The unleavened bread is the symbol of the new life, cleansed from the leaven of sin,” (Keil), is founded on the fundamentally false assumption, revived again especially by Hengstenberg, that the leaven is in itself a symbol of the sinful life. If this were the case, the Israelites would have had to eat unleavened bread all the time, and certainly would not have been commanded on the day of Pentecost to put leavened bread on the altar (Lev. 23:17). The leaven is symbol only of transmission and fellowship, hence, in some cases, of the old or of the corrupt life. “Leaven of the Egyptian character,” says Keil himself, II., p. 21.