The word simply means bread made without yeast. In the New Testament, though, it never describes an actual loaf on a table; every time the plain adjective appears it is a picture. Paul tells the Corinthians they "are unleavened" and urges them to keep the feast "with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (both in 1 Corinthians 5).
The force of the image depends on what leaven (ζύμη) stands for: a small, hidden thing that works through and changes the whole batch. A little of it spreads through everything, so a tolerated sin spreads through a whole community. To be "unleavened," then, is to be swept clean of that spreading corruption, the way an Israelite household cleared every scrap of yeast out of the house before Passover. The word itself carries no built-in moral meaning; its punch here comes entirely from the Passover picture Paul is drawing on.
1Co 5:71Co 5:8
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the Festival of Unleavened Bread: the seven-day spring festival kept alongside Passover
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
In most of its New Testament appearances the word is not really an adjective at all but a name. The plural form, "the Unleavened Bread," is shorthand for the seven-day festival Israel kept every spring, when no yeast was allowed in the house (the festival goes back to Exodus 12).
The Gospel writers and Acts use the name mainly to date events: "the first day of Unleavened Bread," "the days of Unleavened Bread." On the calendar it sat right up against Passover (πάσχα), and the two names were used so closely together that the Gospels can speak of them almost as one season. The festival's Hebrew name comes from the word for the flat bread itself (מַצָּה).
Mat 26:17Mrk 14:1Mrk 14:12Luk 22:1Luk 22:7Act 12:3Act 20:6
In its plural the one Greek word can name the whole seven-day festival, not just a kind of bread.Luk 22:1
Applied to people it means morally pure, swept clean of corruption, a sense the plain baking adjective does not suggest.1Co 5:7
Both
Both point to bread made without yeast as the basic image.1Co 5:8
Only unleavened
In modern English "unleavened" is mostly a recipe term for flat, yeast-free bread, with none of the Passover and covenant weight the word carried for its first readers.
“Unleavened Bread”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How azumos differs from similar Greek words
ζύμηleaven itself, the yeast that spreads through the dough; this word is its exact opposite, the state of having no leaven at all.
Names the annual festival itself: "the Feast of Unleavened Bread," the week each spring when Israel ate flat bread and kept no yeast in the house.Mat 26:17Mrk 14:12Luk 22:1
Marks time by that week, so writers date events by "the days of unleavened bread" the way we date something to a holiday season.Act 12:3Act 20:6
Stands for a clean, fresh start: bread with nothing added, the picture of purity rather than of something spreading.1Co 5:7
Both
Both belong to the same picture of bread and baking, and Paul sets them side by side as opposites: clear out the old leaven so you can be a fresh, unleavened batch.1Co 5:71Co 5:6
Both carry moral weight in that passage, standing for the character of a whole community: leaven for malice and evil, unleavened bread for sincerity and truth.1Co 5:8
Names the active agent, the pinch of fermented dough a baker works into flour so the whole batch rises.Mat 13:33Luk 13:21
Becomes a warning about influence that spreads unseen: a little of it works through everything, used for the teaching of the Pharisees and for hypocrisy.Mat 16:6Mrk 8:15Luk 12:1
Captured in a proverb about how a small amount changes the whole: "a little leaven leavens the whole lump."1Co 5:6Gal 5:9
πάσχαPassover, the neighboring spring festival; it fell on one day, while Unleavened Bread ran the seven days that followed, and the New Testament often pairs the two names.
Names the seven-day Festival of Unleavened Bread, counted as a stretch of days on the calendar rather than a single meal, so the New Testament dates events by when those days begin and end.Act 12:3Act 20:6
Because the word literally means bread with no yeast in it, Paul turns it into a picture of a clean, honest life: the old yeast of malice swept out, the whole batch made new.1Co 5:8
Both
The New Testament pairs the two festivals as one back-to-back spring observance, so close that the whole week of Unleavened Bread can simply be called the Passover.Luk 22:1Mrk 14:1
The two names meet on one day: the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be killed and the meal prepared.Mrk 14:12Luk 22:7
Paul holds both together in one image of Jesus: Christ the Passover lamb is sacrificed, and his people are to live as the unleavened bread that follows.1Co 5:7
Names the Passover lamb that is killed and eaten, the one sacrificial meal at the heart of the feast, going back to the first Passover kept in Egypt.Mrk 14:14Luk 22:15Heb 11:28
Marks a fixed pilgrim feast that people go up to Jerusalem to keep, a recurring point on the year's calendar that the Gospels note as approaching.Jhn 2:13Luk 2:41Jhn 11:55
Serves as the clock the Gospels set Jesus' death by, timing his final days against when the Passover falls.Mat 26:2Jhn 13:1Jhn 19:14
azumos in the other biblical languages
מַצָּהHebrew“unleavened bread”the Hebrew word for the flat, yeast-free bread eaten at Passover, and the source of the Hebrew name of the same festival.
In the New Testament this word is almost always plural and stands for the festival itself, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, naming the days on the calendar rather than the bread on the table.Mat 26:17Mrk 14:1Luk 22:1Act 20:6
Paul turns it into a picture of the Christian life: a church is to be unleavened, swept clean of the old corruption, and to keep the feast with sincerity and truth.1Co 5:71Co 5:8
Both
Both words point to the same reality of bread made without leaven, and the Greek festival name is built directly on the Hebrew custom of eating these cakes; the New Testament Feast of Unleavened Bread is the keeping of the very command that fills the Old Testament uses.Exo 12:15Luk 22:7
This is the bread itself, the flat cakes eaten in haste with no time for dough to rise, set out for a guest or at the first Passover.Gen 19:3Exo 12:8
It names a specific food in the sacrificial system, the unleavened cakes and wafers baked for grain offerings and ordination meals.Lev 2:4Lev 7:12Num 6:15
It is the required diet for the seven days of the feast, the thing Israel must eat while no leaven is found in the house.Exo 12:15Deu 16:3
What scholars say about azumos
Formed from the privative prefix plus ζύμη (leaven), the adjective ἄζυμος means "without leaven" and is well attested in classical and Koine Greek (LSJ). In the New Testament the substantival neuter plural functions as the fixed designation of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Hebrew chag hammatzot), the seven-day festival of Exodus 12:14-20 and 23:15 abutting Passover; the Synoptics and Acts use it in temporal formulae (Mark 14:1, 12; Matthew 26:17;Luke 22:1, 7; Acts 12:3; 20:6), where "the first day of Unleavened Bread" is applied loosely to the Passover day (14 Nisan), a familiar point in discussion of the Synoptic passion chronology. The adjectival and figurative use is confined to Paul's Passover typology in 1 Corinthians 5:6-8, where being unleavened images a community purged of the leaven of malice and evil. See BDAG s.v.; Windisch, TDNT 2:902-906; Thiselton on 1 Corinthians 5:6-8.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. ἄζυμοςlexicon
LSJ, s.v. ἄζυμοςlexicon
H. Windisch, "ζύμη, ἄζυμος," TDNT 2:902-906theological-dictionary
Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC, 2000), on 5:6-8commentary