unleavened bread

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “unleavened bread” in English is translated in various ways:

  • Chichimeca-Jonaz: “bread that doesn’t have its medicine that makes it puff up”
  • Teutila Cuicatec: “bread without its sour”
  • Tepeuxila Cuicatec: “bread that has no mother” (source for this and above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
  • Mairasi: “bread without other ingredient” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
  • Chichewa: “non-puffed-up bread”
  • Chitonga: “bread without fermented grain” (source for this and above: de Regt / Wendland 2016)
  • Hiligaynon: “bread that has-none of that-which-causes-to-expand” (source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)

fat, oil

The different Hebrew and Greek terms that are translated as “(olive) oil” and “(animal) fat” in English are translated in Kwere with only one term: mavuta. (Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

wheat

Two kinds of wild wheat have grown in the open deciduous oak woodland in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent for several thousand years: Einkorn Wheat Triticum monococcum and Emmer Wheat Triticum dicoccum. Both came into cultivation together with barley. Just before the time of the Romans, the Naked Bread Wheat or Hard Wheat Triticum durum started replacing the hulled varieties. This then became the favorite type of wheat for bread and macaroni. Spelt is a sub-member of the Triticum aestivum species.

In New Revised Standard Version, updated edition and some other versions, the generic Hebrew word bar has been rendered “wheat” in Jeremiah 23:28 et al. This is legitimate, since the grain referred to by bar was probably wheat. However, it might be better to say “grain” in these passages.

The most important early wheat for the Israelites was emmer, probably the only wheat known in Egypt, and referred to in Hebrew as chittah. However, according to Hepper (Baker Encyclopedia of Bible Plants: Flowers and Trees, Fruits and Vegetables, Ecology. Baker Book House, 1992), the seven-headed wheat of the Egyptian king’s dream (Genesis 41:5ff.) suggests that there may also have been Triticum turgidum (rivet wheat) in the emmer group. The Hebrew word kusemeth probably refers to a type of emmer wheat that the Egyptians called swt.

Wheat is a type of grass like rice and barley, growing to around 75 centimeters (2.5 feet) in height and having a head with many small grains in rows.

Bread made from wheat was the staple food for the people of ancient Israel, so God punished them by breaking “the staff of bread” (see, for example, Ezekiel 4:16).

If wheat is unfamiliar, translators can transliterate from a major language in non-rhetorical contexts (for example, English witi, Portuguese trigo, French ble or froment, Swahili ngano, Arabic kama/alkama). The transliteration may add a generic tag such as “grain.” The New Testament passages are mostly rhetorical, opening the possibility for a metaphorical equivalent.

Wheat head, photo by Gloria Suess

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

complete verse (Exodus 29:2)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 29:2:

  • Kupsabiny: “Fine wheat flour should be used for baking bread which is not risen. Unrisen cakes should be baked with flour which is mixed with olive oil and others like chapati which are smeared with oil/fat on top.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Taking the fine wheat flour without yeast make bread mixed with oil and make wafer spread with oil.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “[You (sing.)] also take a good kind of flour and cook/bake bread which has-none of that-which-causes-to-expand. The bread that you are-to-cook/bake, is thick bread which-was mixed with oil, and thin bread which has-been-spread with oil.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Bariai: “And also, take the good plaoa of wit which has no yis existing in it, and then make three kinds of bret as follows: Make one bret which you (pl.) mix together with oil, and another bret which you haven’t mixed with oil, and a bisket on which you’ve rubbed oil also.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Opo: “you shall make bread, and bread which mixed with oil, and bread which they apply oil on it. Bread three these, you shall make it with flour of wheat which be soft which lack yeast.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
  • English: “Bake three kinds of bread using finely-ground wheat flour, but without yeast: Bake some loaves that do not have any olive oil in them, bake some loaves that have olive oil in the dough, and bake some thin wafers that will be smeared with olive oil after they are baked.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Exod 29:2

Three different kinds of bread are described. Unleavened bread, literally “and bread matsoth,” uses the plural of matsah, so the meaning is “unleavened breads,” or bread made without “yeast” (Good News Translation). (See the comment on matsoth at 12.8 and 15.) The size and shape of the pieces is not indicated, but see verse 23.

Unleavened cakes, literally “and cakes matsoth,” uses the term challah for cakes, suggesting a rich, unleavened bread that may have been perforated, braided, or twisted. Since the exact meaning in this case is uncertain, many English translations simply have “unleavened cakes” (see also New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, New English Bible, Translator’s Old Testament). These cakes were at least distinguished from the bread by their richness from the olive oil that was to be kneaded into the dough. Mixed with oil means that the dough is first mixed and kneaded with “olive oil” (Good News Translation) and then baked.

And unleavened wafers, literally “and wafers matsoth,” describes this third kind of matsah as thin and flat. Spread with oil, literally “anointed in oil,” means that the “olive oil” (Good News Translation) is to be spread or “smeared” (Revised English Bible) on these wafers after they are baked.

You shall make them of fine wheat flour refers to all three kinds of unleavened bread. You is singular, but this does not mean that Moses is to do all the baking himself. Fine wheat flour means “finely ground flour from wheat.” This was “the best wheat flour” (Good News Translation), since only the inner kernel of the wheat was ground, rather than the whole grain. (See the comment on “wheat” at 9.31-32.) The word fine therefore has the double meaning of “finely ground” and “choicest” (New Revised Standard Version).

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

• Take some of your best [or, finest] wheat flour and make three batches of dough without yeast. Make some of it into bread without olive oil, some into flat cakes mixed with olive oil, and the rest into thin wafers smeared with oil.

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .