seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Exodus 12:17 “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. 18 In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. 19 For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel. 20 Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.”
This is from GodVine.
No leaven found in your houses - To meet the letter of this precept in the fullest manner possible, the Jews, on the eve of this festival, institute the most rigorous search through every part of their houses, not only removing all leavened bread, but sweeping every part clean, that no crumb of bread shall be left that had any leaven in it. And so strict were they in the observance of the letter of this law, that if even a mouse was seen to run across the floor with a crumb of bread in its mouth, they considered the whole house as polluted, and began their purification afresh.
This is from the easy English site.
Another name for yeast is ‘leaven’. ‘Unleavened bread’ is bread that they made without yeast. It is like a thin, flat biscuit. Today, Jews call bread like this ‘matzos’. The feast lasts for 7 days. 7 is a sign that it is complete. At the beginning and at the end of that week God wanted them to meet together. They would worship God. They could do food preparation. But they must not do any other work on those two days of worship. God brought his people away from Egypt. During the week after the Passover meal, they remembered that act. Immediately after the Passover meal was the Feast when they ate bread without yeast. Therefore they considered both these events as one special period.
Before the Passover, the Israelites had to remove any yeast from their homes. And they had to remove all food that contained yeast. Even today, Jews search their houses to be sure about that. They must not include anyone as part of Israel if they did not obey that law. That was very serious. It meant that they should punish that person. Either they must send them away, or they must kill them. The rule was for the people who were born as Israelites. And it was the same rule for the people who had joined them.
Before the Passover, the Israelites had to remove any yeast from their homes. And they had to remove all food that contained yeast. Even today, Jews search their houses to be sure about that. They must not include anyone as part of Israel if they did not obey that law. That was very serious. It meant that they should punish that person. Either they must send them away, or they must kill them. The rule was for the people who were born as Israelites. And it was the same rule for the people who had joined them.
Finally, this is from a site called Tough Questions Answered.
To recap, two new ordinances are commanded by God in chapter 12: the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Passover is to commemorate God’s passing over the Israelites for judgment, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread is to commemorate God’s rescuing the Israelites from Egypt. God saves and God redeems his people.
