The next festival of YHVH (the LORD) as found in Lev 23:6-8
‘And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; seven days you must eat unleavened bread. ‘On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it. ‘But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.’"
(Leviticus 23:6-8 NKJV throughout unless noted)The Feast of Unleavened Bread (Hebrew, Hag HaMatzah) is the fifteenth day of the month of Nisan (usually in April, or May), which is the day following Passover. It is a seven-day festival to YHVH. On the fifteenth of Nisan and for the next seven days, God forbade the people to have any leavened bread (leaven or leavened products) in their houses. [Exodus 12:14-17]
The Book of Exodus, chapter 12, describes the Egyptian Passover. After the lamb was killed, the blood was to be put on the doorposts. The lamb was to be roasted in fire and eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs (Exodus 12:7-8).
God gave a ceremony of searching and removing leaven from the house prior to the festival of Unleavened Bread in preparation for the festival. In Hebrew, this ceremony is called Bedikat HaMetz, which means "the search for leaven"
The ceremony is as follows:
The preparation for searching and removing the leaven from the house actually begins before Passover. First, the wife thoroughly cleans the house to remove all leaven from it. In the Bible, leaven is symbolic of sin (1 Cor 5:8). In cleaning the house, the wife is instructed to purposely leave ten small pieces of leaven in the house. Then the father takes the children, along with a candle, a wooden spoon, a feather, and a piece of linen cloth, and searches through the house for the ten pieces of leaven. By nightfall on the day before Passover, a final and comprehensive search is performed. At this time, the house is completely dark except for the candles. Once the father finds the leaven, he sets the candle down by the leaven and lays the wooden spoon beside the leaven. Then he uses the feather to sweep the leaven onto the spoon. Without touching the leaven, he takes the feather, spoon, and leaven, wraps them in a linen cloth, and casts them out of the door of the house. The next morning (the fourteenth of Nisan), he goes into the synagogue and puts the linen cloth and its contents into a fire to be burned.
HISTORICAL
The going out of Egypt.
The primary theme of this feast is the purging out of leaven (sin). Historically, there are two notable events that happened on this day.
1. The Exodus journey beginning from Egypt [Exodus 12:41]. In (Deuteronomy 16:3), the bread is referred to as "the bread of affliction."
2. The burial of Yeshua after His crucifixion, who is the Bread of Life (John 6:35). In fact, the place of Yeshua's birth, Bethlehem, comes from two Hebrew words, beit and lechem. Beit means "house" and lechem means "bread." So, Bethlehem means house of bread. Therefore, Yeshua, who is the Bread of life, was born at a place called the house of bread.
The festivals are set appointments of YHVH specifying what He will perform and the exact time He will perform it. The Jews had to hurry to put Yeshua's body in the ground because the Sabbath was drawing near. This sabbath was a high sabbath and the first day of Unleavened Bread (Nisan 15). This can be found in [John 19:31]. This would mean that Yeshua died on the fourteenth of Nisan, the day of Passover. Yeshua was in the sepulcher the day following His crucifixion, which was the fifteenth of Nisan, the first day of Unleavened Bread.
MESSIANIC FULFILLMENT
The Burial of Yeshua (Jesus).
The spoon represents the tree that Yeshua died upon. The leaven (sin) was swept on the spoon (the tree) as part of the ceremony. Likewise, our sin was swept or cast upon Yeshua [2 Corinthians 5:21] when Yeshua died upon the tree. The leaven (Yeshua upon the tree) was then wrapped in linen and Yeshua was cast out. Thus He fulfilled the part of the ceremony where the father takes the linen cloth and its contents and casts it into the fire to be burned.
SPIRITUAL APPLICATION
Sanctification and separation from evil represented by water immersion.
Spiritually, we are to cleanse the leaven (sin) from our houses (lives) by allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal to us, through the knowledge of Yeshua and the Scriptures, the sin that is in our lives. It is only through God's Word that we are able to identify sin in our lives.
Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path. (Psalms 119:105)So the spiritual understanding of the candle is that it represents the Word of God. The feather represents the Holy Spirit. Even though we have the Word of God, we need the Spirit of God to illuminate the entire Bible to us, including the Torah and the Tanach [1 Corinthians 2:11-14].
Reference for this article, from the book.
The Seven Festivals of the Messiah
by Eddie Chumney