Matthew 6:25

New Testament

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t there more to life than food and more to the body than clothing? 26 Look at the birds in the sky: They do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you more valuable than they are? 27 And which of you by worrying can add even one hour to his life? 28 Why do you worry about clothing? Think about how the flowers of the field grow; they do not work or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these! 30 And if this is how God clothes the wild grass, which is here today and tomorrow is tossed into the fire to heat the oven, won’t he clothe you even more, you people of little faith? 31 So then, don’t worry saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For the unconverted pursue these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

Sotah 48b

Babylonian Talmud
Rabbinic

§ The mishna states that from the time when the Second Temple was destroyed men of faith ceased. Rabbi Yitzḥak says: These are people who believe in the Holy One, Blessed be He, and place their trust in Him in all their ways. As it is taught in a baraita: Rabbi Eliezer the Great says that whoever has bread in his basket to eat today and says: What shall I eat tomorrow, meaning he does not know how he will acquire bread for tomorrow, he is nothing other than from those of little faith. One must trust in God to provide him with his sustenance.

 Notes and References

"... Whatever you think of that, we have in these verses the continuation of a familiar Biblical theme – it starts with the Israelites in the desert who had to undergo a training in dependence on God’s daily miracle of manna and quail. But the Hebrew scriptures show how the people could never manage the faith required. The Torah texts are filled with the complaints and rebellions and doubts of a people for whom dependence on an unseen divinity stretched their faithfulness to breaking point. And the Talmud has many examples of rabbis trying to persuade people to move beyond their natural human anxieties, towards greater faith in a God who provides. For example, in a striking parallel to our text, one of Matthew’s contemporaries, the first century Rabbi Eleazar of Hyracanus, is quoted as saying: “Whoever has bread in his basket and asks: ‘What shall I eat tomorrow?’, is none other than those of little faith (qatnei emunah)”. (Sotah 48b) ..."

Cooper, Howard Reflections on Reading Matthew 6:19-34 (pp. 1-4) Leo Baeck College, 2015

 User Comments

Why say - between serpents and mankind? The woman revealed the serpent tempter as her attacker. God then judged according to her words. Why not see God confirming the existing conflict between the tempter and the woman to eventually culminate in the victory of the righteous over the rebel?

Anonymous, April 12, 2023, 11:27 am

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