Bible Synapse
Was unleavened bread to be eaten for six days or for seven?
Hard question · The law of Moses · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
Unleavened bread is eaten “seven days” with the Passover; then “Six days thou shalt eat unleavened bread: and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly”.
Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life. And there shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in all thy coast seven days; neither shall there any thing of the flesh, which thou sacrificedst the first day at even, remain all night until the morning. Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee: But at the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt. And thou shalt roast and eat it in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose: and thou shalt turn in the morning, and go unto thy tents. Six days thou shalt eat unleavened bread: and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work therein.
“Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread”; whoever eats leavened bread in that time is cut off from Israel.
Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.
Israel is to keep the feast of unleavened bread, eating it seven days in the month Abib.
Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:)
The objection
Exodus, and the opening of Deuteronomy 16, command unleavened bread for seven days. A few verses later Deuteronomy says, “Six days thou shalt eat unleavened bread: and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord thy God”. Did the feast of unleavened bread last six days or seven?
The answer
The same paragraph that says ‘six days’ has just said ‘seven’: “seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith”, and “there shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in all thy coast seven days” (Deuteronomy 16:3-4). Moses is not changing his mind within five verses. Verse 8 picks out the seventh day for something more. Besides eating unleavened bread, the people were to hold on it a ‘solemn assembly’ (Hebrew ‘atsereth, a solemn gathering) and do no work.
‘Six days … and on the seventh’ is a familiar Hebrew way of setting the last day apart, as in “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work” followed by “But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God” (Exodus 20:9-10). Exodus uses the same pattern for this very feast: “Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to the Lord” (13:6). No one takes that to mean the first six days were not part of the feast, and Deuteronomy 16:8 does not mean the seventh day was not. The seven days were six days of unleavened bread, and a seventh that was unleavened too and was also a day of assembly and rest. Keil and Delitzsch and Gill both read the verse this way: the seventh day is named apart because of its special service, not to exempt it from the unleavened bread.
Other answers Christians give
Bread from the new harvest
The Targum of Jonathan, followed by Rashi, took the six days as the days on which unleavened bread from the new harvest could be eaten, after the first sheaf had been offered to the Lord (Leviticus 23:10-14). Gill reports this view.
From the classic commentators
In other places it is ordered to be eaten seven days, Exodus 12:15 and here it is not said six only; it was to be eaten on the seventh as on the other, though that is here distinguished from the six, because of special and peculiar service assigned to itJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Deuteronomy 16 (1746–1763), at Bible Hub
Sources
- Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: Deuteronomy 16, at Bible Hub
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Deuteronomy 16, at Bible Hub
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible: Deuteronomy 16, at Bible Hub