Bake

Baking bread in ancient Israel was a daily domestic task typically performed by women, though professional bakers operated in towns and royal households. Genesis 18:6 records Sarah kneading three seahs of fine flour and baking cakes when Abraham received the three visitors at Mamre; Leviticus 26:26 uses the image of ten women baking in a single oven as a sign of famine and scarcity. Samuel warns that a king will take daughters to be bakers (1 Samuel 8:13), and Jeremiah 37:21 records that the prophet was given a daily ration of bread from the bakers' street in Jerusalem during his imprisonment.

The Hebrew word aphah and its cognates cover the full range of baking activity. Ancient ovens were heated clay pots or stone-lined pits fueled by wood or dried grass; Hosea 7:4–6 uses the image of an oven heated by a baker as a metaphor for the smoldering passions of Israel's political intrigues. The daily provision of manna in the wilderness and the priestly showbread replaced the ordinary cycle of baking for the Israelite community in the desert period, establishing bread as both a subsistence staple and a vehicle of divine provision.