What Does Matthew 6:28 Mean?

And why are you pulled apart over clothing? Learn from the lilies of the field, how they grow. They do not toil, nor do they spin.

Matthew 6:28 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

THE KEY

The lilies turn clothing from a product of anxious effort into a question about how life grows.

THE MEANING

Your concern for clothing meets the lilies, growing without toil or spinning their own covering. The verse holds anxious effort beside growth that is already happening.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that worry itself secures the clothing life needs.

THE ROOT

μεριμνᾶτε

merimnate

GROWS FROM

μέριμν-

merimn-

Anxious care or concern

“are you pulled apart” in this verse is merimnate. The verb names anxious concern, not deliberate reflection. Its word family includes both ⁨μέριμνα⁩ (merimna), “care,” and ⁨ἀμέριμνος⁩ (amerimnos), “free from care,” making the burden of worry visible beneath the older English phrase “take thought.”

ALSO GROWS

merimna: Care, anxiety

μέριμνα

This noun names the same kind of concern Peter says can be cast upon God in 1 Peter 5:7.

amerimnos: Free from care

ἀμέριμνος

This related word shows the same family can describe the absence of anxious concern.

καταμάθετε

katamathete

GROWS FROM

μαθ-

math-

Learn

“Learn from” in this verse is katamathete. “Consider” is ⁨καταμανθάνω⁩: to observe or learn thoroughly. The lilies are not just scenery; the verb presents them as something from which the reader learns.

ALSO GROWS

manthanō: Learn

μανθάνω

This is the base verb within ⁨καταμάθετε⁩, showing that consideration here carries the sense of learning.

mathētēs: Learner, disciple

μαθητής

This related word makes the link between attending to the lilies and learning from them especially clear.

αὐξάνουσιν

auxanousin

GROWS FROM

αὐξ-

aux-

Grow, increase

“grow” in this verse is auxanousin. The verse names growth as increase, then places it beside the lilies’ lack of toil and spinning. Growth is occurring without their producing their own clothing.

ALSO GROWS

auxēsis: Growth, increase

αὔξησις

This related noun names the increase that the verb describes.

auxanō: Grow, increase

αὐξάνω

This is the verb’s base form, carrying the same image of growth unfolding.

THE PATTERN

Life receives what sustains it through provision beyond its own anxious production.

He makes the grass sprout for the cattle, and the herb for the service of humankind, to bring bread out from the earth.

Psalm 104:14 · SDVGrass and food emerge through growth and provision that exceed the effort of the living things they sustain.

So if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, you who lean your weight on him so little?

Matthew 6:30 · SDVThe grass receives clothing without producing it, extending the lilies’ example to the reader.

throwing all your divided care upon him, for you matter to him.

1 Peter 5:7 · SDVCare is something the reader can cast upon God, rather than a force that must secure life through worry.

THE THREAD

throwing all your divided care upon him, for you matter to him.

1 Peter 5:7 · SDV

Matthew’s “take ye thought” and Peter’s “care” share the Greek word family ⁨μέριμνα⁩ / ⁨μεριμνάω⁩, for anxious concern. Peter pictures that care as something cast upon God, opening the lilies’ lesson: worry is not what makes life grow.

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