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Lay not up for yourselves treasures (μη θησαυριζετε υμιν θησαυρους). Do not have this habit (μη and the present imperative). See on Matthew 2:11 for the word "treasure." Here there is a play on the word, "treasure not for yourselves treasures." Same play in verse Matthew 6:20 with the cognate accusative. In both verses υμιν is dative of personal interest and is not reflexive, but the ordinary personal pronoun. Wycliff has it: "Do not treasure to you treasures." Break through (διορυσσουσιν). Literally "dig through." Easy to do through the mud walls or sun-dried bricks. Today they can pierce steel safes that are no longer safe even if a foot thick. The Greeks called a burglar a "mud-digger" (τοιχορυχος).

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Rust (βρωσις). Something that "eats" (βιβρωσκω) or "gnaws" or "corrodes."

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Single (απλους). Used of a marriage contract when the husband is to repay the dowry "pure and simple" (την φερνην απλην), if she is set free; but in case he does not do so promptly, he is to add interest also (Moulton and Milligan's Vocabulary, etc.). There are various other instances of such usage. Here and in Luke 11:34 the eye is called "single" in a moral sense. The word means "without folds" like a piece of cloth unfolded, simplex in Latin. Bruce considers this parable of the eye difficult. "The figure and the ethical meaning seem to be mixed up, moral attributes ascribed to the physical eye which with them still gives light to the body. This confusion may be due to the fact that the eye, besides being the organ of vision, is the seat of expression, revealing inward dispositions." The "evil" eye (πονηρος) may be diseased and is used of stinginess in the LXX and so απλους may refer to liberality as Hatch argues (Essays in Biblical Greek, p. 80). The passage may be elliptical with something to be supplied. If our eyes are healthy we see clearly and with a single focus (without astigmatism). If the eyes are diseased (bad, evil), they may even be cross-eyed or cock-eyed. We see double and confuse our vision. We keep one eye on the hoarded treasures of earth and roll the other proudly up to heaven. Seeing double is double-mindedness as is shown in verse Matthew 6:24.

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No man can serve two masters (ουδεις δυνατα δυσ κυριοις δουλευειν). Many try it, but failure awaits them all. Men even try "to be slaves to God and mammon" (Θεω δουλευειν κα μαμωνα). Mammon is a Chaldee, Syriac, and Punic word like Plutus for the money-god (or devil). The slave of mammon will obey mammon while pretending to obey God. The United States has had a terrible revelation of the power of the money-god in public life in the Sinclair-Fall-Teapot-Air-Dome-Oil case. When the guide is blind and leads the blind, both fall into the ditch. The man who cannot tell road from ditch sees falsely as Ruskin shows in Modern Painters. He will hold to one (ενος ανθεξετα). The word means to line up face to face (αντ) with one man and so against the other.

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Be not anxious for your life (μη μεριμνατε τη ψυχη υμων). This is as good a translation as the Authorized Version was poor; "Take no thought for your life." The old English word "thought" meant anxiety or worry as Shakespeare says: "The native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." Vincent quotes Bacon (Henry VII): "Harris, an alderman of London, was put in trouble and died with thought and anguish." But words change with time and now this passage is actually quoted (Lightfoot) "as an objection to the moral teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, on the ground that it encouraged, nay, commanded, a reckless neglect of the future." We have narrowed the word to mere planning without any notion of anxiety which is in the Greek word. The verb μεριμναω is from μερισ, μεριζω, because care or anxiety distracts and divides. It occurs in Christ's rebuke to Martha for her excessive solicitude about something to eat (Luke 10:41). The notion of proper care and forethought appears in 1 Corinthians 7:32; 1 Corinthians 12:25; Philippians 2:20. It is here the present imperative with the negative, a command not to have the habit of petulant worry about food and clothing, a source of anxiety to many housewives, a word for women especially as the command not to worship mammon may be called a word for men. The command can mean that they must stop such worry if already indulging in it. In verse Matthew 6:31 Jesus repeats the prohibition with the ingressive aorist subjunctive: "Do not become anxious," "Do not grow anxious." Here the direct question with the deliberative subjunctive occurs with each verb (φαγωμεν, πιωμεν, περιβαλωμεθα). This deliberative subjunctive of the direct question is retained in the indirect question employed in verse Matthew 6:25. A different verb for clothing occurs, both in the indirect middle (περιβαλωμεθα, fling round ourselves in Matthew 6:31, ενδυσησθε, put on yourselves in Matthew 6:25). For your life (τη ψυχη). "Here ψυχη stands for the life principle common to man and beast, which is embodied in the σωμα: the former needs food, the latter clothing" (McNeile). Ψυχη in the Synoptic Gospels occurs in three senses (McNeile): either the life principle in the body as here and which man may kill (Mark 3:4) or the seat of the thoughts and emotions on a par with καρδια and διανοια (Matthew 22:37) and πνευμα (Luke 1:46; cf. John 12:27; John 13:21) or something higher that makes up the real self (Matthew 10:28; Matthew 16:26). In Matthew 16:25 (Luke 9:25) ψυχη appears in two senses paradoxical use, saving life and losing it.

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Unto his stature (επ την ηλικιαν αυτου). The word ηλικιαν is used either of height (stature) or length of life (age). Either makes good sense here, though probably "stature" suits the context best. Certainly anxiety will not help either kind of growth, but rather hinder by auto-intoxication if nothing more. This is no plea for idleness, for even the birds are diligent and the flowers grow.

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The lilies of the field (τα κρινα του αγρου). The word may include other wild flowers besides lilies, blossoms like anemones, poppies, gladioli, irises (McNeile).

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Was not arrayed (ουδε περιεβαλετο). Middle voice and so "did not clothe himself," "did not put around himself."

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