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The Exposing of the False Kingdom RefugeThe Watchtower—1975 | October 1
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The apostle Paul warns against the leaven that leavens the whole lump or mass. He refers to the typical festival of unleavened bread and clearly defines what leaven symbolizes, for he says: “Christ our passover has been sacrificed. Consequently let us keep the festival, not with old leaven, neither with leaven of badness and wickedness, but with unfermented cakes of sincerity and truth.”—1 Cor. 5:6-8; see Deuteronomy 17:6, 7; 19:15; 1 Timothy 5:19; Hebrews 10:28.c
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The Exposing of the False Kingdom RefugeThe Watchtower—1975 | October 1
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c In the 1971 edition of Encyclopædia Judaica, Volume 7, we find, in columns 1235-1237, an article entitled “Hamez . . . ‘fermented dough’.” In column 1237, under the heading “Leaven in Jewish Thought,” we read the following:
“Leaven is regarded as the symbol of corruption and impurity. The ‘yeast in the dough’ is one of the things which ‘prevents us from performing the will of God’ (Ber. 17a). The idea was greatly developed in the Kabbalah. The New Testament also refers to ‘the leaven of malice and wickedness’ which is contrasted with ‘the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth’ (1 Cor. 5:8). Similarly the word is applied to what was regarded as the corrupt doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt. 16:12; Mark 8:15).
“It was applied particularly to the admixture of elements of impure descent in a family. (Fermented) ‘dough’ was contrasted in this context with ‘pure sifted flour.’ . . .”
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