What Foods Were Eaten at Passover in the Bible?
- In Exodus Chapter 12 of the King James Version of the Bible, God instructs Moses to tell every Israelite to select a male lamb without blemish, which they are to kill on the evening of the fourteenth day of that month. After using the blood to signify their heritage, God says, "And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire..." Roasted lamb was the meat the Israelites ate at Passover. The lamb was not to be eaten raw, nor was it to be cooked with water. Only roasted lamb was permitted to be eaten, according God's command.
- God also instructs the Israelites to eat unleavened bread with the roasted lamb. In Biblical times, bread dough was often mixed with leaven -- known today as yeast -- which helped the bread to rise when it was baked. Unleavened bread contained no yeast, and was thus considered to be bread in its purest form. God did not want anything impure or false to be added to the bread, and in the New Testament, Jesus uses the word leaven to warn his disciples about false doctrine.
Some Bible scholars also point to the fact that when the Pharaoh freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, they left in such a hurry that they could not wait for their bread dough to leaven, or rise. In memeory of this, throughout Passover, no leavened bread is eaten. - The Passover meal also included bitter herbs, which are not specifically named in the Bible. However, Bible scholars believe that given the geography of Egypt and the kinds of foods that would have been growing in the region, the bitter herbs would have included hawkweed, radish, bitter cress, sorrel chicory, wild lettuce and sow-thistles. These herbs would have likely been prepared as a salad.
- Every item of food eaten at Passover holds a symbolic meaning. The spotless lamb symbolizes God's mercy and His deliverance of the Israelites from bondage. The lamb's blood on the doorposts symbolizes the faith the Israelites had that God would keep his promise to pass over their houses and not kill their firstborn. Bread made without leaven refers to the sin that stained the spirit of the people of Israel. Bitter herbs were eaten to remember the bitterness of slavery, which the Israelites had suffered for hundreds of years under the Egyptians.
