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MATZA: THE FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD

                                         by Avram Yehoshua
                                        www.SeedofAbraham.net


God tells us in Ex. 12:15-20 that the Feast of Matza is to last for seven days in which the Sons of Is-
rael were not to eat any bread with yeast, but that they must eat matza, unleavened bread. In all the
ancient world every housewife knew that yeast made the dough ‘to rise.’ It was also seen, as it is in
our day, that a man full of pride is said to be ‘puffed up.’ In this feast leaven pictures sin, as it did of
course, at the Passover meal which is eaten on the first night of Unleavened Bread. This is why it’s
biblically and symbolically absurd to have any kind of bread with yeast in it for what some call com-
munion.
What Yahveh is demanding from His people Israel is that they are to be especially conscious of their
calling to walk in holiness during this seven day feast. It was not enough that God freed Israel from
Egyptian slavery; they had to follow His Ways and be a holy people unto their God. What this meant
is that their hearts would have to be totally dedicated to Yahveh, which is something that we can
identify with today. What the Passover–Feast of Unleavened Bread pictures is Israel freed from dark-
ness and free of sin. This is always very timely and pointed for us and this is one reasons why it’s
unbiblical for the Feast of Unleavened Bread to be done away with. We need these physical-spiritual
reminders. In Ex. 12:15 it states:
        ‘Seven days you must eat unleavened bread and on the first day you must remove
        leaven from your houses. For whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until
        the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.’
Verse 15 explains that for seven days there must not be any leaven, even in the home. If anyone
would eat regular bread that person would be cut off from Israel. This is a very serious offense to
Yahveh. Many churches today conduct communion with leavened bread, in direct violation of the
Word of God because they don’t understand their ancient Hebraic heritage and so sin against the Sav-
ior in their ignorance.
        ‘On the first day you must have a holy assembly and another holy assembly on the
        seventh day. No work at all shall be done on them except what must be eaten by
        every person, that alone may be prepared by you’ (Ex. 12:16).
Verse 16 relates how the first and the seventh days of Matza are holy (Sabbaths) and that an assembly
must be called for worship as a Body. Not working on these days pictures Israel entering into the real-
ity of what Yahveh has freed us from (slavery) and to (Himself). He has freed us from slavery to sin
and we are to walk in that freedom, trusting Him for holiness, peace and life and allowing Him to be
our God and make us into the Image of His Son Yeshua: sinless, holy and fully obedient to Yahveh.
We can’t do or add anything to what Yahveh has done. If we work on those days we’re saying that
what God has done for us isn’t enough. God calls us to rest (Sabbath) from our work, literally, to
cease from our labors. He has provided everything for us in the Sabbath and His Son.
        ‘You must observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread for on this very day I brought your
        hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you must observe this day throughout your
        generations as a permanent ordinance’ (Ex. 12:17).
Verse 17 speaks of Israel being brought out of Egypt on the First Day of Matza, 15 Aviv (cf. Num.
33:1-3) and that it must be observed throughout all the generations of Israel. This feast ‘remembers’
what Yahveh has done for Israel. On this day, the first day of Matza, Yeshua dies at three in the after-
noon. At His death we are freed from sin and death. This is what He meant when He said, ‘It is
finished!’ (Jn. 19:30) The redemption that God had promised to Israel had come.
Exodus 12:18 reiterates the eating of unleavened bread for the entire feast and speaks of the dates:
         ‘In the first month on the fourteenth day of the month at evening you must eat unleav-
         ened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening’ (Ex. 12:18).
If a house can be a ‘picture’ of a human being, as we have seen with cartoons, we have an idea of
what God is doing here. The door of the house becomes a mouth and the windows become eyes.
Leaven is a picture of sin and seven is symbolic of fullness (the days of Creation week) and holiness.
What we see here is Yahveh calling Israel to a life of holiness, free of sin. No sin (leaven) is to be in
our homes (us) during this time:
         ‘Seven days there shall be no leaven found in your houses for whoever eats what is
         leavened that person shall be cut off from the Congregation of Israel, whether he is an
         alien or a native-born of the land’ (Ex. 12:19).
Verse 19 reiterates v. 15 in both what must be done (no leaven in homes) and the punishment for eat-
ing bread made with yeast (separation from their people Israel, in effect, losing one’s identity and
being cut off from God’s saved people).
         ‘You shall not eat anything leavened. In all your dwellings you must eat unleavened
         bread’ (Ex. 12:20).
Verse 20 has Yahveh telling Israel that they must not eat anything leavened, but that they must eat
matza. They were to remove the sin (leaven) from their lives (not eat any or have any in their house)
for the seven days (which is a complete unit of time; a week). It would symbolize another complete
unit of time: the coming year. What Yahveh was saying to Israel was that they were to be holy and to
not allow sin into their life for the coming year. The matza and the week symbolized that they were to
be pure or holy unto their God for the entire year until the next Feast of Matza would come around
and they would observe it with all its significance, again.
The Feast also pictured their total freedom from slavery and suffering by the blood of the lamb. In
essence, there being no leaven in all the Land of Israel would signify that their wasn’t any sin in Is-
rael, a picture that Yahveh will transform into reality one day:
         ‘For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this Mystery so that you will
         not be conceited in your own opinion, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel
         until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and so, all Israel will be saved, just as it
         is written,
         ‘The Deliverer will come from Zion. He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. This is
         My Covenant with them when I take away their sins’ (see Jer. 31:31-34).
         ‘From the standpoint of the Great News they are enemies for your sake, but from the
         standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the Fathers’ (Romans
         11:25-28).
The Church will watch as Yahveh performs His wonders in bringing the natural Seed of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob to His Messiah King, Yeshua. The picture of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened
Bread will then be fulfilled for Israel, the natural branch.
Eating matza for the seven days and drinking wine1 pictures communion for every day of the Feast.
The only way we can walk with Yeshua is to partake of His body (Matza) and His blood (Wine) for
our needs: cleansing from sin, forgiveness and His Life in us. God has provided food for us; Messiah
His Son, to sustain us in this Wilderness until we get home to the New Jerusalem.

1
    Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Accordance electronic ed. Altamonte Springs:
    OakTree Software, 2006), n.p. “The wine was the ordinary one of the country, only red; it was mixed with
    water, generally in the proportion of one part to two of water.”
                                                      2
Yahveh calls Egypt an ‘iron furnace,’ in Jeremiah 11:4,
        “which I commanded your Fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of
        Egypt from the iron furnace, saying, ‘Listen to My Voice and do according to all
        which I command you, so you shall be My people and I will be your God.’”
An iron furnace is a furnace that is so hot that it literally melts iron. It’s a picture of intense suffering
and affliction. It’s God’s description of the Hebrews’ suffering under Pharaoh. Matza is called the
bread of affliction because of the stripes or bruises (a reference to the streaks of brown from the heat
of the rack) meant to remind us of our existence in Egypt and what we are called to now. Dt. 16:3, in
reference to the Feast of Matza, says that we’re to remember every day what God has done for us in
setting us free from the kingdom of darkness:
        ‘You must not eat leavened bread with it. Seven days you must eat unleavened bread,
        the bread of affliction, for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste, so that you may
        remember all the days of your life the Day when you came out of the land of Egypt.’
That day was the first day of Unleavened Bread. This also pictures the day of Yeshua’s crucifixion
when we ‘came out’ of the Kingdom of Satan. Remember every day what God is doing within us be-
cause of the blood and body of the Lamb, the true Bread or Matza from Heaven. The seven days of
the Feast are to be used to rejoice and to search for any ‘leaven’ in our lives that so easily besets us:
        ‘Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay
        aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with
        endurance the race that is set before us’ (Heb. 12:1).
We are to willingly humble ourselves, in order to submit ourselves to Yeshua, as He did His Father.
In so doing we become like Him who was afflicted and suffered and learned obedience through it. Not
carnal mortification, the flesh trying to die to self, but death to self by submission to the Father
through the Holy Spirit because of the sacrifice of Yeshua.
Yahveh would use the Feast of Unleavened Bread to teach each new generation about Himself; what
He did for Israel and what He expects of Israel. We, too, are to use this ceremony, this Feast of
Yahveh, to teach our children about our God, our sinful condition and that there was no possible way
of escape or change for us, and how Yeshua was afflicted for us, that we might taste the pure Matza of
Heaven and become like our Messiah, free from sin and glorified.
Yeshua was born in Bethlehem, which means, ‘House of Bread.’ Yeshua called Himself the Bread
from Heaven (Jn. 6:31-51). The Bread from Heaven was born in the House of Bread.
When we eat of Yeshua we are eating Yahveh’s pure unleavened Bread that is the staff of our life; the
true Bread from Heaven. This is pictured in matza because unleavened bread symbolizes sinlessness
and purity. God set it up so that Yeshua, who is sinless and pure, could speak of Himself as matza:
sinlessness, purity and freedom. By eating of Him one attains Heaven: life eternal in the Presence of
Yahveh (Jn. 17:1-3).
Matza, the Bread of Affliction, is a picture of Yeshua pierced, crushed and crucified. In 1st Cor. 5:6-8,
Paul makes mentions of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and its symbolic meaning for our lives:
        ‘Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole
        lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you
        are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let
        us celebrate the Feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wicked-
        ness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth’ (1st Cor. 5:6-8).
Paul begins by stating something universal that everyone would know: ‘a little leaven leavens the
whole lump’ of dough. Then he tells the Corinthians to get rid of the old leaven (sin), to clean it out of
their lives that they might truly be what they were meant to be: unleavened?! Only a people that knew
                                                     3
the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread could understand what Paul was talking about. He
had gone from the universal to the particular…and these were mostly Gentile believers. He continued
by saying that the Messiah had been sacrificed, a statement reflecting that Yeshua had been sacrificed
more than 20 years earlier.
In the last verse Paul encourages the Gentile believers, in the present tense, to celebrate the Feast of
Matza! This reference to ‘the Feast’ (‘Therefore, let us celebrate the Feast’) can only mean the
Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread as these are the only celebrations in the history of the
world that deal with unleavened bread. In fact, we know from various Church history sources that
both Gentile and Jewish believers celebrated the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread for
many centuries after the resurrection.2
It would be on this day that Yeshua dies, the 15th of Aviv, the first day of Matza and is placed within
the ground. John 12:24 has Yeshua saying:
        ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it re-
        mains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’
It would be late afternoon on 15 Aviv, the end of the First Day of Matza, about 6 PM, when they
would place Yeshua in the tomb. It was on this day, in the morning, that special sacrifices were of-
fered up: two young bulls, a ram and seven lambs in their first year (Num. 28:17-25) along with the
chagigah, a special individual feast sacrifice that John speaks of when he says that the Pharisees
didn’t want to be defiled by going into Pilate’s residence because they wanted to eat the Passover. It
wasn’t the Passover lamb of the night before, but the lamb of the Feast (chag). Most likely the Lord
rose from the dead in the late afternoon of the 7th day Sabbath and appeared to Miryam on Sunday,
which was First Sheaf (Lev. 23:9-14; Jn. 20:17).
There are those who read the Gospel of John, who think that Yeshua instituted a commemorative
meal before the actual Passover meal, on 13 Aviv, and that He was crucified when the Passover lambs
were being crucified on 14 Aviv, but they misunderstand what John writes (and take little value in
what Matthew, Mark and Luke so specifically bring out.3 Yeshua ate the Passover meal at the biblical
time, on the evening/darkness of 15 Aviv and was crucified on the following morning, which would
still be 15 Aviv, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Scripture that trips some people
us is found in the 18th chapter of John:
        John 18:28: “Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium, and it was early
        morning. But they themselves did not go into the Praetorium, lest they should be de-
        filed, but that they might eat the Passover.”
Alfred Edersheim, in his Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (a must read for anyone who wants to
understand the background for many of the things mentioned in Scripture, as well as the reasons why
Yeshua came against the Pharisees and their teachings and why we should not follow them), writes
this about the term Passover above:
        “Few expressions have given rise to more earnest controversy than this. On two
        things at least we can speak with certainty. Entrance into a heathen house did Leviti-
        cally render impure for that day—that is, till the evening. The fact of such defilement
        is clearly attested both in the New Testament (Acts 10:28) and in the Mishnah,
        though its reasons might be various (Ohol. 18:7; Tohar. 7.3). A person who had so
        become Levitically unclean was technically called Tebhul Yom (‘bathed of the day’).
        The other point is, that, to have so become ‘impure’ for the day, would not have dis-
        qualified for eating the Paschal Lamb, since the meal was partaken of after the eve-

2
    Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi, From Sabbath To Sunday (Rome, Italy: The Pontifical Gregorian University
    Press, 1977), pp. 161, 198-200.
3
    Matthew 26:17, 18, 19; Mark 14:12, 14, 16; Luke 22:7, 8, 11, 13 and especially verse 15!
                                                    4
ning, and when a new day had begun. In fact, it is distinctly laid down (Pes. 92a) that
         the ‘bathed of the day,’ that is, he who had been impure for the day and had bathed in
         the evening, did partake of the Paschal Supper, and an instance is related,4 when some
         soldiers who had guarded the gates of Jerusalem ‘immersed,’ and ate the Paschal
         Lamb. It follows that those Sanhedrists could not have abstained from entering the
         Palace of Pilate because by so doing they would have been disqualified for the
         Paschal Supper.”
         “The point is of importance, because many writers have interpreted the expression
         ‘the Passover’ as referring to the Paschal Supper, and have argued that, according to
         the Fourth Gospel, our Lord did not on the previous evening partake of the Paschal
         Lamb, or else that in this respect the account of the Fourth Gospel does not accord
         with that of the Synoptists. But as, for the reason just stated, it is impossible to refer
         the expression ‘Passover’ to the Paschal Supper, we have only to inquire whether the
         term is not also applied to other offerings. And here both the Old Testament (Deut.
         16:1–3; 2 Chron. 35:1, 2, 6, 18) and Jewish writings5 show, that the term Pesach, or
         ‘Passover,’ was applied not only to the Paschal Lamb, but to all the Passover sacri-
         fices, especially to what was called the Chagigah, or festive offering (from Chag, or
         Chagag, to bring the festive sacrifice usual at each of the three Great Feasts). Accord-
         ing to the express rule (Chag. 1:3) the Chagigah was brought on the first festive
         Paschal Day.6 It was offered immediately after the morning-service, and eaten on that
         day—probably some time before the evening…We can therefore quite understand
         that, not on the eve of the Passover but on the first Paschal day, the Sanhedrists would
         avoid incurring a defilement which, lasting till the evening, would not only have in-
         volved them in the inconvenience of Levitical defilement on the first festive day, but
         have actually prevented their offering on that day the Passover, festive sacrifice, or
         Chagigah. For, we have these two express rules: that a person could not in Levitical
         defilement offer the Chagigah; and that the Chagigah could not be offered for a per-
         son by some one else who took his place (Jer. Chag. 76a, lines 16 to 14 from bottom).
         These considerations and canons seem decisive as regards the views above expressed.
         There would have been no reason to fear ‘defilement’ on the morning of the Paschal
         Sacrifice; but entrance into the Praetorium on the morning of the first Passover-day
         would have rendered it impossible for them to offer the Chagigah, which is also des-
         ignated by the term Pesach.7
Yeshua kept the Passover meal at the biblical time, on 15 Aviv in the evening, and was crucified on
15 Aviv in the morning. The four Accounts of His Life present this because it was on 15 Aviv when
God brought Israel out of the darkness and Egypt, and it was on 15 Aviv when God brought us out of
the darkness of this world.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread has been given to us that we might walk with our God for seven days
and be more fully aware of what He has done for us, and what He desires to do for. In this we rejoice
before Him for those seven days!




4
    Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, n.p. Jerusalem Talmud Pesach 36b.
5
    Ibid. “No competent Jewish archaeologist would care to deny that ‘Pesach’ may refer to the ‘Chagigah,’
    while the motive assigned to the Sanhedrists by St. John implies, that in this instance it must refer to this,
    and not to the Paschal Lamb.”
6
    Ibid., Chag. 9a; Jer. Chag 76c.
7
    Ibid.
                                                        5

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The Feast Of Unleavened Bread 2010[1]

  • 1. MATZA: THE FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD by Avram Yehoshua www.SeedofAbraham.net God tells us in Ex. 12:15-20 that the Feast of Matza is to last for seven days in which the Sons of Is- rael were not to eat any bread with yeast, but that they must eat matza, unleavened bread. In all the ancient world every housewife knew that yeast made the dough ‘to rise.’ It was also seen, as it is in our day, that a man full of pride is said to be ‘puffed up.’ In this feast leaven pictures sin, as it did of course, at the Passover meal which is eaten on the first night of Unleavened Bread. This is why it’s biblically and symbolically absurd to have any kind of bread with yeast in it for what some call com- munion. What Yahveh is demanding from His people Israel is that they are to be especially conscious of their calling to walk in holiness during this seven day feast. It was not enough that God freed Israel from Egyptian slavery; they had to follow His Ways and be a holy people unto their God. What this meant is that their hearts would have to be totally dedicated to Yahveh, which is something that we can identify with today. What the Passover–Feast of Unleavened Bread pictures is Israel freed from dark- ness and free of sin. This is always very timely and pointed for us and this is one reasons why it’s unbiblical for the Feast of Unleavened Bread to be done away with. We need these physical-spiritual reminders. In Ex. 12:15 it states: ‘Seven days you must eat unleavened bread and on the first day you must remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.’ Verse 15 explains that for seven days there must not be any leaven, even in the home. If anyone would eat regular bread that person would be cut off from Israel. This is a very serious offense to Yahveh. Many churches today conduct communion with leavened bread, in direct violation of the Word of God because they don’t understand their ancient Hebraic heritage and so sin against the Sav- ior in their ignorance. ‘On the first day you must have a holy assembly and another holy assembly on the seventh day. No work at all shall be done on them except what must be eaten by every person, that alone may be prepared by you’ (Ex. 12:16). Verse 16 relates how the first and the seventh days of Matza are holy (Sabbaths) and that an assembly must be called for worship as a Body. Not working on these days pictures Israel entering into the real- ity of what Yahveh has freed us from (slavery) and to (Himself). He has freed us from slavery to sin and we are to walk in that freedom, trusting Him for holiness, peace and life and allowing Him to be our God and make us into the Image of His Son Yeshua: sinless, holy and fully obedient to Yahveh. We can’t do or add anything to what Yahveh has done. If we work on those days we’re saying that what God has done for us isn’t enough. God calls us to rest (Sabbath) from our work, literally, to cease from our labors. He has provided everything for us in the Sabbath and His Son. ‘You must observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you must observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent ordinance’ (Ex. 12:17). Verse 17 speaks of Israel being brought out of Egypt on the First Day of Matza, 15 Aviv (cf. Num. 33:1-3) and that it must be observed throughout all the generations of Israel. This feast ‘remembers’ what Yahveh has done for Israel. On this day, the first day of Matza, Yeshua dies at three in the after- noon. At His death we are freed from sin and death. This is what He meant when He said, ‘It is finished!’ (Jn. 19:30) The redemption that God had promised to Israel had come.
  • 2. Exodus 12:18 reiterates the eating of unleavened bread for the entire feast and speaks of the dates: ‘In the first month on the fourteenth day of the month at evening you must eat unleav- ened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening’ (Ex. 12:18). If a house can be a ‘picture’ of a human being, as we have seen with cartoons, we have an idea of what God is doing here. The door of the house becomes a mouth and the windows become eyes. Leaven is a picture of sin and seven is symbolic of fullness (the days of Creation week) and holiness. What we see here is Yahveh calling Israel to a life of holiness, free of sin. No sin (leaven) is to be in our homes (us) during this time: ‘Seven days there shall be no leaven found in your houses for whoever eats what is leavened that person shall be cut off from the Congregation of Israel, whether he is an alien or a native-born of the land’ (Ex. 12:19). Verse 19 reiterates v. 15 in both what must be done (no leaven in homes) and the punishment for eat- ing bread made with yeast (separation from their people Israel, in effect, losing one’s identity and being cut off from God’s saved people). ‘You shall not eat anything leavened. In all your dwellings you must eat unleavened bread’ (Ex. 12:20). Verse 20 has Yahveh telling Israel that they must not eat anything leavened, but that they must eat matza. They were to remove the sin (leaven) from their lives (not eat any or have any in their house) for the seven days (which is a complete unit of time; a week). It would symbolize another complete unit of time: the coming year. What Yahveh was saying to Israel was that they were to be holy and to not allow sin into their life for the coming year. The matza and the week symbolized that they were to be pure or holy unto their God for the entire year until the next Feast of Matza would come around and they would observe it with all its significance, again. The Feast also pictured their total freedom from slavery and suffering by the blood of the lamb. In essence, there being no leaven in all the Land of Israel would signify that their wasn’t any sin in Is- rael, a picture that Yahveh will transform into reality one day: ‘For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this Mystery so that you will not be conceited in your own opinion, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and so, all Israel will be saved, just as it is written, ‘The Deliverer will come from Zion. He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. This is My Covenant with them when I take away their sins’ (see Jer. 31:31-34). ‘From the standpoint of the Great News they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the Fathers’ (Romans 11:25-28). The Church will watch as Yahveh performs His wonders in bringing the natural Seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to His Messiah King, Yeshua. The picture of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread will then be fulfilled for Israel, the natural branch. Eating matza for the seven days and drinking wine1 pictures communion for every day of the Feast. The only way we can walk with Yeshua is to partake of His body (Matza) and His blood (Wine) for our needs: cleansing from sin, forgiveness and His Life in us. God has provided food for us; Messiah His Son, to sustain us in this Wilderness until we get home to the New Jerusalem. 1 Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Accordance electronic ed. Altamonte Springs: OakTree Software, 2006), n.p. “The wine was the ordinary one of the country, only red; it was mixed with water, generally in the proportion of one part to two of water.” 2
  • 3. Yahveh calls Egypt an ‘iron furnace,’ in Jeremiah 11:4, “which I commanded your Fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt from the iron furnace, saying, ‘Listen to My Voice and do according to all which I command you, so you shall be My people and I will be your God.’” An iron furnace is a furnace that is so hot that it literally melts iron. It’s a picture of intense suffering and affliction. It’s God’s description of the Hebrews’ suffering under Pharaoh. Matza is called the bread of affliction because of the stripes or bruises (a reference to the streaks of brown from the heat of the rack) meant to remind us of our existence in Egypt and what we are called to now. Dt. 16:3, in reference to the Feast of Matza, says that we’re to remember every day what God has done for us in setting us free from the kingdom of darkness: ‘You must not eat leavened bread with it. Seven days you must eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste, so that you may remember all the days of your life the Day when you came out of the land of Egypt.’ That day was the first day of Unleavened Bread. This also pictures the day of Yeshua’s crucifixion when we ‘came out’ of the Kingdom of Satan. Remember every day what God is doing within us be- cause of the blood and body of the Lamb, the true Bread or Matza from Heaven. The seven days of the Feast are to be used to rejoice and to search for any ‘leaven’ in our lives that so easily besets us: ‘Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us’ (Heb. 12:1). We are to willingly humble ourselves, in order to submit ourselves to Yeshua, as He did His Father. In so doing we become like Him who was afflicted and suffered and learned obedience through it. Not carnal mortification, the flesh trying to die to self, but death to self by submission to the Father through the Holy Spirit because of the sacrifice of Yeshua. Yahveh would use the Feast of Unleavened Bread to teach each new generation about Himself; what He did for Israel and what He expects of Israel. We, too, are to use this ceremony, this Feast of Yahveh, to teach our children about our God, our sinful condition and that there was no possible way of escape or change for us, and how Yeshua was afflicted for us, that we might taste the pure Matza of Heaven and become like our Messiah, free from sin and glorified. Yeshua was born in Bethlehem, which means, ‘House of Bread.’ Yeshua called Himself the Bread from Heaven (Jn. 6:31-51). The Bread from Heaven was born in the House of Bread. When we eat of Yeshua we are eating Yahveh’s pure unleavened Bread that is the staff of our life; the true Bread from Heaven. This is pictured in matza because unleavened bread symbolizes sinlessness and purity. God set it up so that Yeshua, who is sinless and pure, could speak of Himself as matza: sinlessness, purity and freedom. By eating of Him one attains Heaven: life eternal in the Presence of Yahveh (Jn. 17:1-3). Matza, the Bread of Affliction, is a picture of Yeshua pierced, crushed and crucified. In 1st Cor. 5:6-8, Paul makes mentions of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and its symbolic meaning for our lives: ‘Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the Feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wicked- ness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth’ (1st Cor. 5:6-8). Paul begins by stating something universal that everyone would know: ‘a little leaven leavens the whole lump’ of dough. Then he tells the Corinthians to get rid of the old leaven (sin), to clean it out of their lives that they might truly be what they were meant to be: unleavened?! Only a people that knew 3
  • 4. the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread could understand what Paul was talking about. He had gone from the universal to the particular…and these were mostly Gentile believers. He continued by saying that the Messiah had been sacrificed, a statement reflecting that Yeshua had been sacrificed more than 20 years earlier. In the last verse Paul encourages the Gentile believers, in the present tense, to celebrate the Feast of Matza! This reference to ‘the Feast’ (‘Therefore, let us celebrate the Feast’) can only mean the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread as these are the only celebrations in the history of the world that deal with unleavened bread. In fact, we know from various Church history sources that both Gentile and Jewish believers celebrated the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread for many centuries after the resurrection.2 It would be on this day that Yeshua dies, the 15th of Aviv, the first day of Matza and is placed within the ground. John 12:24 has Yeshua saying: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it re- mains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’ It would be late afternoon on 15 Aviv, the end of the First Day of Matza, about 6 PM, when they would place Yeshua in the tomb. It was on this day, in the morning, that special sacrifices were of- fered up: two young bulls, a ram and seven lambs in their first year (Num. 28:17-25) along with the chagigah, a special individual feast sacrifice that John speaks of when he says that the Pharisees didn’t want to be defiled by going into Pilate’s residence because they wanted to eat the Passover. It wasn’t the Passover lamb of the night before, but the lamb of the Feast (chag). Most likely the Lord rose from the dead in the late afternoon of the 7th day Sabbath and appeared to Miryam on Sunday, which was First Sheaf (Lev. 23:9-14; Jn. 20:17). There are those who read the Gospel of John, who think that Yeshua instituted a commemorative meal before the actual Passover meal, on 13 Aviv, and that He was crucified when the Passover lambs were being crucified on 14 Aviv, but they misunderstand what John writes (and take little value in what Matthew, Mark and Luke so specifically bring out.3 Yeshua ate the Passover meal at the biblical time, on the evening/darkness of 15 Aviv and was crucified on the following morning, which would still be 15 Aviv, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Scripture that trips some people us is found in the 18th chapter of John: John 18:28: “Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium, and it was early morning. But they themselves did not go into the Praetorium, lest they should be de- filed, but that they might eat the Passover.” Alfred Edersheim, in his Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (a must read for anyone who wants to understand the background for many of the things mentioned in Scripture, as well as the reasons why Yeshua came against the Pharisees and their teachings and why we should not follow them), writes this about the term Passover above: “Few expressions have given rise to more earnest controversy than this. On two things at least we can speak with certainty. Entrance into a heathen house did Leviti- cally render impure for that day—that is, till the evening. The fact of such defilement is clearly attested both in the New Testament (Acts 10:28) and in the Mishnah, though its reasons might be various (Ohol. 18:7; Tohar. 7.3). A person who had so become Levitically unclean was technically called Tebhul Yom (‘bathed of the day’). The other point is, that, to have so become ‘impure’ for the day, would not have dis- qualified for eating the Paschal Lamb, since the meal was partaken of after the eve- 2 Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi, From Sabbath To Sunday (Rome, Italy: The Pontifical Gregorian University Press, 1977), pp. 161, 198-200. 3 Matthew 26:17, 18, 19; Mark 14:12, 14, 16; Luke 22:7, 8, 11, 13 and especially verse 15! 4
  • 5. ning, and when a new day had begun. In fact, it is distinctly laid down (Pes. 92a) that the ‘bathed of the day,’ that is, he who had been impure for the day and had bathed in the evening, did partake of the Paschal Supper, and an instance is related,4 when some soldiers who had guarded the gates of Jerusalem ‘immersed,’ and ate the Paschal Lamb. It follows that those Sanhedrists could not have abstained from entering the Palace of Pilate because by so doing they would have been disqualified for the Paschal Supper.” “The point is of importance, because many writers have interpreted the expression ‘the Passover’ as referring to the Paschal Supper, and have argued that, according to the Fourth Gospel, our Lord did not on the previous evening partake of the Paschal Lamb, or else that in this respect the account of the Fourth Gospel does not accord with that of the Synoptists. But as, for the reason just stated, it is impossible to refer the expression ‘Passover’ to the Paschal Supper, we have only to inquire whether the term is not also applied to other offerings. And here both the Old Testament (Deut. 16:1–3; 2 Chron. 35:1, 2, 6, 18) and Jewish writings5 show, that the term Pesach, or ‘Passover,’ was applied not only to the Paschal Lamb, but to all the Passover sacri- fices, especially to what was called the Chagigah, or festive offering (from Chag, or Chagag, to bring the festive sacrifice usual at each of the three Great Feasts). Accord- ing to the express rule (Chag. 1:3) the Chagigah was brought on the first festive Paschal Day.6 It was offered immediately after the morning-service, and eaten on that day—probably some time before the evening…We can therefore quite understand that, not on the eve of the Passover but on the first Paschal day, the Sanhedrists would avoid incurring a defilement which, lasting till the evening, would not only have in- volved them in the inconvenience of Levitical defilement on the first festive day, but have actually prevented their offering on that day the Passover, festive sacrifice, or Chagigah. For, we have these two express rules: that a person could not in Levitical defilement offer the Chagigah; and that the Chagigah could not be offered for a per- son by some one else who took his place (Jer. Chag. 76a, lines 16 to 14 from bottom). These considerations and canons seem decisive as regards the views above expressed. There would have been no reason to fear ‘defilement’ on the morning of the Paschal Sacrifice; but entrance into the Praetorium on the morning of the first Passover-day would have rendered it impossible for them to offer the Chagigah, which is also des- ignated by the term Pesach.7 Yeshua kept the Passover meal at the biblical time, on 15 Aviv in the evening, and was crucified on 15 Aviv in the morning. The four Accounts of His Life present this because it was on 15 Aviv when God brought Israel out of the darkness and Egypt, and it was on 15 Aviv when God brought us out of the darkness of this world. The Feast of Unleavened Bread has been given to us that we might walk with our God for seven days and be more fully aware of what He has done for us, and what He desires to do for. In this we rejoice before Him for those seven days! 4 Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, n.p. Jerusalem Talmud Pesach 36b. 5 Ibid. “No competent Jewish archaeologist would care to deny that ‘Pesach’ may refer to the ‘Chagigah,’ while the motive assigned to the Sanhedrists by St. John implies, that in this instance it must refer to this, and not to the Paschal Lamb.” 6 Ibid., Chag. 9a; Jer. Chag 76c. 7 Ibid. 5