The terms "jot" and "tittle" have to do with letters or parts of letters.

The Greek letter "delta" as "Δ" was used to describe a river "delta". Many English (and some Greek) letters have meanings based on their shape.

The "law" in this verse may be related to the "law" in the previous verse.

The ancient Greek word "γένηται" ≈ "come into being, take place" from "γίγνομαι" ≈ "come into being, take place". This word appears as the "born again" in John 3. In Matthew 4:18, the "all" will "come into being" and did not exist in that form until then.

More: John 3 Born from the beginnings

The ancient Greek word "γένηται" ≈ "come into being, take place" from "γίγνομαι" ≈ "come into being, take place". This word appears as the "born again" in John 3. In Matthew 4:18, the "all" will "come into being" and did not exist in that form until then.

The ancient Greek word "ἀμήν" ≈ "amen" (verily) and comes from the Hebrew.


At some point in the Middle Ages, the Greek "amen" spoken by Jesus at the start of a statement was changed to "verily" or "truly". Some people say that "amen" means "so be it" but this fits only at the end of a statement. The meaning "it is so" fits at both the beginning and end of a statement.

[Great vowel shift, "came", "made", etc.]

More: Verily, a true beginning and amen

• "ἀμήν" ≈ "amen" (verily) and comes from the Hebrew.
• "ὑμῖν" ≈ "to you" (plural) and is a play on words with "amen".

Play on words: The two different English pronunciations of "amen" go back to the "Great Vowel Shift".

• amen I say to you ...
• amen I say (amen) ...
• (to you), I say to you ...
• (to you), I say (amen) ...

The Greek word "say" is the source of the English word "legacy" as in something "said" about a person.

More: Verily, a true beginning and amen

The Greek combination of «εως αν» means "until if" or "until when".

• "εως" ≈ "until" and "αν" ≈ "if, when".
• "εως αν" ≈ "until if/when".

The KJV (King James Version) translates «εως αν» as "till" but appears to leave the conditional "if" or "when" untranslated.

What is the difference between "if" and "when"? Is there a difference? Just say "when".

In English natural language:

• "if" has the idea of "it may not happen".
• "when" has the idea of "it will eventually happen".
• Saying; Not if but when.

However, the semantic meaning of "if" and "when" in logic are the same as in the following (pseudo-code) programming statements that express the same computation.

In general, showing that a program stops is harder than showing partial correctness.

More: Alan Turing: halting problem

The ancient Greek word "παρέλθη" ≈ "pass by, come by, come beyond".

More: A storehouse of secret chambers: coming out of the closet

• Do the "waters" in the KJV (from the Hebrew) or the "storm" LXX (Septuagint) (from the Greek) relate to the "house" built on "sand"?
• How does "trust vainly in falsehood" relate to various parts of the Sermon on the Mount?

Here are the parts of the verse.

• The start of "verily" or "truly" as "amen" as "it is so".
• "Until if/when" "heaven" "passes by".
• "Until if/when" "earth" "passes by".
• Not one "jot" "passes by" "from/away" the "law"
• Not one "tittle" "passes by" "from/away" the "law".
• "Until if/when" "all" "comes into being".

Let us look at "jots" and "tittles" and then analyze how each part does or does not "pass by". What is a "jot"? What is a "tittle"?

Whenever a word appears only once (or twice) and in the same context, the meaning may not always be clear.

Keep in mind that in the Bible, there is the obvious literal meaning, but there may be other not-so-obvious meanings. And it may happen that more than one meaning is a valid interpretation.

During the Middle Ages, the iota was kept but moved to below the preceding letter, as a subscript, and made smaller. In modern Greek this distinction has disappeared, but is kept in ancient manuscripts. Here are the changes (with Unicode codes in parentheses)

• αι to ᾳ (codes #945 #953 to #945 #837)
• ηι to ῃ (codes #951 #953 to #951 #837)
• ωι to ῳ (codes #969 #953 to #969 #837)

Note that some browsers will not place the iota subscript in the proper place when it is a separate postfix character. This is especially apparent as the font size gets larger.

The Unicode character encoding supports the iota subscript in two ways.

• As a separate character encoding - about 30 lower case and 30 uppercase variants.
• As a single character, called the "combining Greek ypogegrammeni", code #837 (above), that follows the letter (in the text sequence, as above) and is placed below that character. Technically, that single character has no width and a negative placement - not all editors support that convention.

Some 500 years earlier, the Greeks took the Semitic alphabet from the Phoneticians, dropped letters not needed or duplicate, and developed their written language.
Some think that the English "jot" or Greek "iota" refers to the Hebrew "yod", the 10th and smallest of the 22 Hebrew letters.

Since Jesus grew up speaking both Aramaic and Greek (and later some Latin), the "iota" could have meaning without reference to the Hebrew "yod". As is often the case, it could have multiple meanings.

The word "tittle" appears twice in the Bible in somewhat similar verses in Matthew and Luke. The word "jot" only once, in the Matthew verse. In both cases, it as important to try to determine the meaning of the words when the verses were spoken instead of the meanings ascribed to those words at a later time.

The Latin word "titulus" ≈ "title" is the origin of the English word "tittle", which can mean something insignificant or, in typography, a small diacritical mark that modifies the meaning of a letter.
Many pastors will describe the verses with an analogy to the "dotting of an i" or the "crossing of the t", but this is a modern concept in English as the word "dot" did not exist until the 1700's. Before that time, one could "tittle" an "i" rather than "dot" an "i".

A logical issue with this common analogy made by many pastors is that dotting an "i" or crossing a "t" is adding something that was forgotten or otherwise left out.

Jesus appears to be referring to added things that needed removed in order to be complete. Whenever Jesus speaks, he appears to be referring to something, the law, for which nothing will be removed or "pass" until all is "fulfilled".

Jesus appears to be saying that not one "jot" or "tittle" will "pass by" the law. The assumption is that of "removal". Why then is the analogy made as to add something (to the law) as in "dotting an i" or "crossing a t"?

In English, the "j" was originally an "i" which did not have a dot over it. The same letter "i" (without dot) was used for two sounds. Eventually, the "j" was developed as an "i" with a hook. The dot was added as otherwise the letters were easy to miss.

These characters exist as separate characters in Unicode, but the dotted version can be created as a composite character.

Here is the "dot above" character (#775) that follows the "dotless i" character (#305) and "dotless j" character (#567), both Latin characters from a time when the dot was not yet used.

Note that the characters need to be adjacent to see the desired effect.

Not all browsers will display as desired.

• Firefox (older version) displayed as desired. (as of 2021-01-19)
• Chrome made the entire composite character on the right blue rather than a red dot and a blue body. (as of 2021-01-19)
• Midori (used for certain debugging reasons) offset the rightmost red dot more than necessary. (as of 2021-01-19)

Lack of uniform browser support appears to be why Wikipedia uses an image to display the same example using a red dot on a black body. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tittle. (as of 2021-01-19)

There are times when it is easier to have two separate characters that are combined into one character than to have an (intractable) enumeration of all possible combinations.

Diacritical marks are one such example. Let us look at some specific examples of how Unicode handles this problem as displayed by HTML.

There are more than a hundred such diacritical marks. Only a few will be covered here. For more information, see, for example, https://www.w3schools.com/charsets/ref_utf_diacritical.asp. (as of 2021-01-19)

Another common comparison of a "tittle" is the similarity of many Hebrew letters, which can be difficult to distinguish unless one looks carefully. Consider "bet", the second letter, and "kaf", the eleventh letter.


Consider "heh", the fifth letter, "chet", the eighth letter and "tav" the twenty-second (and last) letter.

A tilde character is the "~" character.

The Spanish word "tilde" ≈ "tilde" where the English word "tilde" was borrowed from the Spanish "tilde". The Spanish word came from the Latin word "titulus" ≈ "title" (as above, the source of the English "tittle").

The Spanish "ñ" is an "n" with a tilde "~" over it and modifies the sound. It originally started as an "n" over an "n" (for words of Latin origin) and developed into the tilde "~" form used today.

• Matthew says "until heaven and earth pass ".
• Luke says it is "easier for heaven and earth to pass". The Greek is actually asking which of the two choices are a better work or toil.

In many places in the GNT it is said that heaven and earth will pass away, and be replaced with a new heaven and a new earth.

More: Whether this or that: what is your opinion on glory?

The "it is easier" appear to be a mistranslation, through Latin, that meant "which is the better toil of the two".

• 1. heaven and earth to pass by. Which heaven and which earth?
• 2. one tittle of the law to fall. Which law?

Luke reports what people remembered some 20 years later. What people remembered may or may not be what was said. Only the "tittle" was remembered. Not the "jot".

More: Whether this or that: what is your opinion on glory?

Some obvious questions arise, not involving "jot" or "tittle".

What is the "law" to which the passage refers?

☐ God's law.
☐ Man's additions to God's law.

When is the time that "all" will be "come into being"?

It would appear that if any part of the "law" has changed and "all" has not "come into being", then perhaps some assumptions of what "law" is meant may need adjusted. As with many Bible passages, commentators may fixate on parts of the passage without insuring that all other parts are clear and that the entire passage makes sense with their chosen interpretation.

Let us look at the other verse.

The ancient Greek word "λόγος" ≈ "rational explanation, word".

In Genesis, God spoke the heaven and earth and everything in it into existence. One viewpoint is that nothing of God's word will be changed, as in Psalms 12:6-7.

The viewpoint of Psalms is similar to what Jesus says in Matthew 24:35.

Sermon on the Mount: (ministry start)
Olivet Discourse: (end times)

The "pass away" is that of "pass by".

• What is "heaven"? What is "earth"?
• The "words" or "rational explanation" is information that transcends time and space as we know it.

Is it possible that the "law" is the law of the curse of which nothing will "pass" until "all" is "fulfilled" and a new heaven and a new earth are created?

That original "law" of the curse is a "thorn" in the side.

But what of the "thistle"? More on thorns and thistles later.

Since the previous verse referred to the law as man's (additions to) God's law, that assumption is made here. There are (at least) four things that involve "passing by".

• "heaven": literal "air", "kingdoms" as in "candles", etc.
• "earth": literal "earth", "blooms" and "works" as in "salt", etc.
• "jots": man's opinions of God's laws, spots, etc.
• "tittles": man's additions to God's laws, invalid logic, etc.


• "ἑν" ≈ "one" (masculine grammatical gender)
• "μια" ≈ "one" (feminine grammatical gender)

Not one will pass by. Perhaps all will pass by.

[One cookie rule, not one shred of evidence]

Using the "salt" (5:13), "light" (5:14) and "candle" (5:15) verses, just a few verses before, one can observe the following in a negative sense.

• Salt of the earth: The "false works" of the "false salt" of the "earth" will "pass by". (pigs)
• Light of the world: The "false light" of the "false mountains" of the "world" will "pass by". (fish)
• Kingdom of heaven: The "false candles" of the "false kingdoms" of the "heaven" will "pass by". (birds)

Using the "salt" (5:13), "light" (5:14) and "candle" (5:15) verses, just a few verses before, one can observe the following in a positive sense.

• Salt of the earth: The "true works" (as accomplishments) of the "true salt" of the "earth" will not "pass by". (sheep)
• Light of the world: The "true light" (as in Jesus) of the "true mountain" of the "world" will not "pass by". (sheep)
• Kingdom of heaven: The "true candles" of the "true kingdoms" (of God) of the "heaven" will not "pass by" (but will be re-created or resurrected). (sheep)

The "come into being" refers to the summary verse of the "true works" (new "earth") and the "true kingdom" (new "heaven").

Rather than "passed by" (prefix "beyond") the word is "passed away" (prefix "away from").

• What does "heaven" represent? (birds, Jesus as head and eyes)
• What does "earth" represent? (pigs, sheep)
• What does "sea" represent? (fish)

The "false works" and even "true works" will be "burned". The "fire" of the "Holy Spirit" as in "salt of the earth" will "save".

Lot is an example of Paul's statement.

More: Song: Holy, Holy, Holy