beyond bread, to a wide category of leavened and fermentable foods, with detailed rules about what must be cleared and how. That elaboration is tradition working out the command, not the command itself.
- If you want a taste of it
- Try one week without any raised bread and notice how often it comes up. The point is not deprivation but the constant small reminder, which is precisely what the text is engineering.
Questions to sit with
Do not answer these quickly. A study that ends in a better question has gone further than one that ends in a tidy answer.
- 01
Haste in Exodus, affliction in Deuteronomy. Can one week of bread carry both meanings at once?
- 02
Why command that leaven be removed from the house rather than simply not eaten?
- 03
What changes about a festival when attendance requires a journey?
Common questions
Open any that apply to you. Skipping this step is fine.
What is leaven, exactly?
In the biblical setting, a piece of fermented dough kept back to raise the next batch. The modern equivalent is a sourdough starter or commercial yeast.
Why is leaven treated as a problem?
The text does not say. It gives the practical reason for the first night, no time to wait, and leaves the symbolism to readers, who have supplied a great deal of it since.
Is this the same as Passover?
They are adjacent and often spoken of together, but Leviticus 23 lists them as separate items with separate dates.
Go further
Pick the one that matches the time you actually have.
Ten minutes
Read Leviticus 23:6 to 8 and Exodus 12:15 to 20 together and note what each adds.
An evening
Add Exodus 13:3 to 10 and Deuteronomy 16:1 to 8, and track the two explanations of the bread.
A week
Keep the week, or a version of it, and pay attention to when you notice it most.
Every passage on this page
- Exodus 12:15 to 20
- Exodus 13:3 to 10
- Leviticus 23:6 to 8
- Numbers 28:17 to 25
- Deuteronomy 16:1 to 8
- Deuteronomy 16:16
For a method you can use on any passage, see the method, or check the calendar for what is next.
Check yourself
Four questions, answered by clicking. You get the reason either way, so being wrong is useful.
Question 1 of 4
How long does it run?