This also reflects the Palestinian situation in which a person normally lived in a town or village from which he would walk the distance to his field. The reader is warned not to take time to go back to town to get his belongings, but rather to run for safety immediately. Barclay expresses this quite well: “Anyone who is at work in the field must not turn back to pick up his coat.”

Mantle is first used in 5.40, where Revised Standard Version translates “cloak.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .