Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof

Under a railway bridge across the Weavers' Way.

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" is an aphorism which appears in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew — Matthew 6:34.[1]

It implies that each day contains an ample burden of evils and suffering, with the implicit moral that we should avoid adding to them.

The same words, in Hebrew, are used to express the same thought in the Rabbinic Jewish saying dyya l'tzara b'shaata (דיה לצרה בשעתה), "the suffering of the (present) hour is enough for it".[2]

The original Koine Greek reads ἀρκετὸν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἡ κακία αὐτῆς (arketon tē hēmera hē kakia autes); alternative translations include:[3]

It is also similar to the Epicurean advice of writers such as Anacreon and Horace — quid sit futurum cras, fuge quaerere (avoid asking what the future will bring) —

However, Jesus's sermon has sometimes been interpreted to mean that God knows everyone's needs.[4]

Sermons

Dr Thomas Sheridan wrote an eloquent sermon upon this text on the occasion of the death of Queen Anne.

He absent-mindedly reused it for the anniversary of the accession of King George I and was, on this account, suspected of being a Jacobite and lost his chaplaincy.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Thomas Curtis (1829), The London encyclopaedia, 21
  2. ↑ Tr. Berakhot 9b
  3. ↑ J Frank (1971), The Use of Modern Translations and Their Effect in Replacing the King James Version (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-12
  4. ↑ John Albert Broadus (1886), Commentary on Matthew, p. 151, ISBN 978-0-8254-2283-6
  5. ↑ "An Irish Bull", The Victoria history of England, Routledge, Warne & Routledge, 1865
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