Five-minute study · Day 252 · Matthew 26
Matthew 26:26
A word worth stopping on: broke κλάω klao
An upper room. Passover night. Bread on the table. Jesus picks it up, blesses God, and tears it apart with his hands. The word is klao. Jewish bread was never cut with a knife. The host took the loaf in both hands and tore it, blessing God over the torn pieces. Every Jewish household knew this ritual. Every guest had seen it a thousand times. Then Jesus added six words that changed the gesture forever: 'This is my body.' The familiar became sacred. The bread that had been torn in every home, at every meal, was now being torn as a picture of what would happen to his body within hours.
Word study: broke
- Greek
- κλάω
- Pronounced
- klao
- Strong's
- G2806
- Definition
- To break, to break in pieces, to tear apart by hand. Used exclusively for breaking bread in the New Testament. The word denotes manual tearing, the splitting of a flat loaf by hand without the use of a cutting instrument.
Klao appears 14 times in the New Testament. BDAG defines it as 'to break, to break in pieces,' noting its exclusive use for breaking bread. The word describes a physical action: the manual tearing of a loaf. Jewish bread in the first century was flat, round, and unleavened during Passover. It was designed to be torn, not sliced. The host of a meal would take the bread, recite a blessing (the berakah, blessing God as the source of bread 'from the earth'), and tear it into pieces for distribution.
Jeremias's landmark study 'The Eucharistic Words of Jesus' reconstructs the Passover meal context of the Last Supper. The Passover seder followed a prescribed order: a preliminary course with the first cup of wine, the Passover haggadah (the retelling of the Exodus story), the main meal with the unleavened bread and roasted lamb, and the final cups of wine. Jesus' action with the bread occurred during the main meal. The bread he broke was matzah, the unleavened bread that symbolized both the haste of the Exodus (there was no time for the dough to rise) and the affliction of slavery in Egypt.
The TDNT article on klao traces how 'the breaking of bread' (he klasis tou artou) became a technical term for Christian worship. Acts 2:42 lists the four practices of the earliest church: 'the apostles' doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers.' Acts 2:46 adds: 'breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.' Acts 20:7: 'upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread.' The phrase became shorthand for the entire communal meal that included what Paul calls 'the Lord's supper' (1 Corinthians 11:20).
The gesture itself carried meaning. Tearing bread by hand requires force. The loaf resists, then yields. The tearing produces an audible sound, a visible separation. Jesus exploited the physicality of the gesture: this bread being torn apart is my body about to be torn apart. Every subsequent time the disciples heard bread tear in their hands, the sound carried a second meaning. The ordinary had become a memorial.
Historical context · The Last Supper approximately AD 30-33; Passover observance from the Exodus onward; the Passover seder formalized in the Mishnah (codified c. AD 200 but reflecting earlier practice)
The Passover Table and the Birth of a New Ritual
The Last Supper took place in an upper room (anagaion, Mark 14:15; hyperoon, Acts 1:13) in Jerusalem during the Passover festival. First-century Passover in Jerusalem was a major event. The Mishnah (Pesahim 5:5-7) describes the Temple ritual: the Passover lambs were slaughtered in the Temple court in three groups, the Levites sang the Hallel psalms (Psalms 113-118), and the blood was dashed against the base of the altar. Each family then roasted their lamb and gathered for the evening meal.
Jeremias identifies several features of the Last Supper that locate it specifically within Passover. The meal took place in Jerusalem (required for Passover), at night (Passover was an evening meal), in a reclining posture (the Mishnah required reclining at Passover as a sign of freedom), with wine (four cups were prescribed), and with a hymn at the conclusion (Matthew 26:30, 'when they had sung an hymn,' almost certainly the second half of the Hallel, Psalms 115-118).
The bread-breaking at the Passover meal had a specific liturgical context. The host took the matzah, raised it, and recited: 'This is the bread of affliction that our fathers ate in the land of Egypt. Let all who are hungry come and eat. Let all who are needy come and celebrate Passover.' The declaration 'this is the bread of affliction' was already a statement of identification: this bread is that bread. Jesus' words 'this is my body' followed the same grammatical and liturgical pattern. The guests at the table were familiar with bread being identified with something beyond itself.
The 'breaking of bread' became the distinguishing communal act of the early church. The Didache (a Christian manual dated to approximately AD 50-120) contains prayers for the eucharistic bread (Didache 9:3-4): 'As this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom.' The scattered and gathered bread became an image of the scattered and gathered church. The physical act of klao, the tearing of the loaf, generated theological meaning that extended far beyond the upper room where it began.
For reflection
Bread torn by hand. The sound of it, the resistance and the yielding. Jesus took a gesture that every person at the table had seen since childhood, the host tearing the Passover bread, and layered a new meaning onto it. This is my body. Twelve hours later, that body was on a cross. The familiar sound of bread tearing in a warm room became a sound that meant something it had never meant before. You may take bread in your hands this week. You may hear it tear. Let the sound sit with you. What does it cost for something whole to be broken so that others can be fed?
Klao: to break bread by hand, to tear apart. Jewish bread was never cut with a knife. The host tore it as part of the blessing. 'The breaking of bread' became the early church's term for their central communal act.
Sources: Jeremias, 'Eucharistic Words of Jesus'; TDNT