Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat.
Nor scrip for your journey - the wallet used by travelers for holding provisions --
Neither two coats, х chitoonas (G5509)] - or tunics, worn next the skin. The meaning is, Take no change of dress, no additional articles.
Neither shoes (that is, change of them) nor yet staves. The received text here has 'a staff' х rabdon (G4464)], but our version follows another reading х rabdous (G4464)], 'staves,' which is found in the received text of Luke (Luke 9:3). The true reading, however, evidently is 'a staff'-meaning, that they were not to procure even thus much expressly for this missionary journey, but to go with what they had. No doubt it was the misunderstanding of this that gave rise to the reading "staves" in so many MSS. Even if this reading were genuine, it could not mean 'more than one;' for who, as Alford well asks, would think of taking a spare staff?
For the workman is worthy of his meat, х trofees (G5160)] - his 'food' or 'maintenance;' a principle which, being universally recognized in secular affairs, is here authoratatively applied to the services of the Lord's workmen, and by Paul repeatedly and touchingly employed in his appeals to the churches (Romans 15:27; 1 Corinthians 9:11; Galatians 6:6), and once as "Scripture" (1 Timothy 5:18).