cakes in the Bible

Cakes made of wheat or barley were offered in the temple. They were salted, but unleavened (Exodus 29:2; Leviticus 2:4).

In idolatrous worship thin cakes or wafers were offered “to the queen of heaven” (Jeremiah 7:18; 44:19).

Pancakes are described in 2 Samuel 13:8-9. Cakes mingled with oil and baked in the oven are mentioned in Leviticus 2:4, and “wafers unleavened anointed with oil,” in Exodus 29:2; Leviticus 8:26; 1 Chronicles 23:29.

“Cracknels,” a kind of crisp cakes, were among the things Jeroboam directed his wife to take with her when she went to consult Ahijah the prophet at Shiloh (1 Kings 14:3).

Such hard cakes were carried by the Gibeonites when they came to Joshua (9:5, 12). They described their bread as “mould;” but the Hebrew word nikuddim, here used, ought rather to be rendered “hard as biscuit.” It is rendered “cracknels” in 1 Kings 14:3.

The ordinary bread, when kept for a few days, became dry and excessively hard. The Gibeonites pointed to this hardness of their bread as an evidence that they had come a long journey.

We read also of honey-cakes (Exodus 16:31), “cakes of figs” (1 Samuel 25:18), “cake” as denoting a whole piece of bread (1 Kings 17:12), and “a [round] cake of barley bread” (Judges 7:13).

In Leviticus 2 is a list of the different kinds of bread and cakes which were fit for offerings.

Raisin cakes were also served in Biblical times.

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Article Version: April 28, 2024