Matius 5:18

5:18 I ¹  tell you the truth, ²  until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter ³  will pass from the law until everything takes place.

Matius 13:33

The Parable of the Yeast

13:33 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with ⁴  three measures ⁵  of flour until all the dough had risen.” ⁶ 

[5:18]  ¹ tn Grk “For I tell.” Here an explanatory γάρ (gar) has not been translated.

[5:18]  ² tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

[5:18]  ³ tn Grk “Not one iota or one serif.”

[5:18]  sn The smallest letter refers to the smallest Hebrew letter (yod) and the stroke of a letter to a serif (a hook or projection on a Hebrew letter).

[13:33]  ⁴ tn Grk “hid in.”

[13:33]  ⁵ sn This measure was a saton, the Greek name for the Hebrew term “seah.” Three of these was a very large quantity of flour, since a saton is a little over 16 pounds (7 kg) of dry measure (or 13.13 liters). So this was over 47 lbs (21 kg) of flour total, enough to feed over a hundred people.

[13:33]  ⁶ tn Grk “it was all leavened.”

[13:33]  sn The parable of the yeast and the dough teaches that the kingdom of God will start small but eventually grow to permeate everything. Jesus’ point was not to be deceived by its seemingly small start, the same point made in the parable of the mustard seed, which preceded this one.