Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [Matthew: Chapter 6].
imperative). See on ¯Mt 2:11 for the word "treasure." Here there
is a play on the word, "treasure not for yourselves treasures."
Same play in verse 20 with the cognate accusative. In both
verses \humin\ is dative of personal interest and is not
reflexive, but the ordinary personal pronoun. Wycliff has it: "Do
not treasure to you treasures."
{Break through} (\diorussousin\). Literally "dig through." Easy
to do through the mud walls or sun-dried bricks. Today they can
pierce steel safes that are no longer safe even if a foot thick.
The Greeks called a burglar a "mud-digger" (\toichoruchos\).
6:20 {Rust} (\br•sis\). Something that "eats" (\bibr•sk•\) or
"gnaws" or "corrodes."
6:22 {Single} (\haplous\). Used of a marriage contract when the
husband is to repay the dowry "pure and simple" (\t•n phern•n
hapl•n\), if she is set free; but in case he does not do so
promptly, he is to add interest also (Moulton and Milligan's
_Vocabulary_, etc.). There are various other instances of such
usage. Here and in Lu 11:34 the eye is called "single" in a
moral sense. The word means "without folds" like a piece of cloth
unfolded, _simplex_ in Latin. Bruce considers this parable of the
eye difficult. "The figure and the ethical meaning seem to be
mixed up, moral attributes ascribed to the physical eye which
with them still gives light to the body. This confusion may be
due to the fact that the eye, besides being the organ of vision,
is the seat of expression, revealing inward dispositions." The
"evil" eye (\pon•ros\) may be diseased and is used of stinginess
in the LXX and so \haplous\ may refer to liberality as Hatch
argues (_Essays in Biblical Greek_, p. 80). The passage may be
elliptical with something to be supplied. If our eyes are healthy
we see clearly and with a single focus (without astigmatism). If
the eyes are diseased (bad, evil), they may even be cross-eyed or
cock-eyed. We see double and confuse our vision. We keep one eye
on the hoarded treasures of earth and roll the other proudly up
to heaven. Seeing double is double-mindedness as is shown in
verse 24.
6:24 {No man can serve two masters} (\oudeis dunatai dusi kuriois
douleuein\). Many try it, but failure awaits them all. Men even
try "to be slaves to God and mammon" (\The•i douleuein kai
mam•n•i\). Mammon is a Chaldee, Syriac, and Punic word like
_Plutus_ for the money-god (or devil). The slave of mammon will
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