For the workman; labourer (Revised Version); thus connecting the utterance closely with Matthew 9:37, Matthew 9:38. Is worthy of his meat. The disciples may therefore expect that it will be provided for them by those to whom they minister (Luke 10:7, of the seventy), and indirectly by the Master whom they serve (Matthew 9:38).
Meat; food (Revised Version). In all but most highly organized systems of society, this is an important (frequently the most important) part of the day labourer's wages. Hence not unnaturally "wages" is found in the form of the sayings given by St.
Luke (Luke 10:7) and St. Paul (1 Timothy 5:18). Probably our Lord's words became a current proverb in Christian circles, the original word "food" being modified to suit the more general circumstances of life.
Clem. Romans, § 31, recalls the Matthaean form, "The good workman receiveth the bread of his work with boldness.'' Epiphanius gives a kind of confla-tion, containing the further thought that if the workman receives his food he must be content: "The workman is worthy of his hire, and sufficient to him that works is his food."
Resch connects this form of the saying with the practice of giving only food to the travelling "apostles" and prophets of the sub-apostolic age ('Did.,' § 11.). Professor Marshall (Expositor, IV. 2.76) suggests that if our Lord's original word was הדָיץֵ, it would explain the origin of both Matthew and Luke; but it seems very doubtful it' it really ever means "wages.'
' Two patristic remarks are worth quoting: the first from Origen ('Cram. Cat.'), "In saying τροφήν, ('food') he forbade τρυφήν ('luxury');" the second from St. Gregory the Great (in Ford), "Priests ought to consider how criminal and punishable a thing it is to receive the fruit of labour, without labour."