• The Exposing of the False Kingdom Refuge
    The Watchtower—1975 | October 1

    • 33. So, then, how do the Holy Scriptures use leaven in the way of a symbol, and what witnesses do we have in support of this?

      33 In agreement with all the foregoing, the issues of the Watch Tower magazine for May 15, 1900, and June 15, 1910, were correct in saying that, as a symbol, leaven or sour dough is used throughout the Scriptures in an unfavorable sense or on the negative side. From the Bible’s very first mention of leaven or sour dough, in Exodus 12:15-20; 13:7, down to the last mention in Galatians 5:9, the Holy Scriptures have used leaven as a symbol of what is bad. If we need witnesses to that fact, we have at least TWO witnesses to testify to the fact that the Bible unvaryingly uses leaven to symbolize something bad, unrighteousness, error, sin. Jesus referred to the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. (Matt. 16:6-12; Mark 8:15; Luke 12:1) 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

  • The Exposing of the False Kingdom Refuge
    The Watchtower—1975 | October 1

    • 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.’ . . .”