📖 Biblical Definition
The Bread Motif runs from Adam's sweat-bread (Gen 3:19) through Melchizedek's bread and wine (Gen 14:18), the Passover bread of haste (Ex 12), the manna in the wilderness (Ex 16), the showbread in the tabernacle (Lev 24), Bethlehem (house of bread, where Christ was born), the loaves miracles (Mk 6, 8), and the Lord's Supper (Mk 14). Christ Himself is the Bread of Life (John 6).
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
(Biblical motif.) From Adam's sweat-bread to manna to the showbread to Christ as Bread of Life to the Lord's Supper.
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Bread is Scripture's most pervasive food-image. The Lord's Prayer asks for it daily (Mt 6:11). The Last Supper centers on it. Christ's body is identified with it.
Bethlehem's name (beth-lechem, house of bread) becomes the place where the Bread of Life is born. The motif is woven into the place-names of the gospel.
📖 Key Scripture
Exodus 16:4 — "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you."
John 6:35 — "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger."
Matthew 6:11 — "Give us this day our daily bread."
Luke 24:30 — "And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Modern Christianity often misses the bread-arc of Scripture; the Lord's Supper is its current peak, but the motif runs through every book.
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John 6:35's I am the bread of life is the climax of the entire bread motif. Christ is Bethlehem's bread, manna's antitype, showbread's reality, communion's substance.
The household's daily meal touches this motif every day. Daily bread received, blessed, broken, shared — each meal rehearses the gospel in seed.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Hebrew lechem (bread); Greek artos.
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Hebrew lechem — bread; from a root meaning to fight or eat.
Greek artos — bread; the New Testament loaf.
Usage
"Bethlehem is the house of bread."
"Christ is manna's antitype, showbread's reality, communion's substance."
"Daily bread received, blessed, broken, shared — each meal rehearses the gospel."