Leviticus 2:11

Leaven and honey are not to be mixed with any offering made by fire; they shall be offered as an oblation of firstfruits(Heb. rçshîth) but not on the altar (Leviticus 2:12). See Driver (C. B.) on Am. iv. 5. By -honey" is meant not only that prepared by bees, but a syrup made from grapes, called by the Arabs dibs, the same as Heb. dĕbásh.

Both leaven and honey produce fermentation, a process which has been associated in thought with the working of unruly desires, and considered as a symbol of evil. The idea of corruption in connexion with leaven was familiar to the Romans. Plutarch (Quaest. Rom.109) says: -Leaven is born of corruption, and corrupts that with which it is mixed … all fermentation is a kind of putrefaction." The Flamen Dialis, a priest of Jupiter in one of the oldest Roman cults, among many other restrictions of ancient date, was not allowed to touch leavened bread (Sir J. G. Frazer, Golden Bough3, Pt II. 13 and his references on p. 14, note 3, to Aulus Gellius x. 15, Pliny, Nat. Hist.xxviii. 146, and other writers: see also Pauly's Real Encyc. (ed. G. Wissowa) vi. 2485 ff.). This idea is in the N.T., where -leaven" is used figuratively of the corrupt doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 16:16; Luke 12:1), and by St Paul as representing -malice and wickedness" in contrast with -the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Corinthians 5:7-8). But there is no such contrast implied in the prohibition of leaven at the feast of the Passover (Exodus 12:15; Exodus 12:19; Exodus 13:7). The unleavened bread is regarded as -bread of affliction" (Deuteronomy 16:3), less pleasant than ordinary leavened bread, reminding the Israelites of bondage as well as deliverance.