Word study
Leaven
4 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: leaven, leavened. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.
At a glance
How often each original word is translated “leaven” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- חָמֵץ châmêtsthat which is leavenedtranslated this way 13 times of its 13 uses · Strong’s H2557Noun · Translated: leavened 4, anything leavened 3, leaven 3, leavened bread 2Full study and all 13 verses →
Exodus 12:15 For seven days you must eat unleavened bread. On the first day you are to remove the leaven from your houses. Whoever eats anything leavened from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.
Leviticus 2:11 No grain offering that you present to the LORD may be made with leaven, for you are not to burn any leaven or honey as a food offering to the LORD.
- שְׂאֹר seôrleaventranslated this way 5 times of its 5 uses · Strong’s H7603Noun · Translated: leaven 5Full study and all 5 verses →
Exodus 12:15 For seven days you must eat unleavened bread. On the first day you are to remove the leaven from your houses. Whoever eats anything leavened from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.
Leviticus 2:11 No grain offering that you present to the LORD may be made with leaven, for you are not to burn any leaven or honey as a food offering to the LORD.
- חָמֵץ châmêtsbe sour, leavenedtranslated this way 2 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H2556Verb · Translated: leavened 1, leaven 1, ruthless 1, grieved 1Full study and all 6 verses →
Exodus 12:34 So the people took their dough before it was leavened, carrying it on their shoulders in kneading bowls wrapped in clothing.
Exodus 12:39 Since their dough had no leaven, the people baked what they had brought out of Egypt into unleavened loaves. For when they had been driven out of Egypt, they could not delay and had not prepared any provisions for themselves.
- מַצָּה matstsâhunleavened bread, or cake(s)translated this way 2 times of its 53 uses · Strong’s H4682Noun · Translated: unleavened bread 37, unleavened 11, without leaven 2, along with unleavened bread 1Full study and all 42 verses →
Leviticus 6:16 Aaron and his sons are to eat the remainder. It must be eaten without leaven in a holy place; they are to eat it in the courtyard of the Tent of Meeting.
Leviticus 10:12 And Moses said to Aaron and his remaining sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, “Take the grain offering that remains from the food offerings to the LORD and eat it without leaven beside the altar, because it is most holy.
Greek words (New Testament)
- ζύμη zýmēleaven, fermenttranslated this way 11 times of its 12 uses · Strong’s G2219Noun · Translated: leaven 10, bread 1, leavened 1Full study and all 11 verses →
Matthew 13:33 He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and mixed into three measures of flour, until all of it was leavened.”
Mark 8:15 “Watch out!” He cautioned them. “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod.”
- ζυμόω zymóōI leaven, fermenttranslated this way 2 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G2220Verb · Translated: leavened 2, works 2Full study and all 4 verses →
Matthew 13:33 He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and mixed into three measures of flour, until all of it was leavened.”
Luke 13:21 It is like leaven that a woman took and mixed into three measures of flour, until all of it was leavened.”
How to study a word well
- Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
- Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.
Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.