What Does Luke 13:21 Mean?
It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until the whole was leavened.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.THE KEY
The governance of God works from within, concealed at first, until its influence reaches the whole.
THE MEANING
The governance of God is at work within the ordinary substance of your life. Its action can remain hidden while it spreads, yet its reach is complete: the whole becomes leavened.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that an unseen beginning cannot have a complete effect.
THE ROOT
ζύμη
zymē
GROWS FROM
ζυμ-
zym-
Leaven or ferment, the agent and process that changes dough.
English can make leaven sound like a separate ingredient, but the Greek word shares its stem with the verb for leavening and with the word for unleavened. The verse describes a process: what is hidden within the meal keeps working until the whole has changed.
ALSO GROWS
ezymōthē: was leavened
ἐζυμώθη
This is the same root in the verse’s final phrase, where the hidden agent’s work reaches the entire mass.
azymos: unleavened, without leaven
ἄζυμος
This word names the contrasting state, showing how the same root describes both the transforming presence and its absence.
ἐνέκρυψεν
enekrypsen
GROWS FROM
κρυπ-
kryp-
Conceal or hide; the verb here means to hide within.
“hid” in this verse is enekrypsen. The Greek word pictures the leaven concealed inside the meal, where its work is not immediately visible. The concealment is part of the process: what cannot yet be seen is already changing what surrounds it.
ALSO GROWS
kryptō: to hide, conceal
κρύπτω
This is the core verb behind the form translated “hid,” emphasizing the hidden beginning of the transformation.
kryptos: hidden, secret
κρυπτός
This related word describes what is out of sight, matching the leaven’s concealed position within the meal.
THE PATTERN
A hidden influence can spread through a whole until the whole bears its effect.
Another parable he spoke to them. The governance of the heavens is like yeast, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until all of it had risen.Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?THE THREAD
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?This verse uses the same Greek word ζύμη (zymē, leaven) and the same image of leaven working through a whole mass. Here the image warns of corruption; in Luke, it describes God’s governance, showing that the image names the reach of an influence while its character comes from its context.
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