Bread

Bread was the staple food of ancient Israel and the entire biblical world, made primarily from wheat flour (Ex. 29:2) or, in times of scarcity, from barley, millet, or mixed grains (Judg. 7:13; Ezek. 4:9). Baking was typically women's work, and the process—grinding grain, mixing dough, leavening or making unleavened cakes, and baking on a griddle, in a clay oven, or under hot coals—is described in detail at several points in the narrative (Gen. 18:6; Ruth 2:14; 1 Kings 17:13–16). The Passover unleavened bread permanently encoded the hurried departure from Egypt in Israel's annual ritual memory.

Bread carries profound theological weight throughout both Testaments. The showbread (bread of the Presence) placed weekly before the LORD in the tabernacle signified Israel's covenantal relationship with God (Ex. 25:30; Lev. 24:5–9). God provided manna as supernatural bread in the wilderness (Ex. 16), and Jesus declared himself “the bread of life” (John 6:35, 48), the true bread from heaven of which the manna was a type. The breaking of bread at the Last Supper instituted the Eucharist (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:23–26), and early Christians continued “breaking bread” as a central practice of their communal life (Acts 2:42, 46).