D10. Observing the Feast of Unleavened Bread by Eating Matzah on Each of Its Seven Days. [Make a Comment]
We are to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread by eating matzah on each of its seven days.
This precept is derived from His Word (blessed be He):
Key Scriptures
Exodus 12:15-20
For seven days you are to eat matzah - on the first day remove the leaven
from your houses. For whoever eats hametz [leavened bread] from the first to
the seventh day is to be cut off from Isra'el. On the first and
seventh days, you are to have an assembly set aside for God. On these days
no work is to be done, except what each must do to prepare his food; you may
do only that. You are to observe the festival of matzah, for on this very
day I brought your divisions out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, you are to
observe this day from generation to generation by a perpetual regulation.
From the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month until the evening
of the twenty-first day, you are to eat matzah. During those seven days, no
leaven is to be found in your houses. Whoever eats food with hametz in it is
to be cut off from the community of Isra'el - it doesn't matter
whether he is a foreigner or a citizen of the land. Eat nothing with hametz
in it. Wherever you live, eat matzah.
Exodus 12:42-49
(Maimonides RN126-128; Chinuch C13-14, C17)
This was a night when ADONAI kept vigil to bring them out of the land of
Egypt, and this same night continues to be a night when ADONAI keeps vigil
for all the people of Isra'el through all their generations. ADONAI
said to Moshe and Aharon, "This is the regulation for the Pesach lamb: no
foreigner is to eat it. But if anyone has a slave he bought for money, when
you have circumcised him, he may eat it. Neither a traveler nor a hired
servant may eat it. It is to be eaten in one house. You are not to take any
of the meat outside the house, and you are not to break any of its bones.
The whole community of Isra'el is to keep it. If a foreigner staying
with you wants to observe ADONAI's Pesach, all his males must be
circumcised. Then he may take part and observe it; he will be like a citizen
of the land. But no uncircumcised person is to eat it. The same teaching is
to apply equally to the citizen and to the foreigner living among you.
Exodus 13:5-7
When ADONAI brings you into the land of the Kena'ani, Hitti, Emori,
Hivi and Y'vusi, which he swore to your ancestors to give you, a land
flowing with milk and honey, you are to observe this ceremony in this month.
For seven days you are to eat matzah, and the seventh day is to be a
festival for ADONAI. Matzah is to be eaten throughout the seven days;
neither hametz nor leavening agents are to be seen with you throughout your
territory.
Exodus 23:15
Keep the festival of matzah: for seven days, as I ordered you, you are to
eat matzah at the time determined in the month of Aviv; for it was in that
month that you left Egypt. No one is to appear before me empty-handed.
Leviticus 23:5-6
(In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, between sundown and
complete darkness, comes Pesach for ADONAI. On the fifteenth day of the
same month is the festival of matzah; for seven days you are to eat
matzah.)
Numbers 28:17
On the fifteenth day of the month is to be a feast. Matzah is to be eaten
for seven days.
Deuteronomy 16:2-3
You are to sacrifice the Pesach offering from flock and herd to ADONAI your
God in the place where ADONAI will choose to have his name live. You are
not to eat any hametz with it; for seven days you are to eat with it matzah,
the bread of affliction; for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste.
Thus you will remember the day you left the land of Egypt as long as you
live.
Deuteronomy 16:8
For six days you are to eat matzah; on the seventh day there is to be a
festive assembly for ADONAI your God; do not do any kind of work.
Matthew 26:17-19
On the first day for matzah, the talmidim came to Yeshua and asked, "Where
do you want us to prepare your Seder?" "Go into the city, to so-and-so," he
replied, "and tell him that the Rabbi says, 'My time is near, my
talmidim and I are celebrating Pesach at your house.'" The talmidim did
as Yeshua directed and prepared the Seder.
Mark 14:12-16
On the first day for matzah, when they slaughtered the lamb for Pesach,
Yeshua's talmidim asked him, "Where do you want us to go and prepare
your Seder?" He sent two of his talmidim with these instructions: "Go into
the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him; and
whichever house he enters, tell him that the Rabbi says, 'Where is the
guest room for me, where I am to eat the Pesach meal with my talmidim?'
He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make the
preparations there." The talmidim went off, came to the city and found
things just as he had told them they would be; and they prepared the
Seder.
Luke 22:7-13
Then came the day of matzah, on which the Passover lamb had to be killed.
Yeshua sent Kefa and Yochanan, instructing them, "Go and prepare our Seder,
so we can eat." They asked him, "Where do you want us to prepare it?" He
told them, "As you're going into the city, a man carrying a jar of
water will meet you. Follow him into the house he enters, and say to its
owner, 'The Rabbi says to you, "Where is the guest room, where I am to
eat the Pesach meal with my talmidim?"' He will show you a large room
upstairs already furnished; make the preparations there." They went and
found things just as Yeshua had told them they would be, and they prepared
for the Seder.
John 2:23
Now while Yeshua was in Yerushalayim at the Pesach festival, there were many
people who "believed in his name" when they saw the miracles he performed.
John 6:4
Now the Judean festival of Pesach was coming up
John 11:55
The Judean festival of Pesach was near, and many people went up from the
country to Yerushalayim to perform the purification ceremony prior to
Pesach.
1 Corinthians 5:6-8
Your boasting is not good. Dont you know the saying
("It takes only a
little hametz to leaven a whole batch of dough?" Get rid of the old hametz)
Galatians 5:7-9
You were running the race well; who has stopped you from following the
truth? Whatever means of persuasion he used was not from the One who calls
you. "It takes only a little hametz to leaven the whole batch of dough."
Supportive Scripture
Exodus 12:33-34
The Egyptians pressed to send the people out of the land quickly, because
they said, "Otherwise we'll all be dead!" The people took their dough
before it had become leavened and wrapped their kneading bowls in their
clothes on their shoulders.
Commentary
The Scriptures cited herein are unambiguous that God commanded the Israelites to eat matzah on each of the seven days of the Feast of unleavened bread that begins on the 15th day of Nisan. The rationale for it appears to be to remember the Israelites' hasty departure from Egypt by eating bread similar to the kind they carried with them - bread that did not have time to rise during their travel. This translates to being a mandate today for Jews and K'rov Yisrael Gentiles, but not for other Gentiles, although they may do so (if they are so moved) in identification with the Jewish people.
Classical Commentators
Maimonides and HaChinuch state that we must eat matzah on the evening of the 15th of Nisan, and Maimonides states that doing so after that is optional. On this latter point, Meir and HaChinuch are silent, and they offer no mitzvah to support eating matzah during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Pesachim 120a in the Talmud appears to be the source of the commentators' apparent belief that there is no commandment to eat matzah after Pesach. Perhaps they understand the Scriptures to be saying that if one chooses to eat bread from the 15th to the 21sti of Nisan, then the bread must be unleavened. I do not know their rationale, but I am of opinion that Scripture commands eating matzah on each of the seven days of Unleavened Bread as a daily reminder of God's deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt.
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