What Does Matthew 6:27 Mean?
Which of you, by being pulled apart, can add one forearm to his span?
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?THE KEY
The question exposes worry as powerless to add even one measured span to the life it tries to control.
THE MEANING
Your anxious effort cannot enlarge your body or lengthen your life; it has no power over that measure. The verse shows worry as motion that cannot produce the increase it seeks.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that enough anxious thought can secure more life or control its measure.
THE ROOT
ἡλικίαν
hēlikian
GROWS FROM
ἡλικ-
hēlik-
Age or life stage; also physical stature or size.
The Greek word can name either a person’s stature or their age, where English gives only “stature.” That range lets the question touch both bodily size and life’s span: anxious thought adds to neither.
ALSO GROWS
hēlikia: Age, stage of life, or stature.
ἡλικία
This noun is the form behind “stature” here, but its range also includes age and life’s span.
hēlikos: Of what size or age; how large.
ἡλίκος
This related form makes the word family’s concern with measure and size visible.
μεριμνῶν
merimnōn
GROWS FROM
μεριμν-
merimn-
The Greek word family for care, concern, and anxious preoccupation.
“by being pulled apart” in this verse is merimnōn. The word translated “taking thought” names anxious care, not thought in general. The same word family appears as “care” in 1 Peter 5:7, where it is something cast upon the one who cares for you.
ALSO GROWS
merimna: Care or anxiety.
μέριμνα
This noun is translated “care” in 1 Peter 5:7, connecting anxious concern here with care that can be cast upon another.
merimnaō: To care or be anxious.
μεριμνάω
This verb names the anxious activity that the verse asks whether you can turn into added stature or life.
THE PATTERN
Anxious care cannot add to life’s measure, and the same care can be cast upon the one who cares for you.
And which of you, by being pulled apart, can add one forearm's length to his stature?Do not be pulled apart over anything, but in everything, through prayer and need, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.throwing all your divided care upon him, for you matter to him.THE THREAD
throwing all your divided care upon him, for you matter to him.The word translated “care” here, μέριμνα (merimna), belongs to the same word family as “taking thought” in Matthew. Matthew asks whether that anxious care can add to your measure; Peter shows it being cast upon the one who cares for you.
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