Every time we repeat the Lord’s Prayer we ask the Lord to, “Give us this day our daily bread.” I believe it is appropriate that we should honor those whose occupation it is to bake our daily bread. The Lord assumed we would partake of this type of sustenance on a daily basis or at least ingest food of which we were to give thanks to Him for.
So who was the most famous baker in the Bible? It is the One whom Peter and John, after a night’s fruitless work, saw waiting for them on the shore? Wet, cold, disappointed and hungry, reaching the shore, “they saw a fire of coals and fish laid thereon and bread.” It must have been Jesus who baked that bread, and prepared that breakfast, for His disciples who were to go forth to “feed his sheep.” It is the one who broke the bread at the Last Supper. We serve a Master who is thoughtful about our bodies, as well as concerned about our souls. Jesus is the Bread of Life born in the house of bread (בֵּית bread לֶחֶם house of; Βηθλεέμ / Bēthleém; Bethlehem)
Elijah was served bread by an angelic baker! After a long flight from Jezebel, the prophet fell asleep and later was roused by an angel with the call, “Arise and eat!” In the case of Elijah he is being pursued by Jezebel (Ahab) for killing the prophets. So he is on the lamb and has no food. In this instance we see God providing for a man just as he provides for all those who trust in Him. God always considers his servants.
1 Kings 19:5-6 Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” And he looked around, and there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again.
Another baker we read of in the Bible is the chief baker of the King of Egypt who prepared all manner of baked goods for Pharaoh (Genesis 40: 1-22; 41:10).
Joseph delivers a dreadful message to Pharaoh’s chief baker, yet he spared no detail of it Genesis 40:16-19. “The three baskets are three days: yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and hang thee on a tree; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee.” It was a gruesome doom to pronounce to an outstanding baker, but Joseph did not flinch in breaking the sad news to his fellow prisoner. The variety of foodstuffs this doomed baker produced can be literally expressed as food, the work of the baker (Genesis 40:17).
It is interesting to note that professional bakers who were likely grouped together as a form of ancient guild, had a street named after them in Jerusalem. The only street in old Jerusalem of which we know the name.
Jeremiah 37:21 So King Zedekiah gave orders, and they committed Jeremiah to the court of the guard. And a loaf of bread was given him daily from the bakers' street, until all the bread of the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.
Before bread making became the trade noted above each Jewish family made the bread it needed, a task which, as a rule, fell to the women of the household. When we observe the strangers who came to visit him, it is bread that Abraham hurried to Sara’s tent for.
Genesis 18:6 And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quick! Three seahs (9 quarts/8 liters) of fine flour! Knead it, and make cakes.
Leviticus 26:26 When I break your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.
1Samuel 8:13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.
At home bakers were women. The public bakers like those in the king’s courts were men
Genesis 40:1 Sometime after this, the cupbearer of the king of Egypt and his baker committed an offense against their lord the king of Egypt.
It is believed by many Bible scholars that a house where there were daughters the eldest did the baking.
Genesis 29:17 "Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance."
This of course might explain why Leah was tender-eyed; inflammation being caused by the heat of the oven. This passage originally was interpreted as meaning that Leah just wasn’t that good-looking and Rachael was far more attractive but there is more going on in this passage. The word weak in this passage meant they were sensitive or delicate or they lacked a lustrous ‘brightness’. They were dull due to being exposed to darkness and heat a lot while indoors baking.
Bread, made chiefly from wheat and barley, was used for food in general (Judges 7:13; John 6:13). In times of famine, other ingredients were added (Ezekiel 4:9). Unleavened bread was made very thin, and was broken, not cut (Lamentations 4:4; Matthew 14: 19; 15:36; 26:26). The importance of bread, as the basic food, in the diet of a Jew, explains why it is so heavily symbolized in the Bible. The greatest honor to the baker’s was afforded when Jesus Himself chose bread as a symbol of His own presence and provision in the church in the sacrament of communion. Broken bread symbolized His body broken for us on the cross. The Bread of Life broke bread at the Last Supper.
John 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
Acts 2:42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
1 Corinthians 10:16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
In this day of mass production and automation, the original methods of baking bread seem somewhat crude. The baker would prepare his breads on wood or coals (I Kings 19:6; Isaiah 44:19; John 21:9, 13). A flat dough cake, something like a pancake would be placed between two layers of hot ash. This “cake baked on the coals” became unleavened, and was eaten immediately (Genesis 18: 6). Another method was to bake bread in a clay, bell-shaped oven which was partially buried in the ground, or built into a wall (Exodus 8:3; Leviticus 2: 4; 26:26; Psalm 21:9; Hosea 7:4; Matthew 6:30).
Two sorts of ovens were used, portable and fixed. These ovens could be heated by fuel consisting of stubble, grass and dry twigs (1 Kings 17:12; Malachi 4:1; Matthew 6:30). The baking pan (Leviticus 2: 5; 1 Chronicles 9:31; 23:29) was an iron griddle or flat stone. When the stone or plate was thoroughly heated the embers would be raked off and the cake lay on and covered with embers, or glowing ashes.
Today we completely fail to realize the effort entailed in making something as simple as bread…because we take it for granted. The labor and toil of making the bread nearly every single day is lost. But when done in private homes of the Bible it was the life sustenance of entire communities. Just like Jesus, the Bread of Life is the sustenance of eternal life. In our modern age we have lost the appreciation of the effort needed to make the very thing that we need to sustain us to keep us alive. Ironically, we also have moved farther away from the truth of the toil an suffering Jesus needed to go through to save us from our sins. Perhaps we should go back and revisit the old ways? Relearn that which we have lost and have no knowledge or appreciation of?
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