Aramaic Word Study – Sufficient – Sephaq – סָפֵק  Samek Pei Qop

Matthew  6:34 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.

“Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due.”  Will Rodgers

“Do not distress yourself with tomorrow’s affliction, for you do  not know what a day may bring; perhaps tomorrow may not be, and you will be found distressing yourself, for the time which is nothing to you.”  Babylonian Talmud  Sanhedrin 100:2

Something has always bothered me about this passage in Matthew 6:34. I think it is because it seems to imply that we are not to worry about tomorrow because we have enough worries today and to take on tomorrow’s worries will overload us with worry.  What bothers me is that Jesus is suggesting we just worry about today.  You know I would prefer it if he would have  just said, “Don’t worry at all.” Worry today is bad enough, can we at least be delivered from that?

In reading the Talmud I ran across the passage quoted above which is very similar to what Jesus taught.  If Jesus was making a reference to this passage in the Talmud or Oral Tradition, then in Matthew 6:34. He was saying don’t worry at all, worry is a useless waste of time. 

In the KJV the last sentence of Matthew 6:34 says, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Most of our modern translations try to put this into a more modern colloquial English by saying, “Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  They render the word evil as trouble.  The word used in the Greek is kakia which refers to an inherent evil which is always present but may not be expressed.  Thus, according to the Greek Jesus was saying that every day there is trouble, that is just the nature of the world we live in, so man up, expect it and just put up with it, it is there and there is nothing you can do about it. Like a sore thumb, it is always there until it heals, it may not hurt all the time but you will occasionally bump it, and that will serve as a reminder that it is still sore.

In checking my Aramaic Bible, the Peshitta, I find the word used in the Aramaic and likely the word that Jesus actually spoke for trouble or evil is bisha. This word is a noun and the  a at the end of that word is an Aleph which represents a definite article. In other words Jesus is saying “Sufficient unto the day the evil one is present.  Bisha is often a reference to Satan, the enemy.  The enemy is going to be just as present tomorrow as he is today. 

Abraham Lincoln’s wife continually got herself into various scandals and controversy while Lincoln was President. After one such potential scandal Secretary of State Stewart intervened to resolve the issue before it exploded into a  major scandal. He then reported to the President that the matter had been laid to rest and there would be no more mention of it.  President Lincoln only sighed and put his head down. The Secretary thought the President misunderstood and repeated, “Mr. President, I said the matter is resolved, don’t worry about it.”  To that Lincoln replied, “That matter is resolved, I am just worried about the next problem she will cause.” 

To use the word bisha, Jesus is not referring to everyday headaches and mishaps, He is referring to the problems caused by someone we have no control over, the enemy. You get one attack by the enemy resolved, then just brace yourself for the salvo. 

That phrase “Sufficient unto the day” is curious. The word sufficient in Aramaic is sephaq.  This means to be sufficient, fit or to satisfy. This is exactly the same as the Greek word used here which is arketon from the root arkeo which means to be sufficient or enough.  But, soft, sephaq is in a Pael form which would indicate almost the opposite, that is to be empty or the lay bare. In the Hebrew the word has the idea of waver or doubting.  It is taken from the Semitic root which has the idea of someone who is intoxicated and stumbles around or throws himself about.  Jesus is saying that you cannot even handle today, let alone tomorrow, so don’t even worry about it, just let me take care of it.

Now let’s put this in its context.  If you check the previous verses Jesus is telling us to seek the kingdom of God and not the things of this world. In that context Jesus is saying the enemy rules this world, if you seek the things of this world the enemy will only fill you with  sephaq or emptiness and you will wander around aimlessly like a drunkard, you will accomplish nothing and in the end you will have nothing.  But if you seek the kingdom of God today you will establish an eternal victory and thus you will not need not to worry about tomorrow.  Today is the accepted time of salvation.

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