Matthew Chapter 16 — The Rich Fool, Anxiety, and Watchfulness

Overview

UPDV chapter 16 covers the Rich Fool parable (16:1-9), the anxiety sayings (16:10-18), treasures in heaven (16:19-21), the waiting servants (16:22-25), the thief in the night (16:26-27), the faithful and unfaithful slave (16:28-34), the days of Noah (16:35-39), and the journey to Jerusalem (16:40). This material comes from canonical Matt 6:19-33, Matt 24:37-51, and Luke 12:13-13:22, drawing on Q and Luke's special source (L).

The chapter continues the Q sequence from where chapter 15 ended. Chapter 15 concluded with the fearless confession discourse (Luke 12:2-12); chapter 16 picks up at Luke 12:13 and follows Luke's order through 12:46, then draws in the days of Noah from Luke 17:26-30 and 17:34-35 before closing with Luke's journey notice at 13:22. The compiler scattered this Q material across two different chapters of his Gospel — the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 6) and the eschatological discourse (Matt 24-25) — embedding each piece in his own thematic arrangements.

This chapter is notable for its inclusion of substantial L material — passages found only in Luke with no Matthean parallel. The Rich Fool parable (16:1-9), the waiting servants (16:22-25), and the journey notice (16:40) are all L material that Luke placed between Q blocks. The UPDV includes them because they occupy the narrative space between Q sayings in Luke's sequence, providing the connective tissue that links the fearless confession to the anxiety sayings to the watchfulness parables. This is the same principle that led the UPDV to include Luke 11:53-54 (the Pharisees' hostility) as the transition into the fearless confession in chapter 15 — Lukan narrative material that bridges Q discourse blocks.

The Rich Fool (16:1-9)

"And one out of the multitude said to him, Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me." The Rich Fool parable (16:1-9) comes from Luke 12:13-21, which has no parallel in the compiler's Gospel.

Bovon identifies this as L material — Luke's special source — and argues that the apophthegm (vv. 13-14, the inheritance dispute) and the parable (vv. 16-20, the rich fool) originally circulated independently before being brought together. The Gospel of Thomas preserves both pieces separately (Thomas 72 and 63) but does not combine them, confirming their originally independent transmission. The transitional saying on greed (v. 15) and the concluding moral (v. 21, "so is he who lays up treasure for himself") are secondary composition — Bovon attributes v. 21 to Luke himself, based on the tradition preserved in Matt 6:19-21.

The UPDV includes this L passage because it occupies the narrative space between two Q blocks in Luke's sequence. Luke 12:2-12 (the fearless confession, UPDV chapter 15) is Q material; Luke 12:22-31 (the anxiety sayings, UPDV 16:10-18) is Q material. Between them, Luke placed the Rich Fool parable (12:13-21). The connection is not arbitrary: the fearless confession ends with "don't fear those who can kill the body" (chapter 15); the Rich Fool warns against the opposite error — accumulating wealth as if life were secure; the anxiety sayings then counsel trust in God's provision rather than anxious hoarding. Luke's arrangement — whether from L or from Q's lost connective structure — provides a coherent progression from fearlessness to detachment to trust.

No major commentator argues the Rich Fool was in Q. Marshall, Nolland, and Green all treat it as a distinctive Lukan tradition. Its inclusion in the UPDV is a structural decision, and it creates a genuine methodological tension that must be acknowledged. The UPDV's stated principle — "passages lacking any confirming witness are not included" — would exclude this parable, just as it excludes M material like the laborers in the vineyard (chapter 13) and the temple tax (chapter 13). If M is out because it lacks a second witness, then L is out by the same criterion.

The UPDV's defense rests on a supplementary principle first articulated in chapter 14 (the return of the seventy-two, Luke 10:17-20): when L material fills a structural gap in a continuous Q sequence, and the compiler had identifiable redactional motivation for omitting it, the material is retained as narrative context. The Rich Fool satisfies both conditions. It sits between two Q blocks (the fearless confession and the anxiety sayings), and the compiler omitted it because he had no use for it in the Sermon on the Mount, where he embedded the anxiety sayings. But the defense is narrower than the article's Q arguments — this is editorial judgment about narrative coherence, not source-critical reconstruction. The reader should treat the Rich Fool as the UPDV treats the city-on-a-hill in chapter 15: retained for its traditional pedigree and structural fit, not because the method demands it.

The Anxiety Sayings (16:10-18)

"And he said to his disciples, Therefore I say to you⁺, Don't be anxious for your⁺ soul, what you⁺ will eat, or what you⁺ will drink; nor yet for your⁺ body, what you⁺ will put on." The anxiety sayings (16:10-18) come from canonical Matt 6:25-33, which is Q material paralleled at Luke 12:22-31.

The compiler placed these sayings in the Sermon on the Mount, where Davies and Allison explain they function as a "sort of gemara on 6:19-24" — an answer to the natural objection, "How can I eat and clothe myself if I wholeheartedly serve God and am relatively indifferent to mammon?" The UPDV restores them to their Lukan position after the Rich Fool parable, which Davies and Allison confirm was probably Q's original context: Riesenfeld argued that "the sayings contained in 6:25-33 were, in Q, adjacent to the sayings about treasuring up treasure (cf. Lk 12:22-34)," and the joining of these two themes — treasuring and anxiety — "occurs elsewhere in early Christian paraenesis, as in Mk 4:19; 1 Tim 6:6-11; and Herm. v. 4:2:4-6."

Davies and Allison's source analysis is clear: "All of the material in Mt 6:19-34 (save the redactional 34) appears in Luke." They reject both the Griesbach hypothesis and the theory that Matthew used Luke, concluding that Q is the source. The evidence is strong: Matt 6:24 and Luke 16:13 share twenty-seven of twenty-eight words in identical order — "this would seem to indicate a common, written source." And Luke's version contains none of Matthew's characteristic vocabulary ("heavenly Father," πρῶτον, δικαιοσύνη), proving Luke is not copying the compiler.

The compiler's editorial fingerprints are visible throughout. Davies and Allison identify Luke as more original for most of the vocabulary in this block:

The birds saying (16:11) uses the compiler's "birds of the heaven" (τὰ πετεινὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, ta peteina tou ouranou) where Q had "the ravens" (τοὺς κόρακας, tous korakas; so Luke 12:24). Davies and Allison argue that "the ravens" is from Q because the OT associates God's providence with feeding ravens (Job 38:41; Ps 147:9), while the compiler preferred "birds of the air" for "its liturgical or biblical ring" and "perhaps because the raven was considered unclean" (Lev 11:15; Deut 14:14). The UPDV retains the compiler's vocabulary here, though the substitution is not entirely neutral. Unlike the Spirit/finger case in chapter 15 — where Davies and Allison themselves declared the difference "really academic" because the OT equates the expressions — the ravens/birds change has a sharper theological edge. God feeding the unclean ravens (Job 38:41; Ps 147:9) carries a specific providential point that generic "birds" softens. The compiler's substitution serves his editorial program (liturgical diction, avoidance of unclean associations), not Q's original rhetoric. The UPDV keeps the compiler's form as a vocabulary substitution within the established tolerance, but this case sits closer to the boundary than Spirit/finger.

The "heavenly Father" references (16:11, 16:17) are editorial. Luke's simple ὁ θεός (ho theos, "God") "reproduces Q and shows that the Third Evangelist is not using the First Gospel." The compiler changed "God" to "your heavenly Father" — his favorite designation, which appears nowhere in Luke's version of these sayings.

The lilies saying (16:13) adds "of the field" (τοῦ ἀγροῦ, tou agrou), which Davies and Allison identify as a Matthean addition "to reinforce the parallel with 6:26 ('birds of the air')." Luke does not have it.

The "seek first" saying (16:18) is the most heavily edited verse. The compiler added πρῶτον (prōton, "first") — "the word is here emphatic, meaning 'above all else', not 'first in a series.'" He also added καὶ τὴν δικαιοσύνην αὐτοῦ (kai tēn dikaiosynēn autou, "and his righteousness"), which Davies and Allison identify as "a redactional addition which helps settle 6:25-34 firmly into the sermon on the mount." Luke's simpler form — "seek his kingdom" — is closer to Q. The UPDV retains the compiler's text here, including both additions, as his version of the Q saying. This creates a tension with the UPDV's practice elsewhere in this chapter: the compiler's "hypocrites" is reverted to Q's "unfaithful" (16:34) because it substitutes a different theological target, and the compiler's "weeping and gnashing" refrain is stripped as a redactional formula. The same logic would require reverting "and his righteousness" — a concept absent from Q that the compiler introduced to anchor the saying in his Sermon theology. The defense is that πρῶτον intensifies without distorting ("seek above all else" vs. "seek"), while "his righteousness" adds a genuinely new concept. A future revision should consider reverting to Luke's form.

Davies and Allison also identify 6:27 (= Luke 12:25-26), the cubit saying, as "on form-critical grounds, to be judged an insertion into Q." Removing it restores the compound parallelism of the original saying — ravens/lilies as a matched pair. The saying was "probably attracted by catchword" (μεριμνάω, merimnaō, "to be anxious"). The UPDV retains it at 16:12 as part of the received Q text.

The concluding verse — "Therefore don't be anxious for the next day: for the next day will be anxious for itself" (Matt 6:34) — is removed. It has no Lukan parallel and is "probably redactional." Davies and Allison trace both halves to "the well of common wisdom" and ultimately to "Egyptian proverbs."

Treasures in Heaven (16:19-21)

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on the earth, where moth consumes, and where thieves break through." The treasures saying (16:19-21) comes from canonical Matt 6:19-21, which is Q material paralleled at Luke 12:33-34.

The UPDV places this saying after the anxiety block, following Luke's order (12:22-31 anxiety, then 12:33-34 treasures). The compiler reversed this sequence, placing treasures first (6:19-21) then anxiety (6:25-33), because — as Davies and Allison explain — "the Matthean order [is] completely secondary and to be accounted for by Matthew's desire to bring together in his great sermon programmatic statements regarding earthly goods."

For this saying, the roles reverse: Davies and Allison argue that Matthew is more original than Luke. Luke 12:33 ("sell that which you have, and give alms; make for yourselves purses which do not wax old") is "a redactional reformulation in line with Luke's characteristic praise for the sharing of possessions and wealth." The evidence includes recognizably Lukan vocabulary throughout Luke 12:33, while Matthew's antithetical structure (don't lay up on earth / do lay up in heaven) shows no signs of redactional construction — the compiler "has not constructed any new antithetical parallelisms" in material taken from Mark, so 6:19 probably stood in Q.

The UPDV's text shows minor adjustments from the compiler's form. The UPDV drops "and rust" (καὶ βρῶσις, kai brōsis) from 6:19 and simplifies "break through and steal" to "break through" — following the pattern of Luke 12:33, which has only "moth destroys" and "thief draws near" without the paired terms. Davies and Allison note that if Luke preserves Q's vocabulary here, a Semitic assonance is recoverable in the Aramaic: קְרֵב (qereb, "draw near"), רוּקְבָא (ruqba', "moth"), רְקַב (reqab, "destroy"), רַקָּבָא (raqqaba', "worm"). The UPDV follows Luke's simpler vocabulary while retaining the compiler's antithetical structure — a characteristically mixed editorial decision.

The Waiting Servants (16:22-25)

"Let your⁺ loins be girded about, and your⁺ lamps burning; and be⁺ yourselves like men looking for their lord, when he will return from the marriage feast." The waiting servants (16:22-25) come from Luke 12:35-38 and have no parallel in the compiler's Gospel.

The source attribution of this passage is disputed. Grundmann and Kloppenborg assign it to L; Schneider considers it Lukan composition from Mark and Q fragments; Bovon attributes the core to L with possible Q elements. On the other hand, Creed and Manson assign it to Q, and Nolland argues it is "quite likely that a version of this parable was present in the source shared with Matthew." Marshall leaves the door open, noting that the compiler "has omitted it in favour of the parable of the virgins and the parable of the talents, and that it disappeared as part of his editorial work in uniting Marcan and Q material."

The parable's most striking feature is 16:24 — "truly I say to you⁺, that he will gird himself, and make them sit down to meat, and will come and serve them." Bovon calls this reversal — the master serving the servants — "so surprising" that it may be Lukan redaction based on Luke 22:27 ("I am among you as the one who serves"), though he allows that "the possibility that this saying was already present in Q cannot be ruled out." Whether from L or Q, the image is thematically continuous with the Rich Fool and anxiety sayings: the master who serves his watchful slaves is the counterpart to the God who feeds the ravens and clothes the lilies.

The UPDV includes this passage as part of Luke's sequence between Q blocks. Luke 12:33-34 (treasures, Q) precedes it; Luke 12:39-40 (the thief, Q) follows it. Like the Rich Fool, the waiting servants occupy the narrative space between Q discourse blocks and are retained for structural continuity.

The Thief in the Night (16:26-27)

"But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what watch the thief was coming, he would have watched, and would not have allowed his house to be broken through." The thief parable (16:26-27) comes from canonical Matt 24:43-44, which is Q material paralleled at Luke 12:39-40.

Davies and Allison demonstrate the written Q source conclusively: "Of thirty-four words in Lk 12:39-40, twenty-nine appear in identical form in Mt 24:43-4." The compiler placed this parable in his eschatological discourse (Matt 24), drawing it from the Lukan sequence (Luke 12) using a verbal hook between Mark 13:21 and Luke 17:23 as the entry point into Q's eschatological material. Davies and Allison map the precise compositional sequence: the compiler finished with Mark 13:1-32, turned to Q's "little apocalypse" for Matt 24:37-41, returned to Mark 13:35 for the redactional v. 42, then returned to Q for the thief (24:43-44) and the faithful slave (24:45-51).

The compiler's editorial changes are minor. He used the "more emphatic" ἐκεῖνος (ekeinos) where Q had τοῦτο (touto), and may have added "he would have watched" (ἐγρηγόρησεν ἄν, egrēgorēsen an) to strengthen the links to the surrounding watchfulness theme (cf. 24:42; 25:13). He also added διὰ τοῦτο (dia touto, "therefore") to introduce v. 44.

Davies and Allison judge that "the parable of the thief probably originated with Jesus, who may have referred to a recent theft (cf. 'had known') to warn his hearers of the unexpectedness with which the kingdom of God and its attendant divine judgement will fall." They note a crucial observation about the pre-Matthean parable cluster: Paul's use of "thief in the night," "drunk," and "watch" together in 1 Thessalonians 5:2-7 "strongly suggests that he already knew those three parables together" — the watching servants, the thief, and the faithful slave were already clustered before either evangelist wrote.

The Faithful and Unfaithful Slave (16:28-34)

"Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom his lord has set over his household, to give them their food in due season?" The faithful slave parable (16:28-34) comes from canonical Matt 24:45-51, which is Q material paralleled at Luke 12:42-46.

The written Q source is again demonstrable: "of one hundred and two words in Lk 12:42-6, eighty-three are precisely the same in Mt 24:45-51." The compiler's editorial changes are concentrated at the end of the parable.

The slave's misbehavior (16:32) follows the Lukan form rather than the compiler's. Luke 12:45 has "eat and drink and be drunk" (ἐσθίειν τε καὶ πίνειν καὶ μεθύσκεσθαι, esthiein te kai pinein kai methuskesthai); the compiler changed this to "eat and drink with the drunks" (μετὰ τῶν μεθυόντων, meta tōn methuontōn). Davies and Allison note that "most have presumed that Matthew preserves Q" here, but the compiler also added κακός (kakos, "evil") to describe the slave — "probably added" by the compiler, since it "is editorial in 21:41 and otherwise unattested in Q, which preferred πονηρός (ponēros)."

The parable's conclusion (16:34) is the most significant editorial decision. The compiler's text reads: "and will cut him apart, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites: there will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth" (24:51). The UPDV reverts "hypocrites" (ὑποκριτῶν, hypokritōn) to "unfaithful" (ἀπίστων, apistōn), following Luke 12:46. Davies and Allison confirm that Luke's ἄπιστον (apiston) is from Q — it pairs with the πιστός (pistos, "faithful") of v. 42. The compiler substituted his favorite "hypocrites" (a term he uses eighteen times) to equate the unfaithful slave with the Jewish leaders. The "weeping and gnashing of teeth" refrain is a "concluding redactional refrain" (cf. 25:30) that the compiler appended to multiple parables.

Davies and Allison observe that this parable contains "plain reference to the delay of the parousia" (cf. 25:5 and 19), but Matthew's concern is "with unpreparedness because of the delay in Jesus' coming, not with the delay itself." The Q form already contained the delay motif; the compiler inherited rather than created it.

The Days of Noah (16:35-39)

"For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man." The days of Noah (16:35-39) come from canonical Matt 24:37-41, which Davies and Allison identify as Q's "little apocalypse" — paralleled at Luke 17:26-30 and 17:34-35.

A methodological note is required. In Luke's Gospel, this material appears at 17:26-35 — five chapters after the watchfulness parables of Luke 12. The UPDV's placement here, immediately following the faithful slave parable (16:28-34), follows the compiler's clustering rather than Luke's dispersal. This is a departure from the UPDV's standard principle of following Lukan Q order, and it requires justification. The defense is twofold: first, Davies and Allison note that Paul's use of "thief in the night," "drunk," and "watch" together in 1 Thessalonians 5:2-7 "strongly suggests that he already knew those three parables together" — the watching servants, the thief, and the faithful slave were clustered before either evangelist wrote, suggesting Q itself may have had them as a unit. Second, the compiler drew the Noah material into Matt 24 using a verbal hook between Mark 13:21 and Luke 17:23, which implies he found these Q materials adjacent in his source. Luke may have dispersed what Q had together, rather than Q having them apart as Luke's order would suggest. But this is the same kind of editorial reasoning the UPDV strips from the compiler, and the reader should be aware that the placement is a judgment call.

The compiler's editorial changes are systematic. Davies and Allison identify the refrain "thus will be the parousia of the Son of man" (vv. 37, 39) as "redactional" — the compiler substituted his christological term παρουσία (parousia, "coming/advent") for Q's "days of the Son of man" (so Luke 17:26). He also replaced Q's καθὼς ἐγένετο (kathōs egeneto, "as it was") with his preferred ὥσπερ γάρ (hōsper gar, "for just as") and restructured the syntax into twin nominatives for increased parallelism.

The eating/drinking/marrying language (16:36) contains a Q hapax: τρώγω (trōgō, "munch," "eat audibly"), which Davies and Allison presume "from Q" since it appears nowhere else in the compiler's Gospel. But "the balanced και's and the participial forms are redactional, Luke's parataxis more original."

The compiler omitted Luke's parallel about Lot and Sodom (Luke 17:28-29), which Davies and Allison assign to Q. Their guesses for why: "a desire for brevity in an already lengthy discourse," or the compiler "may have deemed only the flood story — of universal scope — truly parallel to the parousia: the disaster at Sodom was local." The UPDV does not restore the Lot material because it appears in the UPDV's Luke text.

The "one taken, one left" sayings (16:38-39) are from Q. The compiler changed Luke's "bed" to "field" (16:38) — Davies and Allison speculate he "found the reference to 'this night' awkward" or that "the saying put him in mind of homosexuality, something he did not wish to countenance." They raise the possibility that Q originally had a triad of scenes — bed, field, and mill — which Matthew and Luke independently reduced to two, noting that Apocalypse of Zephaniah 2:1-4 "has a seemingly proverbial triad" matching all three.

On who is "taken" versus "left," Davies and Allison argue that the righteous are taken — to safety, not to judgment. Their four reasons: ἀφίημι (aphiēmi) often means "abandon/forsake" in the compiler's Gospel; παραλαμβάνω (paralambanō) means "take to safety" in 2:13-14, 20-21; the image of angels gathering saints to meet the Son of Man was common; and in the Noah comparison, those "taken" into the ark are saved.

The Journey to Jerusalem (16:40)

"And he went on his way through cities and villages, teaching, and journeying on to Jerusalem." The closing verse (16:40) comes from Luke 13:22, which is universally recognized as Lukan editorial composition — a travel notice that punctuates the central section of Luke's Gospel (cf. 9:51; 13:22; 17:11; 19:11, 28). Bovon calls it "an important christological, even soteriological, note" — not a source tradition but Luke's structural device.

The UPDV includes it as a chapter-closing pivot that marks the end of the discourse block and prepares for the next section of teaching. This is the most aggressive L inclusion in the chapter — not merely a Lukan tradition but acknowledged Lukan editorial composition, the very kind of structural device the UPDV strips from the compiler. The defense is purely functional: Q's discourse sequence requires chapter breaks, and Luke's travel notices provide the only available structural markers. But the reader should recognize that 16:40 is a Lukan editorial invention serving a UPDV structural need, not a recovered source text.

What the UPDV Removes from This Section

• Matt 6:22-23 (the eye as lamp): Q material (cf. Luke 11:34-36). Marked as context uncertain in the UPDV's Matthew reconstruction. The Lukan form is preserved in the UPDV's Luke text at its Lukan position.
• Matt 6:34 (tomorrow's troubles): Entirely redactional. No Lukan parallel. Davies and Allison trace both halves to "the well of common wisdom" drawn from "Egyptian proverbs."
• Matt 24:36 ("of that day and hour knows no one, not even the angels"): The Markan version (Mark 13:32) is preserved in the UPDV's Markan apocalyptic section. The compiler's duplicate is removed from this context.
• Matt 24:42 ("Watch therefore: for you don't know on what day your Lord comes"): Davies and Allison identify this as "Matthew's abbreviated version of Mk 13:35-6" — a redactional bridge the compiler created to link the days of Noah with the thief parable. Entirely editorial.
• Matt 24:49b — partially reverted: "with the drunks" (μετὰ τῶν μεθυόντων) replaced by Luke's "and to be drunk" (καὶ μεθύσκεσθαι), following Q.
• Matt 24:51b ("appoint his portion with the hypocrites: there will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth"): "Hypocrites" reverted to Q's "unfaithful" (ἄπιστος). The "weeping and gnashing" refrain is a redactional formula the compiler appended to multiple parables.

References

• Davies, W. D. and Dale C. Allison Jr. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. 3 vols. International Critical Commentary. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988–1997.
• Bovon, François. Luke. 3 vols. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002–2012.
• Marshall, I. Howard. The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978.
• Nolland, John. Luke. 3 vols. Word Biblical Commentary 35. Dallas: Word, 1989–1993.