What Does Matthew 6:34 Mean?
So do not be pulled apart over tomorrow, for tomorrow will be pulled apart over its own things. Sufficient for the day is its evil.
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
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.THE KEY
The same word names both today’s anxious care and tomorrow’s own, giving tomorrow a burden that belongs to it.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks into the present without denying that today contains evil or trouble. Today’s trouble belongs to today; tomorrow’s concerns are not here yet.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that carrying tomorrow’s troubles today gives you more control over them.
THE ROOT
μεριμνάω
merimnaō
GROWS FROM
μεριμν-
merimn-
Care or anxious concern; the word here names burdening concern, not neutral thought.
“So do not be pulled apart” in this verse is merimnaō. The same verb appears first in the command about today and again when tomorrow is pictured as taking thought for itself. English can make both sound like ordinary thinking, but the repeated Greek word gives the verse a sharper shape: anxious care reaches toward the future, while the future is assigned its own care.
ALSO GROWS
merimna: Care, anxiety, or concern.
μέριμνα
This noun names the kind of burden cast in 1 Peter 5:7, showing care as something that can be carried or cast.
merimnaō: To be anxious or to care.
μεριμνάω
This same verb appears in Philippians 4:6, linking the command here with another passage about how anxious care is held.
THE PATTERN
Care has a daily measure and can be placed beyond the self instead of being carried ahead of its time.
Throw your load upon the LORD, and he holds you. He does not give the aligned one to totter for the ages.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
Do not be pulled apart over anything, but in everything, through prayer and need, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.Be careful translates μεριμνάω (merimnaō, to be anxious or care), the same verb repeated in Matthew 6:34. Matthew gives tomorrow its own care; Philippians shows that anxious care can be voiced beyond the self.
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