Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:
(brewed, baked). Early used (Gen. 18:5-6; Ex. 12:34; Jer. 7:18). Made of wheat, barley, rye, fitches, and spelt, in loaves or rolls, leavened or unleavened; the kneading being in troughs, bowls, or on flat plates, and the baking in portable ovens of earthenware, or upon heated stones, or on the coals.
Concise Bible Dictionary:
A bread man in old-city Jerusalem.
Constantly referred to as the sustenance of man, though animal food may be included, and thus it stands for “food” in general (Gen. 3:19; Ruth 1:6; Psa. 41:9). Bread was made of wheaten flour, or of wheat and barley mixed, or by the poor of barley only. It was generally made in thin cakes which could be baked very quickly when a visitor arrived (Gen. 18:6; Gen. 19:3; 1 Sam. 28:24). It was usually leavened by a piece of old dough in a state of fermentation. See LEAVEN.
UNLEAVENED BREAD was to be eaten with certain of the offerings (Lev. 6:16-17); and for the seven days’ feast connected with the Passover, often referred to as “the Feast of Unleavened Bread” (Ex. 34:18; 2 Chron. 8:13; Luke 22:1; 1 Cor. 5:8): a symbol that all evil must be put away in order to keep the feast.
The Lord Jesus called Himself the BREAD OF GOD, the bread that came down from heaven, THE BREAD OF LIFE, the living bread, of which if any man ate he should live forever: He said “He that eateth Me shall live by Me.” He is the spiritual food that sustains the new life (John 6:31-58). This was typified in Israel by the SHEWBREAD, the twelve loaves placed upon the table in the holy place, new every sabbath day: it was holy and was eaten by the priests only (Lev. 24:5-9). It is literally “face or presence bread” (Ex. 25:30); and “bread of arrangement” or “ordering,” as in the margin of 1 Chronicles 9:32; and in the New Testament “bread of presentation” (Matt. 12:4; Heb. 9:2). It typified the nourishment that God would provide for Israel in Christ, as well as the ordering of the twelve tribes before Him; in them was the administration of God’s bounty through Christ for the earth, as Christ is now the sustainment for the Christian.
From Manners and Customs of the Bible:
Genesis 43:31. He washed his face, and went out, and refrained himself, and said, Set on bread.
Orientals in general are great eaters of bread. It has been computed that three persons in four live entirely upon it, or else upon such compositions as are made of barley or wheat flour. No doubt the term “bread” was often used to denote food in general; but this was because bread was more generally used than any other article of diet. When Joseph’s brethren had cast him into the pit, “they sat down to eat bread” (Gen. 37:25). When Moses was in Midian he was invited to “eat bread” (Ex. 2:20). The witch of En-dor “set a morsel of broad” before Saul and his servants (1 Sam. 28:22-25).
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