God’s Provision for His Creatures
Matthew 6:26:
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Look at the birds of the air; they
neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds
them. Are you not of more value than they?
Luke 12:24:
Consider the ravens: they neither sow
nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how
much more value are you than the birds!
In this saying, as in the corresponding exhortation to consider the wild flowers (Matt. 6:28; Luke 12:27), Jesus adopts the style of a Jewish wisdom teacher, inviting his hearers to consider the natural world, God’s creation, and to draw religious lessons from it (cf. Job 12:7–8; 35:4; Prov. 6:6; Sir. 33:15; 1 Enoch 2:1–3; 3:1; 4:1; 5:1,3). What he asks them to notice – that God feeds the birds/ravens – is drawn directly from the creation theology of the Hebrew Bible, especially the Psalms, in which it is a commonplace that God the Creator supplies all his living creatures with food.[1] In the following passages, the italicized are the references to God feeding his creatures in general and to God feeding specifically the birds or the ravens, in order to show how relatively often the example of God’s provision which Jesus uses occurs:
Ps. 147:9: He
gives to the animals their food, and to the young ravens when
they cry.
Ps. 104:10–11: You make springs gush forth in the
valleys . . .
giving drink to every wild animal . . .
Ps. 104:10–14: You cause the grass to grow for the
cattle,
and
plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth . . .
Ps. 104:10–21: The young lions roar for their prey, seeking
their food from God . . .
Ps. 104: 27–8: These all look to you to give them
their food in due season; when you give to them, they gather it up; when
you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
Job 38:39–41: Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or
satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens, or lie
in wait in their covert? Who provides for the raven its prey, when its
young ones cry to God, and wander about for lack of food?
Ps. 145:15–16: The eyes of all look to you, and you
give them their food in due season. You open your hand, satisfying the
desire of every living thing.
It is probably impossible to tell whether, in Jesus’ saying, Matthew’s ‘the birds of the air’ or Luke’s ‘the ravens’ is more original, but the latter gives a more precise Old Testament allusion to Job 38:41 or Psalm 147:9. The reason why both these Old Testament texts single out the ravens for mention is that the cry of the young ravens, to which they both refer, was especially raucous. Young ravens ‘squawk for food with louder and longer cries than almost any other species’.[2] In the context of Jesus’ saying, it might also be significant that, according to the dietary laws, the raven is an unclean animal (Lev. 11:15; Deut. 14:14). The point would then be that God takes care to provide even for an unclean bird like the raven.[3]
The Old Testament creation theology,
which Jesus here echoes, includes humans among the living creatures for whom
God provides. The great creation Psalm – 104 – where humans are included among
all the creatures who look to God for food (vv. 27–8), is notable for its
depiction of humans as one species among others in the community of creation for
which the Creator provides. Psalm 145:15, which echoes Psalm 104:27–8, does so,
as the context makes clear, in order especially to highlight God’s provision
for humans. Like Jesus, the psalmist points to God’s care for all his living
creatures in order to assure humans who turn to God in need that he provides
for them. The same point is made, in dependence on these psalms, in a later
Jewish psalm (from the first century BCE):
For if I am hungry, I will cry out to you, O God, and you will give me (something). You feed the birds and the fish as you send rain in the wilderness that grass may sprout to provide pasture in the wilderness for every living thing, and if they are hungry, they will lift their eyes up to you. You feed kings and rulers and peoples, O God, and who is the hope of the poor and needy, if not you, Lord? (Pss. Sol. 5:8–11)[4]
Clearly, in arguing from the Creator’s provision for birds to his provision for people, Jesus’ words belong firmly within Jewish tradition. The point that is not from the tradition is Jesus’ observation that birds do not sow or reap or store their food in barns. This observation has been variously interpreted. Jesus has sometimes been thought to contrast the birds who do not work with people who do: if God feeds even the idle birds, how much more will he provide for people who work hard for their living. He has also been thought to compare the birds who do not work with disciples who do not work either, but as wandering preachers depend on God’s provision by way of receiving charity. It is improbable that either of these alternatives is the real point. Rather the point is that, because the birds do not have to labour to process their food from nature, their dependence on the Creator’s provision is the more immediate and obvious.[5] Humans, preoccupied with the daily toil of supplying their basic needs by sowing and reaping and gathering into barns, may easily suppose that it is up to them to provide themselves with food. Focusing on their necessary efforts to process their food, they neglect the fact that, much more fundamentally, they are dependent on the divine provision, the resources of creation without which no one could sow, reap or gather into barns. The birds, in their more immediate and obvious dependence on the Creator, remind humans that ultimately they are no less dependent on the Creator.
Once again, as in the Sabbath healing discussions, what Jesus
says about animals is a presupposition from which to argue something about
humans. But it is a necessary presupposition. It is not, as some modern readers
tend to assume, just a picturesque illustration of Jesus’ point, as though the
point could stand without the illustration. Rather Jesus’ argument depends on
the Old Testament creation theology evoked by his reference to the birds.
Humans can trust God for their basic needs, treating the resources of creation
as God’s provision for these needs, only when they recognize that they belong
to the community of God’s creatures, for all of whom the Creator provides. Only
those who recognize birds as their fellow-creatures can appreciate Jesus’
point. It is noteworthy that, although the argument, like that in the
discussions of Sabbath law, is an argument from the lesser to the greater
(since God provides for the birds, he will certainly also provide for humans
who are of more value than birds), it is not an argument which sets humans on a
different plane of being from the animals. On the contrary, it sets humans
within the community of God’s creatures for all of whom he provides.
Apparently, they are regarded as particularly eminent members of that community
(a point to which we shall return), but they are members of it, nonetheless.
[1] M.F. Olsthoorn, The
Jewish Background and the Synoptic Setting of Mt 6,25–33 and Lk, 12,22–31 (Studium
Biblicum Franciscanum Analecta 10; Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing House, 1975),
p. 36, calls this ‘one of the most common beliefs of listeners . . . familiar
with the Jewish tradition’.
[2]
Virginia C. Holmgren, Bird Walk through the Bible (2nd edn; New York:
Dover, 1988), p. 146.
[3]
Ravens were also generally disliked: 1 Enoch 90:8–19; Jub. 12:18–21;
b. Sanh. 108b; t. Shabb. 6:6; Barn. 10:4 (where precisely
their idleness is the point). Cf. Olsthoorn, Jewish Background, p. 35.
[4] Translation from R.B.
Wright, ‘Psalms of Solomon’, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2
(ed. James H. Charlesworth; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1985), p. 657.
[5] The point is therefore
rather different from that in m. Qidd. 4:14 (quoted below), where R.
Simeon ben Eleazar observes that animals and birds do not have to work to gain
a living, whereas humans do. His point is that humans would be sustained without
effort, had they not forfeited this right through sin (cf. Gen. 3:17–19).
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