What Does Galatians 5:9 Mean in the King James?
A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
A thing’s reach is not measured by how small it is when it enters.
THE MEANING
A small influence can work through a whole shared life until its character is changed. Its effects can reach far beyond the place where they begin.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a small deviation is harmless because it seems contained: its starting size does not limit how far its effects reach.
THE ROOT
ζύμη
zymē
GROWS FROM
ζυμ-
zym-
Leaven; the Greek word family also names the act of leavening or fermenting.
“leaven” in this verse is zymē. The noun for the small starter and the verb for its action share the same Greek stem. The image joins cause and spread: the starter’s size says little about how much of the dough it reaches.
ALSO GROWS
zymoō: To leaven or ferment.
ζυμόω
This is the verb family used for what the leaven does: it works through the mass.
azymos: Unleavened; without leaven.
ἄζυμος
The opposite condition still carries the same root, making leaven’s presence or absence the defining difference.
THE PATTERN
What enters a whole can spread through it until its influence reaches every part.
Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.In the mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.THE THREAD
Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?This verse repeats the same Greek leaven and leavening word family in nearly the same sentence. The echo shows the mechanism plainly: the influence is measured by how fully it works through the whole.
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