Exodus 13:3

13:3 Moses said to the people, “Remember ¹  this day on which you came out from Egypt, from the place where you were enslaved, ²  for the Lord brought you out of there ³  with a mighty hand – and no bread made with yeast may be eaten. ⁴ 

Exodus 13:7

13:7 Bread made without yeast must be eaten ⁵  for seven days; ⁶  no bread made with yeast shall be seen ⁷  among you, and you must have no yeast among you within any of your borders.

Exodus 34:25

34:25 “You must not offer the blood of my sacrifice with yeast; the sacrifice from the feast of Passover must not remain until the following morning. ⁸ 

Numbers 9:11

9:11 They may observe it on the fourteenth day of the second month ⁹  at twilight; they are to eat it with bread made without yeast and with bitter herbs.

Deuteronomy 16:3

16:3 You must not eat any yeast with it; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast, symbolic of affliction, for you came out of Egypt hurriedly. You must do this so you will remember for the rest of your life the day you came out of the land of Egypt.

Amos 4:5

4:5 Burn a thank offering of bread made with yeast! ¹⁰ 

Make a public display of your voluntary offerings! ¹¹ 

For you love to do this, you Israelites.”

The sovereign Lord is speaking!

Matthew 16:12

16:12 Then they understood that he had not told them to be on guard against the yeast in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Matthew 16:1

The Demand for a Sign

16:1 Now when the Pharisees ¹²  and Sadducees ¹³  came to test Jesus, ¹⁴  they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. ¹⁵ 

Colossians 1:6-8

1:6 that has come to you. Just as in the entire world this gospel ¹⁶  is bearing fruit and growing, so it has also been bearing fruit and growing ¹⁷  among you from the first day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth. 1:7 You learned the gospel ¹⁸  from Epaphras, our dear fellow slave ¹⁹  – a ²⁰  faithful minister of Christ on our ²¹  behalf – 1:8 who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

Galatians 5:9

5:9 A little yeast makes the whole batch of dough rise! ²² 

[13:3]  ¹ tn The form is the infinitive absolute of זָכַר (zakhar, “remember”). The use of this form in place of the imperative (also found in the Decalogue with the Sabbath instruction) stresses the basic meaning of the root word, everything involved with remembering (emphatic imperative, according to GKC 346 §113.bb). The verb usually implies that there will be proper action based on what was remembered.

[13:3]  ² tn Heb “from a house of slaves.” “House” is obviously not meant to be literal; it indicates a location characterized by slavery, a land of slaves, as if they were in a slave house. Egypt is also called an “iron-smelting furnace” (Deut 4:20).

[13:3]  ³ tn Heb “from this” [place].

[13:3]  ⁴ tn The verb is a Niphal imperfect; it could be rendered “must not be eaten” in the nuance of the instruction or injunction category, but permission fits this sermonic presentation very well – nothing with yeast may be eaten.

[13:7]  ⁵ tn The imperfect has the nuance of instruction or injunction again, but it could also be given an obligatory nuance.

[13:7]  ⁶ tn The construction is an adverbial accusative of time, answering how long the routine should be followed (see GKC 374 §118.k).

[13:7]  ⁷ tn Or “visible to you” (B. Jacob, Exodus, 366).

[34:25]  ⁸ sn See M. Haran, “The Passover Sacrifice,” Studies in the Religion of Ancient Israel (VTSup), 86-116.

[9:11]  ⁹ sn The delay of four weeks for such people would have permitted enough time for them to return from their journey, or to recover from any short termed defilement such as is mentioned here. Apart from this provision, the Passover was to be kept precisely at the proper time.

[4:5]  ¹⁰ sn For the background of the thank offering of bread made with yeast, see Lev 7:13.

[4:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “proclaim voluntary offerings, announce.”

[16:1]  ¹² sn See the note on Pharisees in 3:7.

[16:1]  ¹³ sn See the note on Sadducees in 3:7.

[16:1]  ¹⁴ tn The object of the participle πειράζοντες (peirazontes) is not given in the Greek text but has been supplied here for clarity.

[16:1]  ¹⁵ sn What exactly this sign would have been, given what Jesus was already doing, is not clear. But here is where the fence-sitters reside, refusing to commit to him.

[1:6]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “just as in the entire world it is bearing fruit.” The antecedent (“the gospel”) of the implied subject (“it”) of ἐστιν (estin) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:6]  ¹⁷ tn Though the participles are periphrastic with the present tense verb ἐστίν (estin), the presence of the temporal indicator “from the day” in the next clause indicates that this is a present tense that reaches into the past and should be translated as “has been bearing fruit and growing.” For a discussion of this use of the present tense, see ExSyn 519-20.

[1:7]  ¹⁸ tn Or “learned it.” The Greek text simply has “you learned” without the reference to “the gospel,” but “the gospel” is supplied to clarify the sense of the clause. Direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[1:7]  ¹⁹ tn The Greek word translated “fellow slave” is σύνδουλος (sundoulo"); the σύν- prefix here denotes association. Though δοῦλος is normally translated “servant,” the word does not bear the connotation of a free individual serving another. BDAG notes that “‘servant’ for ‘slave’ is largely confined to Biblical transl. and early American times…in normal usage at the present time the two words are carefully distinguished” (BDAG 260 s.v.). The most accurate translation is “bondservant” (sometimes found in the ASV for δοῦλος), in that it often indicates one who sells himself into slavery to another. But as this is archaic, few today understand its force.

[1:7]  ²⁰ tn The Greek text has “who (ὅς, Jos) is a faithful minister.” The above translation conveys the antecedent of the relative pronoun quite well and avoids the redundancy with the following substantival participle of v. 8, namely, “who told” (ὁ δηλώσας, Jo dhlwsa").

[1:7]  ²¹ tc ‡ Judging by the superior witnesses for the first person pronoun ἡμῶν (Jhmwn, “us”; Ì⁴⁶ א* A B D* F G 326* 1505 al) vs. the second person pronoun ὑμῶν (Jumwn, “you”; found in א² C D¹ Ψ 075 33 1739 1881 Ï lat sy co), ἡμῶν should be regarded as original. Although it is possible that ἡμῶν was an early alteration of ὑμῶν (either unintentionally, as dittography, since it comes seventeen letters after the previous ἡμῶν; or intentionally, to conform to the surrounding first person pronouns), this supposition is difficult to maintain in light of the varied and valuable witnesses for this reading. Further, the second person is both embedded in the verb ἐμάθετε (emaqete) and is explicit in v. 8 (ὑμῶν). Hence, the motivation to change to the first person pronoun is counterbalanced by such evidence. The second person pronoun may have been introduced unintentionally via homoioarcton with the ὑπέρ (Juper) that immediately precedes it. As well, the second person reading is somewhat harder for it seems to address Epaphras’ role only in relation to Paul and his colleagues, rather than in relation to the Colossians. Nevertheless, the decision must be based ultimately on external evidence (because the internal evidence can be variously interpreted), and this strongly supports ἡμῶν.

[5:9]  ²² tn Grk “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.”