Matthew 10:29 - Exposition

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? The form of the saying in Luke 12:6 is practically equivalent ("Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings?"); for sparrows are so common and cheap that if a man buys two farthings' worth he gets one thrown in. "At the present day the markets of Jerusalem and Jaffa are attended by many 'f owlets,' who offer for sale long strings of little birds of various species, chiefly sparrows, wagtails, and larks. These are also frequently sold ready plucked, trussed in rows of about a dozen on slender wooden skewers, and are cooked and eaten like kabobs". A farthing ( ἀσσαρίου ) . This might either be one of the coins of the Herods ( Luke 12:9 , note), or, as it seems, a " second brass" Antiochene as . And one of them shall not fall —and not one of them shall fall (Revised Version, more idiomatically)— on the ground . Dead. In the parallel passage in Luke, more generally, "Not one of them is forgotten in the sight of God," even in life. Origen and Chrysostom read, "fall into the snare" (cf. Ames Luke 3:5 ). Without ( ἄνευ ). χωρίς would deny merely physical connexion (cf. John 15:5 ), and the sentence would then imply that God causes their death; ἄνευ is only negative, and the sentence implies that their death is not outside of his knowledge and care. In Amos 3:5 the thought is that for every event there is a cause; here that every event is taken notice of by God. Sennacherib's boast ( Isaiah 36:10 ) contained a truth other than he intended. Your Father . For this and nothing less is God's relation to you. There is a Talmudic tale told in various forms, of which the earliest seems to be that R. Simon ben Jochai, after hiding thirteen years in a cave, saw from the entrance of it a fowler snaring birds, but that these could not be taken if the Divine voice ( Bath Qol ) said, "Released" ( dimus , dimissus ) . "A bird," said the rabbi, "perishes not without God, much less a man," and he returned to the city (Talm. Jeremiah, 'Shebiith,' 9.1).