Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Matthew 6:30

χόρτος, lit. (1) ‘an enclosed place,’ especially for feeding cattle, hence (2) ‘provender,’ grass, hay, (3) then generally ‘vegetation,’ flowers and grass growing in the fields, which when dried are used for fuel in the East. For the first sense cp. Hom. Il. XI. 774, αὐλῆς ἐν χόρτῳ; for the second Eur. Alc. 495, θηρῶν ὀρείων χόρτον οὐχ ἴππων λέγεις. The third sense is not classical.

εἰς κλίβανον βαλλόμενον. The κλίβανος was a vessel of baked clay wider at the bottom than the top. The process of baking meal-cakes or Chupatties in India, as a friend describes it to me, illustrates this passage and also the meaning of ἄρτοι (ch. Matthew 14:17 and elsewhere) and the expression κλάσαι ἄρτον (ch. Matthew 15:36; Acts 20:7). “The ‘oven’ is a jar-shaped vessel formed of tempered clay sunk in the ground. The fuel (χόρτος of the text) is ‘cast into the oven’ and lighted. The meal is first made into cakes, which are then taken up and whirled round between the two hands edgeways, and patted until they are as thin and about the size of a pancake, when by a dexterous movement the hand is introduced into the oven and the chupattie thrown against the side. There it sticks of its own adhesion; as it bakes, the edges curl and peel off, when nearly done and in danger of falling, a stick with a curved spike holds it until the correct moment, and serves to withdraw it from the oven. The result is a crisp thin cake, not unlike our oat-cake.”

The Attic form of the word is κρίβανος: in later Greek both forms are retained and used indiscriminately. For this interchange of λ and ρ cp. σιγηρὸς for σιγηλός, βουκόλος and αἰγικορεύς. Lob. Phryn. 652.

ἀμφιέννυσιν. This word is used appropriately of the delicate membrane that clothes and protects the flower. Accordingly the thought suggested is not only the brilliant colour of the flower, but also the protection of the surrounding cuticle or sheath, which thin and delicate as it is is yet ‘little sensitive to external and even chemical agencies.’ The periblem (cp. περιεβάλετο above) is a technical term with botanists for the cortical tissue or inner membrane underlying the epidermis. See Thomé’s Struct. and Phys. Botany (translated), Ch. III.

ὀλιγόπιστοι. A translation of a common Rabbinical expression.

Continues after advertising

BibliaPlus

Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Matthew 6:30

Old Testament

New Testament