1 Timothy 5:18

ACP f follow the order of the LXX. οὐ φιμώσεις βοῦν� (as in 1 Corinthians 9:9); but the order in the text is supported by אD2GKL d g.

18. λέγει γὰρ ἡ γραφή. This is the ordinary Pauline formula of citation from the O.T.; see Romans 4:3; Romans 11:2; Galatians 4:30.

βοῦν�. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn, a citation of Deuteronomy 25:4, applied in a somewhat similar way by St Paul at 1 Corinthians 9:9. Not the letter of the law only, but the broad moral principle behind it is here appealed to by the Apostle.

καί, Ἄξιος ὁ ἐργάτης τοῦ μισθοῦ αὐτοῦ. This maxim occurs nowhere in the O.T., although the principle involved is often enunciated, e.g. at Leviticus 19:13; Deuteronomy 24:14. It does occur verbally in Luke 10:7 (cp. Matthew 10:10), in the report of our Lord’s charge to the Seventy whom He sent forth; and it has been sometimes thought (a) that the writer of this Epistle here appeals to St Luke’s Gospel as ἡ γραφή. But, even if we place the Epistle outside St Paul’s lifetime, we cannot bring it down to a date late enough to permit us to think of the author citing the Synoptic Gospels as Scripture, in the same breath with the O.T. (b) It has been suggested, again, that St Paul here quotes a well-known saying of the Lord which would for him have all the authority of ἡ γραφή. But true as this may be, we can hardly conceive of him as introducing such a saying by the formula λέγει γὰρ ἡ γραφή, γραφή being reserved by him for the Sacred Canon of the O.T. And therefore (c) we conclude that this opening formula only applies to the quotation from Deuteronomy, and that the words ἄξιος ὁ ἐργάτης τοῦ μισθοῦ αὐτοῦ are added by the writer by way of explanation and confirmation. It may well be that this was a familiar proverb, appealed to here by St Paul as it was appealed to by the Lord in the passage quoted from St Luke. We have, for instance, in Euripides (Rhes. 191) a similar thought: πονοῦντα δʼ ἄξιον μισθὸν φέρεσθαι: and again in Phocylides Fr. 17 μισθὸν μοχθήσαντι δίδου. Such an obvious principle of natural justice may well have taken a proverbial form. St Paul, in short, first quotes from Deuteronomy 25:4, and then adds And [as you know] the labourer is worthy of his hire.