2 unleavened bread, unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil: you shall make them of fine wheat flour.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Unleavened bread - Three kinds of bread as to its form are mentioned here, but all unleavened:
1. מצות matstsoth, unleavened bread, no matter in what shape. See Exodus 12:8.
2. חלת challoth, cakes, pricked or perforated, as the root implies.
3. רקיקי rekikey, an exceeding thin cake, from רק rak, to be attenuated, properly enough translated wafer. The manner in which these were prepared is sufficiently plain from the text, and probably these were the principal forms in which flour was prepared for household use during their stay in the wilderness.
These were all waved before the Lord, Exodus 29:24, as an acknowledgment that the bread that sustains the body, as well as the mercy which saves the soul, comes from God alone.
And unleavened bread,.... Such as used to be eaten at the time of the passover, and this being distinguished from cakes and wafers, after mentioned, shows that this was bread of a larger size, a loaf or loaves of bread, see Exodus 29:3.
and cakes unleavened, tempered with oil; these were made of flour mixed with oil, but without leaven, and were a lesser and thinner sort of bread than the former:
and wafers unleavened, anointed with oil; with oil olive, the best of oil, as the Targum of Jonathan, and so Aben Ezra; these were a thinner sort of bread still, somewhat like our pancakes; and they were anointed with oil after the baking of them, and in the form of the Greek "chi", as Jarchi says, or of a St. Andrew's or Burgundian cross:
of wheaten flour shall thou make them; of the finest of the wheat, for these were to be the food of Aaron and his sons, who were now to be invested with an high and honourable office, and were to live according to the dignity of it; and these being all unleavened, may denote that sincerity, simplicity, and integrity that ought to be found in them, in the discharge of their office, and which were in Christ in full perfection; as well as soundness in doctrine, life, and manners, being free from all leaven of false doctrine, hypocrisy, and malice; and likewise what is expected of the same kind in all the saints, who, under the Gospel dispensation, are all of them priests unto God, and whose food is the finest of the wheat, Christ the bread of life.
*More commentary available at chapter level.