Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? - . A Roman As was one-tenth of a Denarius, which was about sevenpence-halfpenny, and one-tenth of sevenpence-halfpenny makes just three farthings.
The word , which we translate farthing, is found among the rabbins in the word aisar , which, according to Maimonides, is equal to four grains of silver, but is used among them to express a thing of the lowest, or almost no value. Our Lord seems to have borrowed the expression, One of them shall not fall on the ground, etc., from his own countrymen. In Bereshith Rabba, sec. 79, fol. 77, it is said: In the time in which the Jews were compelled to apostatize, Rab. Simeon, Ben. Jochai, and Eliezer his son hid themselves in a cave, and lived upon dry husks. After thirteen years they came out; and, sitting at the mouth of the cave, they observed a fowler stretching his nets to catch birds; and as often as the Bath Kol said dimos , escape! the bird escaped; but when it said spicula , a dart, the bird was taken. Then the rabbin said, Even a bird is not taken without Heaven, i.e. without the will of God, how much less the life of man! The doctrine intended to be inculcated is this: The providence of God extends to the minutest things; every thing is continually under the government and care of God, and nothing occurs without his will or permission; if then he regards sparrows, how much more man, and how much more still the soul that trusts in him!
Fall on the ground - Instead of , Origen, Clement, Chrysostom, Juvencus, and six MSS. of Mathai, read , into a snare. Bengel conjectures that it might have been written at first, ; that the first syllable being lost out of the word, , the earth, instead of , snare, became the common reading.
Without your Father - Without the will of your Father: , the will or counsel, is added here by Origen, Coptic, all the Arabic, latter Persic, Gothic, all the Itala except two; Tert., Iren., Cypr., Novatian, and other Latin fathers. If the evidence be considered as insufficient to entitle it to admission into the text, let it stand there as a supplementary italic word, necessary to make the meaning of the place evident.
All things are ordered by the counsel of God. This is a great consolation to those who are tried and afflicted. The belief of an all-wise, all-directing Providence, is a powerful support under the most grievous accidents of life. Nothing escapes his merciful regards, not even the smallest things of which he may be said to be only the creator and preserver; how much less those of whom he is the Father, Savior, and endless felicity! See on Luke 12:7 (note).
Other Adam Clarke entries containing Matthew 10:29:
Ezekiel 10:20
Luke 12:6
Luke 12:7
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