Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Luke 16:9

ἐγὼ : the use of the emphatic pronoun seems to involve that here begins the comment of Jesus on the parable, Luke 16:8 being spoken by the master and a part of the parable. But J. Weiss (in Meyer) views this verse as a second application put into the mouth of Jesus, but not spoken by Him, having for its author the compiler from whom Lk. borrowed (Feine's Vork. Lukas). He finds in Luke 16:8-13 three distinct applications, one by Jesus, Luke 16:8; one by the compiler of precanonical Lk., Luke 16:9; and one by Lk. himself, Luke 16:10-13. This analysis is plausible, and tempting as superseding the difficult problem of finding a connection between these sentences, viewed as the utterance of one Speaker, the Author of the parable. Luke 16:9 explicitly states what Luke 16:8 implies, that the prudence is to be shown in the way of making friends. φίλους : the friends are not named, but the next parable throws light on that point. They are the poor, the Lazaruses whom Dives did not make friends of to his loss. The counsel is to use wealth in doing kindness to the poor, and the implied doctrine that doing so will be to our eternal benefit. Both counsel and doctrine are held to apply even when wealth has been ill-gotten. Friends of value for the eternal world can be gained even by the mammon of unrighteousness. The more ill-gotten the more need to be redeemed by beneficent use; only care must be taken not to continue to get money by unrighteousness in order to have wherewith to do charitable deeds, a not uncommon form of counterfeit philanthropy, which will not count in the Kingdom of Heaven. The name for wealth here is very repulsive, seeming almost to imply that wealth per se is evil, though that Jesus did not teach. ἐκλίπῃ, when it (wealth) fails, as it must at death. The other reading, ἐκλίπητε (T.R.), means “when ye die,” so used in Genesis 25:8. αἰωνίους σκηνάς, eternal tents, a poetic paradox = Paradise, the poor ye treated kindly there to welcome you! Believing it to be impossible that Jesus could give advice practically suggesting the doing of evil that good might come, Bornemann conjectures that an οὐ has fallen out before ποιήσετε (fut.), giving as the real counsel: do not make, etc.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Luke 16:9

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