Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Matthew 6:23

Matthew 6:23. If thine eye be evil. This means, according to the contrast, ‘double' distorted in vision.

Full of darkness, or, ‘in darkness' (The word is not the same as that in the next clause, but derived from it.) The evil result of a divided state of heart, where what God designed to be the means of showing Himself to us as the supreme object of love, fails to perform its office. The rest of the clause carries out the same thought.

If therefore, since so much depends on the singleness of vision, the light that if in thee, what God has placed in us to be the means of conveying light, referring it to the conscience. Man can lose the proper use of what God designed to be the organ of spiritual light, even this may be darkness. In such a case, how great is that darkness. A fearful picture of a confirmed sinful condition; and it is implied that a heart without single and supreme dedication reaches such a condition. Another view: ‘If then the light which is in thee is darkness, how dark must the darkness be!' i.e., ‘if the conscience, the eye and light of the soul, be darkened, In how much grosser darkness will all the passions and faculties be, which are of themselves naturally dark! ‘No blindness is so terrible as blindness of conscience, when what was made to enlighten us but increases our darkness.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Matthew 6:23

Old Testament

New Testament