Bake Bread

When the biblical authors formally mention the baking of bread or make strong allusion to this activity, they are directing our attention to the most ordinary of all the daily tasks in Bible times. The bread made from wheat provided the majority of carbohydrates and proteins consumed by those living at that time.[11] Because their bread was baked without preservatives and so would spoil more quickly than the processed bread of today, it generally was baked daily and was intended for consumption on the day it was baked.

Three different methods were used to bake this daily bread. The first did not require an oven but only a flat rock, making it the easiest method for baking bread when traveling. The baker built a fire on the upper surface of the rock, and once the fire burned down to hot embers, the coals were swept from the surface and replaced by raw bread dough. Because the rock retained the heat long after the embers were removed, its surface became the rack on which the bread baked.[12] The second method for baking bread used a clay oven called the tabun, which was shaped like a beehive with an opening on the top. A fire built around the exterior of the tabun heated the interior of the oven, and the temperature was controlled by adjusting the lid that fully or partially closed the opening on top of the beehive. Stones placed on the floor of the tabun became the baking surface on which the dough was placed. The third method for baking bread was also in an oven. This one was called the tannûr, and it was also shaped like a beehive. But in the tannûr the fire was built inside the oven and the bread dough was slapped on the curved sides of the oven to bake.[13]

Bread was baked on a daily basis.

We can divide the instances in which the biblical authors formally mention the baking of bread into two categories: (1) baking that occurred in ordinary and expected settings, and (2) baking that is noteworthy because it was unusual in some way. We can safely say that no activity was more ordinary in Bible times than the baking of bread. It was done on a daily basis for one’s family whether the family was lingering around the family compound or preparing for an extended journey (Exod. 12:39). It was also customary to bake and offer bread to recently arrived guests, who would naturally be hungry after walking a long distance (Gen. 14:18; 18:6; 1 Sam. 28:24). Bread was also baked and brought to the Lord as an offering, honoring the premise that there would be no grain without the blessing of the Lord. This offering could consist of raw grain, but it was more often prepared and presented before the Lord as baked goods (Lev. 2:4; 6:17). Baked loaves of bread were also used as symbolic representatives of God’s people; twelve loaves resided in the presence of the Lord within his sanctuary (Lev. 24:5–9).

An oven for baking bread was included in the plan of every home.

In contrast to these ordinary instances involving baked goods, we find six instances in which baking or not baking receives special mention because the circumstances were unusual: (1) Moses taught the Israelites that this fundamental task was to be suspended on the Sabbath. Any baked goods eaten on the Lord’s Sabbath had to be baked the day before (Exod. 16:23). (2) The normal rhythm of baking was also interrupted by Israel’s demand that they be led by a king. Monarchs of Bible times had their own full-time baking staff (Gen. 40:1–2). Consequently, Samuel warned that Israel’s request for a change in political structure would result in daughters being removed from their family household and put to work baking daily bread not for their own families but for their king (1 Sam. 8:10–11, 13). (3) The smell of baking bread was as pleasant an aroma in Bible times as it is today. But in at least two instances, these pleasant aromas were used in a nefarious way, disarming those about to be taken advantage of. Jacob presented Esau with freshly baked bread as he set the stage for extracting the birthright from his brother (Gen. 25:34), and Amnon, who was feigning illness, requested that Tamar prepare and bake bread in his presence as part of his plan to sexually assault her (2 Sam.  3:8).

In the fourth and fifth instances the horror of a siege is amplified or illustrated by a description of unusual baking. God called his Old Testament people to live a unique life that honored him in all its dimensions; punishment, including foreign invasion and siege of the cities, would follow failure to honor their commitment. (4) In Leviticus the Lord warned of a punishing siege with this vivid language: “When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven” (Lev. 26:26). (5) The disobedience of God’s people during the days of Ezekiel meant that just such a siege was imminent. The Lord commanded Ezekiel to bake siege food for himself and eat it in front of the people even before the siege of Jerusalem had begun in order to symbolically warn them of the events about to transpire (Ezek. 4:9–13). (6) Finally, we would expect travelers to bake their own bread while traveling, to replenish their energy levels. But the highly stressed Elijah was so exhausted by his flight that he had not made any food for himself. Consequently, the Lord illustrated his ongoing concern for his prophet by sending an angel to rouse him from sleep and offer him “bread baked over hot coals” (1 Kings 19:6).