Matthew 6:32

For after all these things do the Gentiles seek,.... Or "the nations of the world", as in Lu 12:30.

(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

Ver. 31,32. Our Lord repeateth the precept before given, , wherein he forbids not all moderate and provident thoughts for things necessary, but only such thoughts as shall argue our distrust in God, or perplex and distract our minds, or be inconsistent with our duty, and the employment of our thoughts about higher and better things. This he here presseth by two arguments. 1. Because these are the things which people spend all their thoughts upon, who are not aware that they have souls to take care for, or do not understand the providence of God, or have no such relation to God as Christians have, who call God Father. 2. You have (saith he) a heavenly Father, who, being the God of heaven, knoweth what you need, and, being your Father, will also supply your needs.

32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. Ver. 32. For after all these things do the Gentiles seek] With whom if you should symbolize in sins, or not exceed in virtue, it were a shame to you. They studiously seek these things, they seek them with all their might; as being without God in the world, and therefore left by him to shift for themselves. When we observe a young man toiling and moiling, running and riding, and not missing a market, &c., we easily guess and gather that he is fatherless and friendless, and hath none other to take care for him. Surely this immoderate care is better beseeming infidels that know not God, but rest wholly upon themselves and their own means, than Christians, who acknowledge God most wise and all-sufficient to be their loving father, As we differ from heathens in profession, so we should in practice; and a gross business it is, that Jerusalem should justify Sodom, and it should be said unto her, "Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins, but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they," Ezekiel 16:51. Such as have hope in this life only, what marvel if they labour their utmost to make their best of it? Now many of the poor pagans believed not the immortality of the soul, and those few of them that dreamed of another life beyond this, yet affirmed it very faintly, and scarcely believed themselves. Socrates, the wisest of heathens, spake thus to his friends at his death: "The time is now come that I must die, and you survive; but whether is the better of these two, the gods only know, and not any man living, that is my opinion." "But we have not so learned Christ." Neither must we do as heathens and aliens from the commonwealth of Israel; since now in Christ Jesus, we who sometimes were far off are made nigh by his blood, and have an access through him by one Spirit to the Father, Ephesians 2:13; Ephesians 2:18. For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things] Not with a bare barren notional knowledge, but with a fatherly tender care to provide for his own in all their necessities: which whoso doeth not, he judgeth him worse than an infidel. We need not be careful of our maintenance here in our minority and non-age, nor yet for our eternal inheritance when we come to full age. We are cared for in everything that we need, and that can be good for us. Oh happy we, did we but know our happiness! How might we live in a very heaven upon earth, could we but live by faith and walk before God with a perfect heart? He made himself known to be our gracious and provident Father before we were born.

(32) After all these things do the Gentiles seek.—The tone is one of pity rather than of censure, though it appeals, not without a touch of gentle rebuke (as before in Matthew 6:5) to the national pride of Israelites: “You look down upon the heathen nations, and think of yourselves as God’s people, yet in what do you excel them, if you seek only what they are seeking?” For your heavenly Father knoweth . . .—The bearing of this teaching on the meaning of the “daily bread” of the Lord’s Prayer has already been noticed (comp. Note on Matthew 6:11). The outer life of man, and its accidents, may well be left to the wisdom of the All-knowing. It lies below the region of true prayer, or occupies an altogether subordinate place within it.

Verse 32. For after all these things do the Gentiles seek] The fifth reason against solicitude about the future is-that to concern ourselves about these wants with anxiety, as if there was no such thing as a providence in the world; with great affection towards earthly enjoyments, as if we expected no other; and without praying to God or consulting his will, as if we could do any thing without him: this is to imitate the worst kind of heathens, who live without hope, and without God in the world. Seek] επιζητει from επι, intensive, and ζητεω, I seek, to seek intensely, earnestly, again and again: the true characteristic of the worldly man; his soul is never satisfied-give! give! is the ceaseless language of his earth-born heart. Your heavenly Father knoweth, c.] The sixth reason against this anxiety about the future is-because God, our heavenly Father, is infinite in wisdom, and knows all our wants. It is the property of a wise and tender father to provide necessaries, and not superfluities, for his children. Not to expect the former is an offence to his goodness to expect the latter is injurious to his wisdom.

32. the Gentiles seek] Seek with eagerness. A compound verb. The simple verb is used below in the next verse. For the aims of the heathen world read Juvenal Sat. x., or Johnson’s imitation of it “The Vanity of Human Wishes.”

For after all these things do the Gentiles seek - That is, those destitute of the true doctrines of religion, and unacquainted with proper dependence on Divine Providence, make it their chief anxiety

32. After all these things — All worldly goods and earthly treasures, (18-21,) which are included under the dominion of the world-god, Mammon. And so, be not ye, therefore, like unto them.