The same significance may evidently be attached to the prohibition that no part of the meat should be kept for another meal, or carried to another house. The paschal meal in each house was to be one, whole and entire.
(2.) The unleavened birad ranks next in importance to the paschal lamb. The notion has been very gen- erally held, or taken for granted, both by Christian and Jewish writers of all ages, that it was intended to re- mind the Israelites of the unleavened cakes which they were obliged to eat in their hasty flight (Exod. xii, 34, 39). But there is not the least intimation to this ef- fect in the sacred narrative. On the contrary, the com- mand was given to Moses and Aaron that unleavened bread should be eaten with tlie lamb before the circum- stance occurred upon which this explanation is based (comp. Exod. xii, 8 with xii, 39).
It has been considered by some (Ewald, Winer, and the modern Jews) that the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs alike owe their meaning to their being re- garded as unpalatable food. The expression " bread of affliction," "^Di-" Cnb (Deut. xvi, 3), is regarded as equiv- alent Vo fasting-hremi, and on this ground Ewald as- cribes something of the character of a fast to the Pass- over. But this seems to be wholly inconsistent with the pervading joyous nature of the festival. The bread of affliction may mean bread which, in present glatiness, commemorated, either in itself, or in common with the other elements of the feast, the past affliction of the people (Biihr, Kurtz, Hofmann). It should not be for- gotten that unleavened bread was not peculiar to the Passover. The ordinary "meat-offering" was un- leavened (Lev. ii, 4, 5; vii, 12; x, 12, etc.), and so was the shewbread (Lev. xxiv, 5-9). The use of unleaven- ed bread in the consecration of the priests (Exod. xxix, 23), and in the offering of the Nazarite (Numb, vi, 19), is interesting in relation to the Passover, as being ap- parently connected with the consecration of the person.
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On the whole, we are warranted in concluding that un- leavened bread had a peculiar sacriticial character, ac- cordintr to the law, and it can hardly be supposed that a particular kind of food should have been offered to ilie Lord because it was insipid or unpalatable. Hup- feld imagines that bread without leaven, being the sim- plest result of cooked grain, characterized the old ag- ricultural festival which existed before the sacrifice of the lamb was instituted.
It seems more reasonable to accept Paul's reference to the subject (1 Cor. v, 0-8) as furnishing the true meaning of the symbol. Fermentation is decomposi- tion, a dissolution of unity. This must be more obvious to ordinary eyes where the leaven in common use is a piece of sour dough, instead of the expedients at present employed in this country to make bread light. The pure dry biscuit, as distinguished from bread thus leav- ened, would be an apt emblem of unchanged duration, and, in its freedom from foreign mixture, of purity also. The root V^'O signifies " to make dry." Kurtz thinks that dri/ness rather than siveetness is the idea in mjI'O. But sweet in this connection has the sense oi uncorriipi- ed, or incorruj)tible, and hence is easily connected with dryness. Perhaps our authorized version has lost some- thing in expressiveness by substituting the term '• un- leavened bread" for the " sweet bread" of the older ver- sions, which still holds its place in 1 Esd. i, 19. If this was the accepted meaning among the Jews, "the un- leavened bread of sincerity and truth" must have been a clear and familiar expression to Paul's Jewish readers. Biihr conceives that as the blood of the lamb figured the act of purifying, the getting rid of the corruptions of Egypt, the unleavened bread signified the abiding state of consecrated holiness.
(3.) The hitter herbs are generally understood by the Jewish writers (Maimonides in Pesach. viii, 4) to signif)' the bitter sufferings which the Israelites had endured (Exod. i, 14). But it has been remarked by Aben-Ezra that these herbs are a good and wholesome accompani- ment for meat, and are now, and appear to have been in ancient times, commonly so eaten.
(4.) The offering of the omer, though it is obviously that part of the festival which is immediately connected with the course of the seasons, bore a distinct analogy to its historical significance. It may have denoted a deliverance from winter, as the lamb signified deliver- ance from the bondage of Egypt, wliicli might well be considered as a winter in the history of the nation. This application of the rite perhaps derives some sup- port from the form in which the ordinary first-fruit offering was presented in the Temple. See First- FKUiTS. The call of Jacob ("a Syrian ready to perish"), and the deliverance of his children from Egypt, witli their settlement in the land that fiowed with milk and honey, were then related (Deut. xxvi, 5-10). It is worthy of notice that, according to Pesachim, an expo- sition of this passage was an important part of the reply which the father gave to his son's inquiry during the paschal supper. The accoinit of the procession in offer- ing tlie first-fruits in the Mishna {Bikurhii). with the probable reference to the subject in Isa. xxx, 29, can hardly have anything to do with the Passover. The connection ap])ears to have been suggested by tlie tra- dition mentioned by Aben-Ezra that the army of Sen- nacherib was smitten on the night of the Passover. Regarding this tradition, Vitringa says, "Non recipio, nee sperno" (/« Jsnium xxx, 29).