But when you give alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand does:
All Commentaries on Matthew 6:3 Go To Matthew 6
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Here again His enigmatical meaning is not of the hands, but He has put the thing hyperbolically. As thus: If it can be, says He, for yourself not to know it, let this be the object of your endeavor; that, if it were possible, it may be concealed from the very hands that minister. It is not, as some say, that we should hide it from wrong-headed men, for He has here commanded that it should be concealed from all.
And then the reward too; consider how great it is. For after He had spoken of the punishment from the one, He points out also the honor derived from the other; from either side urging them, and leading them on to high lessons. Yea, for He is persuading them to know that God is everywhere present, and that not by our present life are our interests limited, but a yet more awful tribunal will receive us when we go hence, and the account of all our doings, and honors, and punishments: and that no one will be hid in doing anything either great or small, though he seem to be hid from men. For all this did He darkly signify, when He
