Plant Some Seeds and Watch Them Grow. (Study #3 2001/03/19)

Why Worry? (Matthew 6:27)

Worrying about things is human nature, and it always seems that there is an abundance of things that cause stress in our lives and cause us to worry.

The focus of this study is an intersting line of scripture, Matthew 6:27, which involves an expression that seems to be idiomatic in Greek. Here are three translations of this line which translate the words directly:

Since the expression "add a cubit to your stature" is not physically feasible (although that's exactly what the Greek says!), the statement must be an idiom for adding to the life-span, referring to time rather than units of length. These translations are as literal as possible, but without knowledge of the idiomatic expression, the meaning may be difficult to understand. Note how this line is translated in the following translations: These translations have changed the unit being added into a time unit rather than a unit of length, but have kept the idea of distance by using the word "span". Doing so is an improvement over a strict, literal translation. The expression is changed enough to provide the intended meaning clearly to readers of modern English while being as literal as possible. Of course, some translations go one step further: In these translations, everything is expressed in terms of time units. These translations provided a line which is equivalent in meaning to the original by substituting a modern literal phrase for the idiom. The NLT version goes so far as to supply an answer to the question in their translation, which was likely done to "amplify" the meaning of the verse, although such an answer was not in the original Greek text. Examination of multiple translations of this particular verse is a good lesson in showing how different versions of the Bible have handled strange cases such as this one.

The point of the verse is not to worry, obviously. Worrying is pointless, since it wastes energy and tends to keep one in a depressed state, making it much easier for one's faith to be weakened, leading to a degradation of one's relationship with God. The simple point is made that one will not improve one's situation in any way by worrying about anything.

Translation abbreviations used:

Written by Evans A Criswell 2001/03/19, modified 2001/07/31.