13:21a
It is like leaven: As in the previous parable, the clause It is like leaven is a simile. It compares the kingdom of God to what happens when leaven is mixed with bread dough. A small amount of leaven spreads through a large amount of dough and affects it in a good way. In the same way, the effect of God’s rule among a few people spreads through the whole world.
This simile is about the effect of leaven in a lump of dough. It is not simply a description of what leaven itself is like. Two ways to make this clear are:
It is like what happens when a woman mixes yeast (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
It is like this. A woman takes some yeast and mixes it (Good News Translation)
leaven: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as leaven refers to a substance that makes bread dough rise or swell. A person mixes this substance with water and flour. Then it spreads throughout the flour and makes the dough expand. The dough is then baked into bread.
If people in your area are not familiar with making dough rise, here are other ways to translate leaven:
• Use an expression that describes the yeast. For example:
what spreads to make bread rise
-or-
bread-expanding substance
• Use a term from the national language and indicate its meaning. For example:
yeast that spreads to make bread swell
• Borrow a word and explain it in a footnote. Here is an example of a possible footnote:
Yeast is something that spreads in flour dough and causes it to rise so that after the dough is baked, it is soft to eat.
The word leaven also occurs in 12:1d. If you translate leaven with a descriptive phrase in your language, you may be able to use a shorter phrase here, since the context makes explicit the effect of yeast in bread dough.
a woman took: The word took here means “picked up.” In some languages it may be unnatural to state explicitly that the woman picked up the yeast. In those languages it may be preferable to leave this implicit.
mixed into: The Greek expression that the Berean Standard Bible translates as mixed into literally says “hid in.” Use the expression that is natural in your language for distributing a very small amount of something (such as yeast or baking powder) in a large quantity of something else (such as dough or flour).
three measures of flour: The Greek text that the Berean Standard Bible translates as three measures of flour is literally “three seahs of flour.” Scholars do not agree as to exactly how much flour that was. But they do agree that it was a large amount that would have made enough bread to feed over one hundred people.
As this is only a parable or illustration, the exact quantity of flour is not important. Translate using a natural expression that refers to a large quantity of flour. For example:
a bushel of flour (Good News Translation)
-or-
a large tub of flour (New Century Version)
13:21b
until all of it was leavened: The Greek expression that the Berean Standard Bible translates literally as until all of it was leavened means that the leaven affected all the dough. It caused it to rise and become bigger. This would usually take several hours or perhaps overnight. Other ways to translate this clause are:
until the whole batch of dough rises (Good News Translation)
-or-
it permeated every part of the dough (New Living Translation (2004))
it was leavened: The word it refers to the mixture that the woman was making of flour and other things for bread. Such a mixture is called “dough” before people cook it. After it is cooked, it becomes bread. In languages where there is no word “dough,” instead of it, it may be possible to say:
that flour
-or-
the whole bread/flour mixture
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