Sufficient for the day

Matthew 6:25-34 is the well know passage where Jesus commands us not to take any anxious thought for tomorrow as the events of tomorrow are under the control of a loving Father. At the end of the passage He adds the phrase “sufficient for the day is the evil thereof”. In the original Greek it reads: ἀρκετὸν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἡ κακία αὐτῆς  (‘ sufficient  for-the-day the-evil of-it ’)

I always thought the wording of this phrase just a little curious, particularly as this passage has as its primary concern the daily provision of a loving Father. Could He perhaps have had some other idea or word association in mind when He said this? Most scholars and commentators agree that there is a reference in this passage to the events in the desert many centuries earlier described in Exodus 16 where God provides manna, bread from heaven to a hungry nation. Perhaps there is more here that first meets the eye? Let’s go back and investigate a little deeper.

The story so far. The children of Israel are in bondage in Egypt, ruthlessly abused and in enslaved labour. They are forced by their task masters to make bricks to build the Egyptian cities of Ramses and Pithom (Exodus 1:11-14). However their pain and suffering has not gone unnoticed by God (Ex 3:7-8) and He calls Moses to the challenge of leading His people out of bondage into the land flowing with milk and honey.

Somewhat reluctantly Moses agrees and sets off with Aaron his brother to confront the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh would seem to be somewhat bemused by the initial request and sends them away with a firm No! telling them not to waste his time anymore. No sooner have they gone than Pharaoh calls his hench men and instructs them to increase the work load on God’s people.

Up until that point in time the Egyptians provided the straw that was required to manufacture the bricks but now the children of Israel are told they must also now gather the straw to make the bricks but still produce them in the same quantities as before.

In Exodus 5:19 it’s recorded that “The Israelite foremen were told..”You are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day” . The phrase in italics reads in the Hebrew (r to l):  דְּבַר־יוֹם בְּיוֹמוֹ׃ ( ‘In-its-day the thingof – the day’)

The word  דְּבַר (here in it’s construct form) is from the root for ‘word’ but can also mean as it does here a generic ‘thing’ or ‘task’. A good translation therefore here would be, in the context of the manufacture of bricks, the Israelites were being told to meet “the quota of the day on the day”

Interestingly the same phrase turns up again in Exodus 16:4 when the Israelites are now in the desert and complaining to Moses of hunger. God is speaking here (phrase is shown in italics again):

“I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instruction” 

When I first read these passages I couldn’t but help to notice the underlying similarity in thought to the Mattew passage. Did Jesus have these passages in mind in His dialogue? We can only but speculate.

In a strange way the cruelly of the Egyptian slave masters kept the Israelites focused on the evil of their day. I can image that once they got home in the evening the most they could rise to was to make a little food and then go straight to bed exhausted. There was no thought of tomorrow and certainly no desire to think about the prospect of another day of pain and cruelty.

Not long afterwards in the desert following the exodus God Himself would tell the Israelites to gather only sufficient manna for the day. It was His way of testing the people to see to what extent they were prepared to trust Him purely on a day by day basis without any thought or preparation for the morrow. Some Israelites however kept manna over only to discover the following morning that it had gone stale and was inedible.

Whether we are concerned about food or clothing, or a job or our children’s future or whether it’s about manna in the desert or the cruelty of the Egyptian task masters Jesus commands us not to be anxious for tomorrow because our heavenly Father knows all about tomorrow and knows already what we will need. The primary message of the passage in Matthew is that we spend all our energy and efforts today into seeking God and His righteousness and kingdom, putting on His armour daily to engage in the spiritual warfare that rages around us and having done all at the end of the day to remaining standing steadfast in His victory. As for tomorrow, it is in God’s hands, sufficient for today is the quota of evil for the day.   

The Scribbling Scribe

2nd Aug 2009