Lukas 11:34

11:34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, ¹  your whole body is full of light, but when it is diseased, ²  your body is full of darkness.

Lukas 16:8

16:8 The ³  master commended the dishonest ⁴  manager because he acted shrewdly. ⁵  For the people ⁶  of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their contemporaries ⁷  than the people ⁸  of light.

[11:34]  ¹ tn Or “sound” (so L&N 23.132 and most scholars). A few scholars take this word to mean something like “generous” here (L&N 57.107), partly due to the immediate context of this saying in Matt 6:22 which concerns money, in which case the “eye” is a metonymy for the entire person (“if you are generous”).

[11:34]  ² tn Or “when it is sick” (L&N 23.149).

[11:34]  sn There may be a slight wordplay here, as this term can also mean “evil,” so the figure uses a term that points to the real meaning of being careful as to what one pays attention to or looks at.

[16:8]  ³ tn Grk “And the.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[16:8]  ⁴ sn Is the manager dishonest because of what he just did? Or is it a reference to what he had done earlier, described in v. 1? This is a difficult question, but it seems unlikely that the master, having fired the man for prior dishonesty, would now commend those same actions. It would also be unusual for Jesus to make that point of the story the example. Thus it is more likely the reference to dishonesty goes back to the earliest events, while the commendation is for the cleverness of the former manager reflected in vv. 5-7.

[16:8]  ⁵ sn Where this parable ends is debated: Does it conclude with v. 7, after v. 8a, after v. 8b, or after v. 9? Verse 8a looks as if it is still part of the story, with its clear reference to the manager, while 8b looks like Jesus’ application, since its remarks are more general. So it is most likely the parable stops after v. 8a.

[16:8]  ⁶ tn Grk “sons” (an idiom).

[16:8]  ⁷ tn Grk “with their own generation.”

[16:8]  ⁸ tn Grk “sons.” Here the phrase “sons of light” is a reference to the righteous. The point is that those of the world often think ahead about consequences better than the righteous do.