Matthew 10:9-10 - Exposition

Parallel passages: Mark 6:8 ; Luke 9:3 (the twelve); Luke 10:4 (the seventy); cf. also our Lord's reference in Luke 22:35 to the mission of the twelve. Provide ; get you . There is no connotation of foresight in the word itself, but only of acquisition. Observe that the apostles are not forbidden to take what they already have. Lightfoot, 'Hor. Hebr.,'shows that travellers ordinarily took with them a staff, a purse, shoes, a wallet, and sometimes a book of the Law. Neither gold, nor silver, nor brass . The brass would be the copper coinage of the Herods, which alone might be struck by them; or some of the Greek imperial coins, especially those struck at Antioch. The silver , either Greek imperial tetradrachms or Roman denarii of a quarter their weight, didrachms having fallen into disuse; only certain free cities were allowed to coin silver. The gold , as Palestine was a subject province, must have been coined at Rome, for she retained the coining of gold entirely in her own hands. In your purses ; literally, girdles , which in the East often serve as purses. This prohibition may have been suggested by the last words of verse 8, but can hardly refer to them. It seems to regard the journey only (cf. parallel passages). Nor scrip ; no wallet (Revised Version). At the present time, "all shepherds have them, and they are the farmer's universal vade-mecum. They are merely the skins of kids stripped off whole, and tanned by a very simple process". But they might be made even of fish-skin (Mishna, 'Kelim,' 24.11). Because of 1 Samuel 17:40 , an haggada says that David's money was stamped with a staff and wallet on one side, and a tower on the other ('B'resh..R.,' § 39, in Levy, s.v. לימרת ). For your journey . The clause is to be joined with "scrip" only. Neither two coats . A second for sabbaths and festivals. For the rabbinic rule insisted upon a different coat for these days from that ordinarily worn. To the objection of poor disciples, that they had but one garment for sabbath and week-day alike, R. Samlai said that they must at least change the way in which they wore it. Neither shoes . The parallel passage, Mark 6:9 , has. "but to go shod with sandals" (Revised Version). This is, perhaps, a case of verbal inaccuracy, but as it is impossible to suppose that our Lord can have wished his disciples to go without the ordinary protection to the feet, or that the author of this Gospel, accustomed, on any theory, to Eastern modes of life, can have intended to credit him with such a wish, some other explanation of the verbal discrepancy must be looked for. The true explanation is probably this—The rabbis insisted so strongly on a man never appearing barefooted: "Let a man sell the beams of his house and buy shoes for his feet", that it is very possible that a second pair was often carried in ease of need. it is this that our Lord forbids. On the other hand, Jews did not carry one pair for sabbath and another for week-days (Talm. Jeremiah, 'Sabb.,' 6.2). Some commentators escape the difficulty by distinguishing between "shoes" and "sandals;" but it is very doubtful if the usage of the words is always so exact that one term excludes the other. Nor yet staves ; nor staff (Revised Version). The plural, both here (Stephen) and in Luke 9:3 (Received Text), is a clumsy attempt to harmonize with Mark 6:1-56 .8, where our Lord bids the twelve take nothing "save a staff only." The difference between the two reports of our Lord's words has been magnified by many commentators into a contradiction. But this is not the true state of the case. For it would be so extraordinary and apparently so useless an order to forbid their having a staff, that it is hard to suppose this to have been the meaning of his words as reported here. His thought in Mark 6:9 , Mark 6:10 is rather that they were to make no preparation, for their wants should be supplied, and that even if they had not a staff they were not to take the trouble to procure one. St. Mark's account only so far differs that he assumes that they will st least have a staff already. Observe, however, that no stress can be placed on the difference of the verbs here and in Mark, for in this respect Mark and Luke agree.