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The particular concern of this steward is "rightly to divide" the portion allotted to
each of the household. This is expressed in two ways, (1) "to give their portion of
meat"; (2) "in due season". Sitometrion is a compound of sitos "corn" and metron
"measure". Theophrastus, a disciple of Plato, when describing "a mean, sordid" persons,
says "he will himself measure out the usual allowance to his domestics". The custom
was observed also among the Hebrews. Where the A.V. reads "feed me with food
convenient for me" (Prov. 30: 8), the margin reads, "Heb. of my allowance". The only
occurrences of sitometreo in the LXX are in Gen. 47: 12, 14:
"And Joseph nourished (sitometreo) his father, and his brethren, and all his father's
household, with bread, according to their families."
In verse 14, the LXX reads:
"And Joseph gathered all the money that was found in the land of Egypt, and the land
of Canaan, in return for the corn which they bought, and he distributed corn (sitometreo)
to them."
Here it will be observed, Joseph is acting as an oikonomos, a steward, and he
dispenses the food not only in amount but in quality, according as it would be appropriate
for Jacob himself, for his brethren and for the household, siton kata soma, literally
"corn according to body" or "corn suited to each person". In this we have an early
illustration of "dispensational truth" which takes into account the different ranks, and
spheres of blessing, and also sees to it that babes have milk and adults have a full diet.
Paul as a steward of the mysteries of God most carefully observed this essential rule, as
may be seen in his reference to "babes and full grown" in I Cor. 3: 2, Heb. 5: 11-14,
Eph. 4: 14. In the fourteenth verse of the forty-seventh chapter of Genesis we see
Joseph as a faithful steward, faithfully and honestly distributing the corn in exchange for
the money taken for that purpose, and our mind immediately travels down the age to the
unfaithful steward who said to his Lord's debtors "How much owest thou? . . . . . write
down fifty" or "four score".
This parable gives us the first occurrence of the Greek words oikonomia and
oikonomos, which are found together in Luke xvi:
"There was a certain rich man, which had a steward (oikonomos); and the same was
accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him, How is it that I hear
this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship (oikonomia); for thou mayest be no
longer steward. Then the steward said within himself . . . . .my Lord taketh away from
me my stewardship . . . . . when I am put out of the stewardship . . . . ." (Luke 16: 1-4).
Here we have three occurrences of oikonomos "steward" and three of oikonomia
"stewardship". The duties of this steward are manifest. He occupied a position of trust.
He shared that position with no one else. He had control of the goods of his master, and
could, if he were dishonest, alter the terms of contract between his lord and his lord's
debtors. The charge laid against this steward is that he had "wasted" his master's goods.
Diaskorpizo means to scatter (Luke 1: 51), and one of the other meanings given in the
Lexicons is "to DISPERSE", the very opposite of "to DISPENSE", for this is to