Therefore ( διὰ τοῦτο). Because of this fact last mentioned, the impossibility of dividing your service. Cease to be anxious about things of this life, for anxiety about these is a mark of your attempting this impossibility.
I say unto you. Though the absence of the personal pronoun (unlike Matthew 5:22, etc.) shows that he is not here contrasting himself with them or with others, yet he still emphasizes his authority. Take no thought; Revised Version, be not anxious ( μὴ μεριμνᾶτε).
The translation of the Authorized Version, which was quite correct in its day (cf. also 1 Samuel 9:5), is now archaic, and therefore often misunderstood. For the popular derivation of μεριμνάω ("division," "distraction"), of.
1 Corinthians 7:33, "But he that is married is anxious for ( μεριμνᾷ) the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and is divided ( μεμέρισται)." Observe that forethought in earthly matters was practised by our Lord himself (John 12:6).
For your life ( τῇ ψυχῇ ὑμῶν). In the Gospels ψυχή is the immaterial part of man, his personality as we should say, which survives death (Matthew 10:28), and is the chief object of a man's care (Matthew 10:39, where see note).
What ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink. Although the second clause is omitted by א and a few chiefly "Western" authorities, it is probably genuine, especially as there is no trace of it in Luke. Is not the life more than meat?
i.e. you possess the greater, shall there not be given to you the less? Humphry compares Matthew 23:17. Meat; Revised Version, the food ( τῆς τροφῆς); i.e.