Matthew 6:30

6:25-34 There is scarcely any sin against which our Lord Jesus more warns his disciples, than disquieting, distracting, distrustful cares about the things of this life. This often insnares the poor as much as the love of wealth does the rich. But there is a carefulness about temporal things which is a duty, though we must not carry these lawful cares too far. Take no thought for your life. Not about the length of it; but refer it to God to lengthen or shorten it as he pleases; our times are in his hand, and they are in a good hand. Not about the comforts of this life; but leave it to God to make it bitter or sweet as he pleases. Food and raiment God has promised, therefore we may expect them. Take no thought for the morrow, for the time to come. Be not anxious for the future, how you shall live next year, or when you are old, or what you shall leave behind you. As we must not boast of tomorrow, so we must not care for to-morrow, or the events of it. God has given us life, and has given us the body. And what can he not do for us, who did that? If we take care about our souls and for eternity, which are more than the body and its life, we may leave it to God to provide for us food and raiment, which are less. Improve this as an encouragement to trust in God. We must reconcile ourselves to our worldly estate, as we do to our stature. We cannot alter the disposals of Providence, therefore we must submit and resign ourselves to them.

30 . which to day is ] Rather, though it is to-day . cast into the oven ] The Jewish oven was a vessel narrower at the top than at the bottom, made of baked clay. Sometimes the fuel was placed within, and the cakes laid against the sides. Sometimes the oven was heated by a fire kindled beneath or around it. Eastern travellers state that wood being rare in most parts of the East, grass, twigs, and straw are commonly used for fuel.

Matthew 6:30 . εἰ δὲ τὸν χόρτον . Application. The beautiful flowers now lose their individuality, and are merged in the generic grass : mere weeds to be cut down and used as fuel. The natural sentiment of love for flowers is sacrificed for the ethical sentiment of love for man, aiming at convincing him of God’s care.— κλίβανον (Attic κρίβανος , vide Lobeck, Phryn. , 179), a round pot of earthenware, narrow at top, heated by a fire within, dough spread on the sides; beautiful flowers of yesterday thus used to prepare bread for men! ὀλιγόπιστοι : several times in Gospels, not in classics; not reproachful but encouraging, as if bantering the careworn into faith. The difficulty is to get the careworn to consider these things. They have no eye for wild flowers, no ear for the song of birds. Not so Jesus. He had an intense delight in nature. Witness the sentiment, “Solomon in all his glory,” applied to a wild flower! These golden words are valuable as revealing His genial poetic nature. They reflect also in an interesting way the holiday mood of the hour, up on the hill away from heat, and crowds, and human misery.

(30) The grass of the field. —The term is used generically to include the meadow-flowers which were cut down with the grass, and used as fodder or as fuel. The scarcity of wood in Palestine made the latter use more common there than in Europe. The “oven” in this passage was the portable earthen vessel used by the poor for baking their bread. The coarse ligneous hay was placed below it and round it, and short-lived as the flame was, so that “the crackling of the thorns” ( Psalm 118:12 ; Ecclesiastes 7:6 ) became proverbial, it had time to do its work. O ye of little faith.—The word is found only in our Lord’s teaching, and the passages in which it occurs are all singularly suggestive. The disciples were not faithless or unbelieving, but their trust was weak. They lacked in moments of anxiety the courage which leads men to rely implicitly on the love and wisdom of their Father. So in the stormy night on the lake, or when Peter began to sink in the waves, or when the disciples had forgotten to take bread, the same word recurs (Matthew 8:26; Matthew 14:31; Matthew 16:8).

30. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass—the "herbage." of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven—wild flowers cut with the grass, withering by the heat, and used for fuel. (See Jas 1:11). shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?—The argument here is something fresh. Gorgeous as is the array of the flowers that deck the fields, surpassing all artificial human grandeur, it is for but a brief moment; you are ravished with it to-day, and to-morrow it is gone; your own hands have seized and cast it into the oven: Shall, then, God's children, so dear to Him, and instinct with a life that cannot die, be left naked? He does not say, Shall they not be more beauteously arrayed? but, Shall He not much more clothe them? that being all He will have them regard as secured to them (compare Heb 13:5). The expression, "Little-faithed ones," which our Lord applies once and again to His disciples (Mt 8:26; 14:31; 16:8), can hardly be regarded as rebuking any actual manifestations of unbelief at that early period, and before such an audience. It is His way of gently chiding the spirit of unbelief, so natural even to the best, who are surrounded by a world of sense, and of kindling a generous desire to shake it off.

Matthew 6:30 . Δὲ , but ) Used epitatically .[288] Garments are objects of comeliness, as well as necessity. The mention of the lilies with the verb περιβάλλεσθαι , to be arrayed , refers to the former; that of grass with the verb ἀμφίεννυσθαι , to be clothed , to the latter notion.— χόρτον , grass, blade ) as for example that of growing wheat.—See ch. Matthew 13:26 . An instance of Litotes .[289]— ΣΉΜΕΡΟΝ ὌΝΤΑ , which to-day is) i.e. , which endures for a very short time.[290]— ΑὔΡΙΟΝ , to-morrow ) After a short interval, the grains having been thrashed out, the straw serves for the fire.— κλίβανον , the oven ) To heat it.—See Lyranus.[291] Pliny[292] says, “rinds beaten from the flax are useful for ovens and furnaces.”—B. 19, ch. 1. It is not said, into the fire, as in John 15:6 (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:12 ), but into the oven. Not, therefore, for the sake merely of being burnt, but of some utility.— ἈΜΦ ΕΝΝΥΣΙΝ , clothe, dresseth ) The dress is properly that without which the body is naked: grass, although it has no external clothing, yet, because it is not naked, but is covered with its own surface, is itself its own dress, especially in its highest and flowering part, of which it is divested when it dries up.— πολλῷ μᾶλλον , much more ) In this life few attain to the adornment of Solomon, not to mention that of the lilies; our Lord’s words, therefore, regard the certainty, not the degree of adornment: but in the life to come we shall be more adorned than the lilies.

We ought not, however, altogether to reject adornment in things, however perishable.— ὀλιγόπιστοι , O ye of little faith ) Want of faith was clearly unknown and abhorred by Christ; for He had known the Father. He teaches faith in this passage.[293] [288] See Append. on Epitasis. It implies some word or words added to a previous enunciation to give augmented force.—ED. [289] See explanation of technical terms in Appendix.—(I. B.) [290] E. B. quotes here C. W. Lüdecke, “At Pentecost all these regions are clad in green verdure; but when the south wind suddenly arises, in 24 hours, or two or three days at most, there is nothing that does not become white and blanched.” [291] The individual thus denominated was NICOLAS DE LYRE, so called from the place of his birth, a small village in Normandy. He is supposed by some to have been of Jewish extraction: he was born in the thirteenth century: he assumed the habit of the Franciscan order in 1291. He was a man of great learning, and especially versed in Hebrew: he wrote several treatises in defence of Christianity against the Jews, and a series of Postills or small commentaries on the whole of the Bible. He died in 1340. He was known in the schools by the surname of Doctor utilis . So great was the effect of his labours, that it gave rise to the proverb, “Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset,” i.e. , “If Lyre had not played on the lyre, Luther would not have danced.”—(I.

Ver. 28-30. From sensitive creatures our Lord proceedeth to vegetables, an order of creatures which have more than mere being, they have also life, though no sense, but yet two degrees beneath man, wanting not only reason, but sense. He shows us from an instance in these, that we have no more reason to be troubled and anxious about clothing, than about meat or drink. Clothing is of no other use than for warmth or ornament: for such clothing as will serve us for warmth, a little care will serve the turn; Sundamus ad supervacanea, our sweating thoughts are mostly for superfluities in clothing; if God see them fit for us, he will also give us them, without so many thoughts about them. Look upon the lilies; ( whether he means what we call tulips, or other flowers called lilies, which probably those countries had in greater variety and beauty, is not worth the arguing); God designing to glorify himself in those creatures, though of meanest orders, hath given them a greater beauty than Solomon had in all his rich array; to let us know that art must not contend with nature, and that beauty and glory in apparel is no more than is to be found in creatures much inferior to our order; which made Solon (though a heathen) prefer the sight of a peacock to that of Croesus.

And therefore this is a thing not worthy of any anxious thoughts, for if God seeth such things good for us, he that so clothes the grass of the field, which is but of a few days’ continuance, will much more clothe us; and if we distrust him for such provision, we show ourselves persons of little faith.

Matthew 6:30 . Τὸν χόρτον τοῦ ἀγροῦ ] Placed first for sake of emphasis; ὁ χόρτος , however, is simply the grass , so that Jesus mentions the genus under which the lilies (which grow among the grass) are included, and that intentionally with a view to point them out as insignificant; 1 Corinthians 3:12 ; 1 Peter 1:24 . σήμερον ὄντα ] which to-day exists . εἰς κλίβ . βαλλόμ .] expresses what is done to-morrow, hence the present . Comp. Buttmann, neut. Gr . p. 178 [E. T. 206]. Dried grass with its flower-stalks and such like was also used for the purpose of heating baking ovens ( κλίβανοι , or Attic κρίβανοι , see Lobeck, ad Phryn . p. 179). Comp. remark on Matthew 3:12 ; Harmar, Beobacht. üb. d. Orient , I. p. 239 f. πολλῷ μᾶλλ .] expressing certainty .