But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
Parallel Translations
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But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
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But and if thyne eye be wycked then all thy body shalbe full of derckenes. Wherfore yf the light that is in the be darckenes: how greate is that darckenes.
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But if thine eye be wicked, then all thy body shalbe darke. Wherefore if the light that is in thee, be darkenes, howe great is that darkenesse?
Cross-references (21)
Passages linked to Matthew 6:23 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Matthew 6:22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light.
- 1 John 2:11 But he who hates his brother is in the darkness, and walks in the darkness, and doesn’t know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
- Isaiah 5:20-21 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
- Proverbs 26:12 Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.
- Jeremiah 4:22 “For my people are foolish. They don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but they don’t know how to do good.”
- 1 Corinthians 3:18-19 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone thinks that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool, that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He has taken the wise in their craftiness.”
- 1 Corinthians 1:18-20 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. I will bring the discernment of the discerning to nothing.” Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the lawyer of this world? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
- Isaiah 44:18-20 They don’t know, neither do they consider: for he has shut their eyes, that they can’t see; and their hearts, that they can’t understand. No one thinks, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, “I have burned part of it in the fire. Yes, I have also baked bread on its coals. I have roasted meat and eaten it. Shall I make the rest of it into an abomination? Shall I bow down to a tree trunk?” He feeds on ashes. A deceived heart has turned him aside; and he can’t deliver his soul, nor say, “Isn’t there a lie in my right hand?”
- Romans 2:17-23 Indeed you bear the name of a Jew, rest on the law, glory in God, know his will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babies, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth. You therefore who teach another, don’t you teach yourself? You who preach that a man shouldn’t steal, do you steal? You who say a man shouldn’t commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who glory in the law, do you dishonor God by disobeying the law?
- 1 Corinthians 2:14 Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
- Ephesians 4:18 being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their hearts.
- Luke 8:10 He said, “To you it is given to know the mysteries of God’s Kingdom, but to the rest in parables; that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’
- Romans 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
- Ephesians 5:8 For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light,
- Isaiah 8:20 Turn to the law and to the covenant! If they don’t speak according to this word, surely there is no morning for them.
- Matthew 20:15 Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’
- Revelation 3:17-18 Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing;’ and don’t know that you are the wretched one, miserable, poor, blind, and naked; I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.
- Jeremiah 8:8-9 “ ‘How do you say, “We are wise, and Yahweh’s law is with us?” But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has made that a lie. The wise men are disappointed. They are dismayed and trapped. Behold, they have rejected Yahweh’s word. What kind of wisdom is in them?
- Matthew 23:16-28 “Woe to you, you blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obligated.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifies the gold? ‘Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obligated?’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifies the gift? He therefore who swears by the altar, swears by it, and by everything on it. He who swears by the temple, swears by it, and by him who has been living in it. He who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God, and by him who sits on it. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel! “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and unrighteousness. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the platter, that its outside may become clean also. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitened tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
- John 9:39-41 Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, that those who don’t see may see; and that those who see may become blind.” Those of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.
- Mark 7:22 covetings, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (6 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole…
23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
Ver. 23. But if thine eye be evil, &c. If the light that is in thee be darkness, &c.] An evil eye is here opposed to a single eye, that looks on God singly abstracted from all other things, and affects the heart with pure love to him for himself, more than for his love tokens. These we may lawfully have, but they may not have us. "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," 1Jn 2:16, that is, pleasure, profit, and preferment, -these three, like those three troops of the Chaldeans, Job 1:17, fall upon the faculties of the soul, and carry them away from God the right owner. The mind is filled with greater darkness than can be expressed. How great is that darkness! "The prince that lacketh understanding is a great oppressor: but he that hateth covetousness," that hath not his eyes bleared and blinded with the dust of earthly mindedness,"shall prolong his days," Pro 28:16; "His watchmen are blind:" and why? "they are greedy dogs, which can never have enough, and they are shepherds which cannot understand; they all look to their own way, every one for his gain from his quarter," Isa 56:10-11. {a} Of this sort were those covetous Pharisees, that devoured widows’ houses; therefore blind, because covetous, Luk 16:14; Luk 20:47, the property of which sin is to besot and infatuate, as it did Judas, who, though he wanted for nothing in our Saviour’s retinue, but was sufficiently provided for, yet for filthy lucre basely sold his Master, and that for thirty silverlings (the known and pitched price of the vilest slave), and had the face, after all, to ask, "Master, is it I?" when he knew Christ to be the true God, and to know all things. Blazing comets (though but comets) as long as they keep aloft, shine bright, but when they decline from their pitch, they fall to the earth. So, when men forsake the Lord and mind earthly things, they lose that light they had, and are dissipated, destroyed, and come to nothing. Good, therefore, is the counsel of Solomon, "Labour not to be rich: wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?" Or as Mercerus otherwise reads that text, "Wilt thou darken thine eyes upon them?" {b} As those that walk long in the snow, or that sit in a smoky corner, can see little at length. "Whoredom and wine take away the heart," saith Hosea, {Hos 4:11} as they did Solomen’s; they drew out his spirits, and dissolved his reason; so doth covetousness. It makes a man that he cannot see the net that is spread before him, which every bird can do, Pro 1:17: {c} but while he coveteth the bait, loseth his life, as Shimei did by looking for his servants; as Lot, who had like to have run the same hazard, by choosing the plain of Jordan; as Jonas, that suffered himself to be cast into the sea, that the ship with her lading might come safe to shore. How many carnal minds, like Noah’s raven, fly out of the ark of God’s Church, and embrace this present world: and like the mariners, when they found out Jonas, yet fain they would have saved him. So many will rather venture their own casting away, than cast their worldly lusts overboard. How much better Joseph, who let go his garment to save himself, as Elijah did his mantle to go to heaven, and Bartimeus his cloak to come to Christ! How much better Moses, who by faith seeing him that is invisible, and having an eye to the reward, when he was come to years, as the text noteth, and therefore well knew what he did, for he was no baby, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter and the world’s darling; and choosing rather the afflictions of God’s poor people than the pleasures of sin for a season, he esteemed the reproach of Christ (the worst part of him) greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. And why all this? "for he had respect to the recompence of reward," Heb 11:24-26. He set his foot, as it were, upon the battlements of heaven, and there hence looked upon these earthly happinesses as base and abject, slight and slender, waterish and worthless. The great cities of Campania seem but small cottages to them that stand on the top of the Alps: {d} the moon covereth herself with a pale veil and shines not at all in the presence of the sun: no more doth the beauty and bravery of the world (wherewith carnal minds are so bedazzled and bewitched) to a man that hath been in Paradise with Paul, that hath already laid hold on eternal life. The moles of the earth, that are blind and cannot see far off, that have animam triticiam, a wheaten soul, with that fool in the Gospel, and know no other happiness than to have and to hold; these have their eyes blinded by the god of this world, as Isaac had his wells stopped up with earth by the Philistines. And as a small dish being held near the eyes hideth from our sight a great mountain; and a little hill or cloud, the great body of the sun, though it be far bigger than the whole earth; so these earthly trifles being placed near men’s sight, do so shadow and cloud out those great and glorious excellencies that are above, that they can neither truly behold them, nor rightly judge of them. {e} When men travel so far into the south that the sight of the north pole is at length intercepted by the earth, it is a sign they are far from it: so is it, that men are far from heaven when the love of the earth comes in between their souls and the sight thereof. Earth damps quench the spirit’s lamp. Much water of affliction cannot quench that love, that yet a little earth may soon do.
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{a} Avidus a non videndo dicitur; et Midas secundum Etymologiam Graecam caecus est.
{b} Pro 23:4-5. Num facies obtenebrescere oculos tuos in eas? Job 11:17; Amo 4:13.
{c} Aves quae vident rete suspensum non capiuntur, sed videntes periculum cavent. Bayn.
{d} Postquam in montium verticem ascenderimus parva nobis et urbes et moenia etiam videntur: sit parva videbuntur otium gloria divitiae cum coelum respicias.
{e} 2Pe 1:9, μυωπαζοντες. Muris oculos habentes, subterranei scilicet muris, hoc est, talpae. Gen 26:15. The poets feigned Plutus, the god of riches, to be blind. Divites facultatibus suis alligati magis aurum suspiciunt, quam coelum. Minut. Octan.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain No man can serve two masters,.... Whose orders are…
No man can serve two masters,.... Whose orders are directly contrary to one another: otherwise, if they were the same, or agreed, both might be served; but this is rarely the case, and seldom done. This is a proverbial expression, and is elsewhere used by Christ, Luk 16:13. The Jews have sayings pretty much like it, and of the same sense as when they say (w),
"we have not found that , "any man is fit for two tables."''
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And again (x),
"that it is not proper for one man to have two governments:''
their meaning is, that two things cannot be done together:
for, either he will hate the one, and love the other; he will have less affection and regard to the one, than to the other; as the service or orders of the one, are less agreeable to him than the others;
or else he will hold to the one; hearken to his commands, obey his orders, and abide in his service;
and despise the other; show disrespect to his person, neglect his orders, and desert his service:
ye cannot serve God and mammon. The word "mammon" is a Syriac word, and signifies money, wealth, riches, substance, and everything that comes under the name of worldly goods. Jerom says, that riches, in the Syriac language, are called "mammon"; and so the word is often used in the above senses, in the Chaldee paraphrases (y), and in the Talmudic writings; where (z) , "pecuniary judgments", or causes relating to money affairs, in which were pecuniary mulcts, are opposed to , "judgment of souls", or causes relating to life and death. The account and interpretation Irenaeus (a) gives of the word, is very wide and foreign; who says, that
"Mammon, according to the Jewish way of speaking, which the Samaritans used, is one that is greedy, and would have more than he ought; but, according to the Hebrew language, it is called adjectively Mam, and signifies one that is gluttonous; that is, who cannot refrain himself from gluttony.''
Whereas it is not an Hebrew word, nor an adjective, but a substantive, and signifies riches; which are opposed to God, being by some men loved, admired, trusted in, and worshipped, as if they were God; and which is incompatible with the service of the true God: for such persons, whose hearts go after their covetousness, and are set upon earthly riches, who give up themselves to them, are eagerly and anxiously pursuing after them, and place their confidence in them; whatever pretensions they may make to the service of God, as did the Scribes and Pharisees, who are particularly struck at by this expression, both here and elsewhere, they cannot truly and heartily serve the Lord. "Mammon" is the god they serve; which word may well be thought to answer to Pluto, the god of riches, among the Heathens. The Jews, in Christ's time, were notorious for the love of "mammon"; and they themselves own, that this was the cause of the destruction of the second temple: the character they give of those, who lived under the second temple, is this:
"we know that they laboured in the law, and took care of the commandments, and of the tithes, and that their whole conversation was good; only that they , "loved the mammon", and hated one another without a cause (b).''
(w) Praefat. Celi Jaker, fol. 3. 1. (x) Piske Tosephot Cetubot, art. 359. (y) Vid. Targum Onkelos & Jon. in Gen. xiii. 13. & in Jud. v. 19. & in Prov. iii. 9. & in Isa. xlv. 13. & passim. (z) Misn. Sanhed. c. 1. sect. 1. & c. 4. sect. 1. (a) Adv. Haeres. l. 3. c. 8. p. 249. (b) T. Hieros. Yoma, fol. 38. 3.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain But if thine eye be evil--distempered, or, as we…
But if thine eye be evil--distempered, or, as we should say, If we have got a bad eye.
thy whole body shall be full of darkness--darkened. As a vitiated eye, or an eye that looks not straight and full at its object, sees nothing as it is, so a mind and heart divided between heaven and earth is all dark.
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If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!--As the conscience is the regulative faculty, and a man's inward purpose, scope, aim in life, determines his character--if these be not simple and heavenward, but distorted and double, what must all the other faculties and principles of our nature be which take their direction and character from these, and what must the whole man and the whole life be but a mass of darkness? In Luke (Luk 11:36) the converse of this statement very strikingly expresses what pure, beautiful, broad perceptions the clarity of the inward eye imparts: "If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light." But now for the application of this.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 23. If thine eye be evil — If the…
23. If thine eye be evil — If the eye is evil by corrupting disease or foreign substance. Darkness — Of course a blind eye makes a dark body and soul. And morally, where the spiritual eye is disturbed and blinded by unholy motives and worldly self-interest, the soul is filled with darkness.
But the Jews were often inclined to struggle against this heathen world-worship; and so a rivalry and a compromise arose in their hearts between the world-god and the true God. Our Lord now meets this case.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 23. the light that is in thee] Here the…
23. the light that is in thee] Here the Greek word is correctly rendered “light.” If the light admitted to the body be distorted and obscured by the diseased medium, how great will be the darkness!
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (23) If thine eye be evil.—If the spiritual faculty,…
(23) If thine eye be evil.—If the spiritual faculty, whose proper work it is to give light, be itself diseased—if it discerns not singly but doubly, and therefore dimly—then the whole life also is shrouded in gloom. If that is the case with the higher life, what will be the state of the lower! If the light is darkened, what will be the state of the region of life which is in itself naturally dark—the region of appetites and passions, which needs the presence of the light to keep them at all in check! “If the light that is in thee be darkness, the darkness how great will it be!”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.