Topic
Single, Eye
5 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- Matthew 6:22ISBE
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
- Matthew 20:15ISBE
Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?
- Mark 7:22ISBE
Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:
- Luke 11:34ISBE
The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.
- Luke 11:36ISBE
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.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 5 references
sin'-g'-l : Mt 6:22 f parallel Lu 11:34: "If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness." "Single" and "evil" here represent haplouis, and poneros. Poneros elsewhere in the New Testament means "wicked"; haplous occurs only here in the New Testament, but is very common in ordinary Greek and always has the meaning "simple." But in view of the context, most commentators take haplous here as meaning "normal," "healthy," and poneros as "diseased," so rendering "Just as physical enlightenment depends on the condition of the eye, so does spiritual enlightenment depend on the condition of the heart." This is natural enough, but it is not satisfactory, as it gives to haplous a unique sense and to poneros a sense unique in the 73 New Testament examples of the word. Moreover, the same expression, "evil eye," is found also in Mt 20:15; Mr 7:22, where it means "jealousy" or "covetousness." With poneros = "covetous" haplous would = "generous"; and this rendition gives excellent sense in Matthew, where the further context deals with love of money. Yet in Luke it is meaningless, where the context is of a different sort, a fact perhaps indicating that Luke has placed the saying in a bad context. Or the Greek translation of Christ's words used by Matthew and Luke may have taken the moral terms haplous and poneros to translate physical terms ("healthy" and "diseased"?) employed in the original Aramaic. The Sinaitic Syriac version of Lu 11:36 may perhaps contain a trace of an older rendering. See Julicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, II, 98-108.
Burton Scott Easton
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.