What Does Matthew 16:6 Mean in the King James?
Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
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
The danger is a teaching that works quietly through the whole before its influence is easy to see.
THE MEANING
A teaching can enter as a small idea and quietly shape the reader’s whole field of perception. Jesus’ paired commands to look and attend place the hidden process itself at the center of the warning.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A teaching that looks small or remains unseen cannot reshape the whole.
THE ROOT
ζύμη
zymē
GROWS FROM
ζυμ
ζυμ (zym): leaven, ferment; the agent and process by which dough rises.
“leaven” in this verse is zymē. The Greek word family holds both the substance and the fermenting process in view. The warning reaches beyond what is visible to an influence already working through the whole.
ALSO GROWS
zymoō: to leaven, ferment
ζυμόω
This verb names leaven’s action: the influence spreads through what it enters.
azymos: unleavened
ἄζυμος
The same ζυμ consonants remain in the word for what has not been leavened, showing the contrast between dough that is affected and dough that is not.
προσέχετε
prosechete
GROWS FROM
ἔχω
ἔχω (echō): hold, have.
The command translated “beware” is προσέχω, formed with the sense of holding toward something. Attention is pictured as directed and sustained, just as the leaven’s influence quietly works through what receives it.
ALSO GROWS
echō: to have, hold
ἔχω
This is the base verb within προσέχω and gives the command its image of holding attention toward something.
katechō: to hold fast, retain
κατέχω
This compound shares the ἔχω root and extends the image of something being held in place.
synechō: to hold together, constrain
συνέχω
This compound also carries ἔχω, showing how what is held can press upon or bind what it surrounds.
THE PATTERN
A hidden influence can spread through and alter the whole it enters.
Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.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.Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?THE THREAD
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.The Greek ζύμη (zymē, leaven) appears in both verses. This parable shows the same permeating process at work in an image of the kingdom, revealing that the warning concerns what the influence carries, while the word itself names its quiet reach.
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