BREAD. The sword 'bread' was of far more extensive meaning among the Hebrews than with us. There are passages in which it appears to be applied to all kinds of victuals (Luke xi. 3); but it more generally denotes all kinds of baked farinaceous articles of food. It is also used, how ever, in the more limited sense of bread made from wheat or barley, for rye is little cultivated in the El.A. Barley being used chiefly by the poor, and for reeding horses [SEoRtm], bread, in the more limited sense, chiefly denotes the various kinds of cake-like bread prepared from wheaten flour.
Corn is ground daily in the East [MILL]. After the wheaten flour is taken from the hand-mill, it is made into a dough or paste in a small wooden trough. It is next leavened ; after which it is made into thin cakes or flaps, round or oval, and then baked.
The kneading-troughs, in which the dough is pre pared, have no resemblance to ours in size or shape. As one person does not bake bread for many families, as in our towns, and as one family does not bake bread sufficient for many days, as in our villages, but every family bakes for the day only the quantity of bread which it requires, only a comparatively small quantity of dough is pre pared. This is done in small wooden bowls ; and that those of the ancient Hebrews were of the same description as those now in use appears from their being able to carry them, together with the dough, wrapped up in their cloaks, upon their shoulders, without difficulty. The Bedouin Arabs, indeed, use for this purpose a leather which can be drawn up into a bag by a running cord along the border, and in which they prepare and often carry their dough. This might equally, and in some respects better answer the described con ditions ; but, being especially adapted to the ase of a nomade and tent-dwelling people, it is mote likely that the Israelites, who were not such at the time of the Exode, then used the wooden bowls for their ' kneading-troughs' (Exod. viii. 3 ; xii. 34 ; Dent. xxviii. 5, 7). It is clear, from the history of the departure from Egypt, that the flour had first been made into a dough by water only, in which state it had been kept some little time before it was leavened ; for when the Israelites were unexpectedly (as to the moment) compelled in all haste to withdraw, it was found that, although the dough had been prepared in the kneading trough, it was still unleavened (Exod. xii. 34 ; comp.
Hos. vii. 4) ; and it was in commemoration of this circumstance that they and their descendants in all ages were enjoined to eat only unleavened bread at the feast of the Passover.
The dough thus prepared is not always baked at home. In towns there are public ovens and bakers by trade ; and although the general rule in large and respectable families is to bake the bread at home, much bread is bought of the bakers by unsettled individuals and poor persons ; and mk,,v small households send their dough to be baked at the public oven, the baker receiving for his trouble a portion of the baked bread, which he adds to his day's stock of bread for sale. Such public ovens and bakers by trade must have existed anciently in Palestine, and in the East generally, as is evident from Hos. vii. 4 and Jer. xxxvii. 21. The latter text mentions the bakers' street (or rather bakers' place or market), and this would suggest that, as is the case at present, the bakers, as well as other trades, had a particular part of the bazaar or market entirely appropriated to their business, instead of being dispersed in different parts of the towns where they lived.
For their larger operations the bakers have ovens of brick, not altogether unlike our own ; and in large houses there are similar ovens. The ovens used in domestic baking are, however, usually of a portable description, and are large vessels of stone, earthenware, or copper, inside of which, when properly heated, small loaves and cakes are baked, and on the outer surface of which thin flaps of bread, or else a large wafer-like biscuit may be prepared.