Dt. 16: Remember Passover?

Deuteronomy 16:3 "Do not eat it with bread made with yeast, but for seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left Egypt in haste—so that all the days of your life you may remember the time of your departure from Egypt."

Well, Passover. And yeast. The Israelites did not have time to put yeast in their bread. They did not have time to waste waiting for their bread to rise as they were about to escape bondage. Deuteronomy calls unleavened bread the "bread of affliction." What is that supposed to mean? You are afflicted with disease, with illness...with inconvenience?

God really hammers this "remember when you were slaves in Egypt" business. I wonder why that is. At some point, I'd want to start being able to look forward completely, and forget that unpleasantness. Would forgetting the slavery unpleasantness mean also forgetting the rescue and redemption God carried out?

Anyway, once again, yeast is not even to be found in the land for seven days.

In verse eight, it says to eat the unleavened bread for six days, while in verse 3 it says seven. Possibly because "seven days" is another word for "a week." A seventh day Sabbath is included in a week.

Here's a little more about the feast of weeks. It actually has something to do with the harvest. Seven weeks from the beginning of the harvest, the people make a freewill offering in proportion to what the LORD has blessed them with in these seven weeks.