Matthew 10:29

στρουθία, im. for στρουθός, small birds in general, sparrows in particular. ἀσσαρίου, a brass coin, Latin as, 1/10 of a δραχμή = about 3/4d. The smallness of the price makes it probable that sparrows are meant (Fritzsche). We are apt to wonder that sparrows had a price at all. ἓν … οὐ looks like a. Hebraism, but found also in Greek writers, “cannot be called either a Graecism or a Hebraism; in every case the writer aims at greater emphasis than would be conveyed by οὐδείς, which properly means the same thing, but had become weakened by usage” (Winer, § 26). ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν. Chrys. paraphrases: εἰς παγίδα (Hom. 34), whence Bengel conjectured that the primitive reading was not γῆν but πάγην, the first syllable of a little used word falling out. But Wetstein and Fritzsche have pointed out that ἐπὶ does not suit that reading. The idea is that not a single sparrow dies from any cause on wing or perch, and falls dead to the earth ἄνευ τ. πατρὸς ὑ. Origen (c. Celsum, i. 9) remarks: “nothing useful among men comes into existence without God” (ἀθεεί). Christ expresses a more absolute faith in Providence: “the meanest creature passes not out of existence unobserved of your Father”.