Cooking in an oven or over an open fire. Bread baked in this way was the staple diet of the population in biblical times. Bricks were also sometimes produced by baking.
Baking bread
In ovens
Leviticus 26:26 See also Exodus 8:3; Leviticus 7:9, Leviticus 11:35
When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and dole out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.
Over open fires
1 Kings 19:6 See also Isaiah 44:14–19; Ezekiel 4:9–15; John 21:9
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.
Unleavened bread
Exodus 12:39 Bread was usually baked with yeast, but where there was insufficient time for kneading and proving, the raising agent was omitted. See also Genesis 19:1–3; Leviticus 6:14–17; 1 Samuel 28:24
Since their dough had no leaven, the people baked what they had brought out of Egypt into unleavened loaves. For when they had been driven out of Egypt, they could not delay and had not prepared any provisions for themselves.
Baking of offerings
Leviticus 2:4–10 See also Leviticus 6:14–18, Leviticus 7:9–10, Leviticus 23:15–18, Leviticus 24:5–6; 2 Kings 4:42
Now if you bring an offering of grain baked in an oven, it must consist of fine flour, either unleavened cakes mixed with oil or unleavened wafers coated with oil. If your offering is a grain offering prepared on a griddle, it must be unleavened bread made of fine flour mixed with oil. Crumble it and pour oil on it; it is a grain offering. If your offering is a grain offering cooked in a pan, it must consist of fine flour with oil. When you bring to the LORD the grain offering made in any of these ways, it is to be presented to the priest, and he shall take it to the altar. The priest is to remove the memorial portion from the grain offering and burn it on the altar as a food offering, a pleasing aroma to the LORD. But the remainder of the grain offering shall belong to Aaron and his sons; it is a most holy part of the food offerings to the LORD.
Baking of manna
Every morning each one gathered as much as was needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much food — two omers per person — and all the leaders of the congregation came and reported this to Moses. He told them, “This is what the LORD has said: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil. Then set aside whatever remains and keep it until morning.’”
Baking of clay
Daniel 2:32–33 See also Genesis 11:3; Daniel 2:41–43
The head of the statue was pure gold, its chest and arms were silver, its belly and thighs were bronze, its legs were iron, and its feet were part iron and part clay.
Bakers
At home
Genesis 18:6 See also Leviticus 26:26 Women baked at home or in communal ovens; 2 Samuel 13:6–8
So Abraham hurried into the tent and said to Sarah, “Quick! Prepare three seahs of fine flour, knead it, and bake some bread.”
At royal courts
1 Samuel 8:13 See also Genesis 40:1–22, Genesis 41:10
And he will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers.
In the temple
1 Chronicles 9:31 See also 1 Chronicles 23:28–29; Ezekiel 46:20
A Levite named Mattithiah, the firstborn son of Shallum the Korahite, was entrusted with baking the bread.
As tradesmen in towns
Jeremiah 37:21 See also Hosea 7:4
So King Zedekiah gave orders for Jeremiah to be placed in the courtyard of the guard and given a loaf of bread daily from the street of the bakers, until all the bread in the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard.
Related themes
Dictionary of Bible Themes © 1999 Martin Manser, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, via Bible Aquifer. Formatted for this site, with Scripture from the Berean Standard Bible.