In speaking of the haste in which the Israelites were compelled to leave Egypt, the writer of the Book of Exodus says,[3] "And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading-troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders." In the thirty-first verse it is said that Pharaoh "called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, and get you forth from among my people." As a rule the Syrian housewife kneads the dough in the evening in order that it may "leaven" during the night and be ready for baking early the next morning. The saying, "And the people took their dough before it was leavened," is meant to show that they departed before the early { 374} morning hours. Apparently the Israelites had wooden kneading-troughs such as at present the Arabs in the interior of Syria still use. The Syrians use earthen basins.[4] What is called kneading-trough in the Bible resembles a large chopping-bowl, but is heavier and not so perfectly round as the chopping-bowl which is commonly used in the American home. In this basin the bread is also kept after it is baked. In the thirty-ninth verse it is said, "And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt, for it was not leavened; because they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they prepared for themselves any victual." The "cakes" are known to the East as _melleh_; this is the word the Arabic Bible uses. The _melleh_ is a round cake or loaf about fifteen inches in diameter and about three inches thick. It is baked, unleavened, on the _redhef_; that is, hot pebbles. The fire is built over an especially prepared bed of small stones; when these are { 375} thoroughly heated, the _melleh_ is placed upon them and covered with the live coals until it is baked. The shepherds in the mountains of Syria bake the _melleh_ very often and think there is no bread like it in delicious flavor and sustaining quality.
It was such a "cake" which Elijah fed upon on his way to "Horeb the mount of God." In the nineteenth chapter of the First Book of Kings, the fourth verse, we are told that Elijah "sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers." It is of no small significance that the legend states that the Lord answered Elijah's prayer in terms of food. The prophet was both tired and hungry, so when he "lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head." We have no record that Elijah after he had eaten { 376} of the _redhef_ cake, which was provided, no doubt, by the shepherds in that region for the _nasik_ (hermit), ever longed for death.