{Is like unto leaven} (homoia estin zum(8869)). In its
pervasive power. Curiously enough some people deny that Jesus
here likens the expanding power of the Kingdom of heaven to
leaven, because, they say, leaven is the symbol of corruption.
But the language of Jesus is not to be explained away by such
exegetical jugglery. The devil is called like a lion by Peter
( 1Pe 5:8 ) and Jesus in Revelation is called the Lion of the
Tribe of Judah ( Re 5:5 ). The leaven permeates all the "wheaten
meal" (aleurou) till the whole is leavened. There is nothing in
the "three measures," merely a common amount to bake. Dr. T.R.
Glover in his _Jesus of History_ suggests that Jesus used to
notice his mother using that amount of wheat flour in baking
bread. To find the Trinity here is, of course, quite beside the
mark. The word for leaven, zum(885c), is from ze(935c), to boil, to
seethe, and so pervasive fermentation.