Cake
1:
Cake — Cakes made of wheat or barley were offered in the temple. They were salted, but unleavened (Ex. 29:2; Lev. 2:4). In idolatrous worship thin cakes or wafers were offered “to the queen of heaven” (Jer. 7:18; 44:19).
Pancakes are described in 2 Sam. 13:8, 9. Cakes mingled with oil and baked in the oven are mentioned in Lev. 2:4, and “wafers unleavened anointed with oil,” in Ex. 29:2; Lev. 8:26; 1 Chr. 23:29. “Cracknels,” a kind of crisp cakes, were among the things Jeroboam directed his wife to take with her when she went to consult Ahijah the prophet at Shiloh (1 Kings 14:3). Such hard cakes were carried by the Gibeonites when they came to Joshua (9:5, 12). They described their bread as “mouldy;” but the Hebrew word nikuddim, here used, ought rather to be rendered “hard as biscuit.” It is rendered “cracknels” in 1 Kings 14:3. The ordinary bread, when kept for a few days, became dry and excessively hard. The Gibeonites pointed to this hardness of their bread as an evidence that they had come a long journey.
We read also of honey-cakes (Ex. 16:31), “cakes of figs” (1 Sam. 25:18), “cake” as denoting a whole piece of bread (1 Kings 17:12), and “a [round] cake of barley bread” (Judg. 7:13). In Lev. 2 is a list of the different kinds of bread and cakes which were fit for offerings.
Easton, M. (1996, c1897). Easton's Bible dictionary. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
2:
Cake
Various food products made from wheat or barley meal, figs or raisins, and shaped or molded into a compact form. Water, oil, and spices might be added to dough which was formed into ring, disk, heart, and flat shapes. Several Hebrew terms are used to denote cakes. “Wafer” is used to render Heb. ṣappɩ̂ḥiṯ, a thin cake made of honey (Exod. 16:31). Cakes for cereal offerings could be baked in an oven, in a pan, or on a griddle (Lev. 2:4–7).
Grain cakes were part of a meal offered to guests (Gen. 18:6). Cakes of figs were used for gifts (1 Sam. 25:18) and as travel provisions (1 Chr. 12:40). Unleavened cakes made with oil were used during the ordination offering of well-being (Exod. 29:2, 23) and for grain offerings (Lev. 2:4). Some Israelites made cakes for the queen of heaven which were marked with or shaped in her image (Jer. 44:19).
Stephen Alan Reed
Freedman, D. N., Myers, A. C., & Beck, A. B. (2000). Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible (209). Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans.
