22. Single (adods). The picture underlying this adjective is that of a piece of cloth or other material, neatly folded once, and without a variety of complicated folds. Hence the idea of simplicity or singleness (compare simplicity from the Latin sim- plex ; semel, once ; plicare, to fold). So, in a moral sense, art- less, plain, pure. Here sound, as opposed to evil or diseased. Possibly with reference to the double-mindedness and indeci- sion condemned in ver. 24,
Cu. VI.] MATTHEW. AT
Full of light (¢wtewov). Bengel says, “As if it were all eye.”
23. In thee—darkness. Seneca, in one of his letters, tells of an idiot slave in his house, who had suddenly become blind. “ Now, incredible as the story seems, it is really true that she is unconscious of her blindness, and consequently begs her attend- ant to go elsewhere because the house is dark. But you may be sure that this, at which we laugh in her, happens to us all; no one understands that he is avaricious or covetous. The blind seek for a guide ; we wander about without a guide.”
“ Seeing falsely is worse than blindness. A man who is too dim-sighted to discern the road from the ditch, may feel which is which ; but if the ditch appears manifestly to him to be the road; and the road to be the ditch, what shall become of him ? False seeing is unseeing, on the negative side of blindness” (Ruskin, “ Modern Painters ”).
94, The other (grepov). Implying distinction in quality rather than numerical distinction (dAXos). For example, “ who- ever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other (rnv ddXqv); 7.2., the other one of the two (Matt. v. 39). At Pen- tecost, the disciples began to speak with other (érépass) tongues ; i.e. different from their native tongues. Here the word gives the idea of two masters of distinct or opposite character and in- terests, like God and Mammon.
Hold to (dv9é£era). The preposition avtt, against, indicates holding to the one master as against the other. He who is for God must be against Mammon.
95. Take no thought (wu pwepeuvare). The cognate noun is pépypva, care, Which was formerly derived from pepis, a part ; pepitw, to divide; and was explained accordingly as a dividing care, distracting the heart from the true object of life. This has been abandoned, however, and the word is placed in a group which carries the common notion of earnest thoughtfulness. It may include the ideas of worry and anicty, and may empha-
48 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. VIL
size these, but not necessarily. See, for example, “careth for the things of the Lord” (1 Cor. vii. 82). “That the members should have the same care one for another” (1 Cor. xii. 25). ‘Who will care for your state?” (Phil. ii. 20). In all these the sense of worry would be entirely out of place. In other cases that idea is prominent, as, “the care of this world,” which chokes the good seed (Matt. xiii. 22; compare Luke viii. 14). Of Martha ; “Thou art careful” (Luke x. 41). Take thought, in this passage, was a truthful rendering when the A. V. was made, since thought was then used as equivalent to anxvety or solicitude. So Shakspeare (“Hamlet ”) :
““The native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”
And Bacon (Henry VII.): “ Hawis, an alderman of London, was put in trouble, and died with thought and anguish.” Somers’ “ Tracts” (in Queen Elizabeth’s reign): “Queen Cath- erine Parr died rather of thought.”
The word has entirely lost this meaning. Bishop Lightfoot (“On a Fresh Revision of the New Testament ”) says: “Thave heard of a political economist alleging this passage as an objec- tion to the moral teaching of the sermon on the mount, on the ground that it encouraged, nay, commanded, a reckless neglect of the future.” It is uneasiness and worry about the future which our Lord condemns here, and therefore Rey. rightly translates be not anavious. This phase of the word is forcibly brought.out in 1 Peter, v. 7, where the A. V. ignores the dis- tinction between the two kinds of care. « Casting’all your care (uépiuvav, Rev., ansiety) upon Him, for He careth (avT@ mérer) for you,” with a fatherly, tender, and provident care.”