The witnesses vary in the number and form of “grow,” in the order of the clauses, and in attempts to explain what lilies do not do. An Oxyrhynchus fragment preserves a related saying about not carding or spinning, but it is not a manuscript of Matthew.
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.” — Matthew 6:28
That last distinction matters. An ancient parallel can illuminate a saying without becoming another Gospel witness.
One field, several grammatical forms
The Textus Receptus reads the lilies as a plural subject: consider how they grow. Some early forms use a singular verb with the collective image: consider the lily, how it grows. English translations may smooth either into a natural plural.
The following verbs are stable in sense: they do not toil and do not spin. Some copies adjust their order or number to match the first verb. These are common acts of grammatical agreement, not competing stories about botany.
The Oxyrhynchus saying adds an ancient textile action—lilies neither card nor spin. That form may preserve free oral teaching, a noncanonical collection, or an explanatory expansion. It cannot be placed in Matthew’s apparatus as though its papyrus carried the Gospel’s chapter and verse.
Christ is not praising idleness. Lilies grow by the life God gives; people receive hands, callings, and duties from the same Father. The contrast is between anxious toil aimed at self-securing glory and created dependence that receives its beauty.
Solomon’s clothing required fields, trade, dye, labor, and royal wealth. One flower surpasses him without a loom. The image cuts pride and fear at once.
The received plural form lets the disciples look across the field rather than isolate a specimen. “How they grow” is plain, broad, and stable in the ecclesiastical text. The other forms show scribes making number and syntax agree, while the Oxyrhynchus parallel shows how a memorable saying can travel and expand outside the Gospel.
Consider the lilies as Matthew wrote them. The point is not that they have no processes, but that their splendor comes without the anxious kingdom-building that consumes us.
Ancient hearers would know spinning as household labor that turned fiber into thread. Carding or combing belongs one step earlier. Adding that action makes the saying more complete as textile description, which is exactly why it sounds like explanation. Matthew needs only toil and spin to set field growth against human manufacture.
The singular and plural forms may also arise from how a scribe pictures the scene. “The lily” can stand for the kind; “the lilies” can spread across the field. Neither creates a different lesson, but the received plural agrees with the visible multitude Jesus tells the disciples to consider.
Classifying the Oxyrhynchus material correctly prevents two opposite errors. It should not be ignored because it is noncanonical, and it should not be counted as another Matthew manuscript because it is ancient. It witnesses to the circulation and expansion of Jesus-like sayings. That history helps explain variants while leaving the canonical witness distinct.
Sources and further reading
- 1 Kings 10:1–25; Matthew 6:25–34; Luke 12:27–28.
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, note on Matthew 6:28.
- The Oxyrhynchus parallel saying, classified separately from manuscripts of Matthew.