“No grain offering that you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven” (Leviticus 2:11 ESV)

Leaven is a substance, typically yeast, that is added to dough to make it ferment and rise. It helps make bread light and fluffy and more tasty. So, why does God prohibit its use in the grain offering? The Bible doesn’t answer this question directly, yet it does offer several hints. Consider how Jesus used the symbol of leaven to describe the false teaching and hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt.16:6,12, Mark 8:15, Luke 12:1). He warned his disciples to “beware the leaven” of their teaching. In the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he used leaven to illustrate how a little wickedness and corruption will “leaven the whole lump” (1 Cor. 5:6-8). So, he warned them to purge it out and become a “new lump.” If leaven is the biblical symbol for sin and death, then it would be taboo to offer it on the altar of blessing and life.