Matthew 5:15 - Exposition

Neither do men light a candle, etc. The same illustration comes in Luke 8:16 ( Mark 4:21 ), immediately after the parable of the sower, and again in Luke 11:33 , immediately after the reference to the repentance of the men of Nineveh at the preaching of Jonah. All four passages have too much verbal similarity to admit of any of them being absolutely independent. Mark 4:21 has the greatest number of peculiarities. The two passages in Luke agree very closely with each other, but of the two, Luke 11:33 most resembles Matthew. The close agreement here with the context seems to point to this being an original position of the utterance. Of the other two contexts Luke 11:33 , if we must choose, seems the more natural. Godet, however, says, "This passage has been placed in the sermon on the mount, like so many others, rather because of the association of ideas than from historical reminiscence" (similarly Weiss). Neither. The inherent position, so to speak, of Christ's disciples, as of a city set on a mountain, is not accidental. It answers to the purpose of their being disciples, as is explained further by the illustration of a lamp. A candle ; Revised Version, a lamp ( λύχνον ); i.e. the flat, saucer-like Eastern lamp, in which sometimes the wick merely floats on the oil A bushel … a candlestick ; Revised Version, the bushel … the stand ( τὸν μόδιον … τὴν λυχνίαν ) . Probably rightly, for if the article had been generic]. and put it under, a [literally, 'the'] pillow, or under a [literally, the] bolster [on the sabbath in order to take the chill off it]," W.H. Lowe, 'Fragment of Pesachim,' 1879, p. 95; cf. also Driver on 1 Samuel 19:13 ) it would have been found also before λύχνον . "The description applies to the common houses of the people. In each there was one principal room, in which they ate and slept; the lampstand, with its single light, the flour-bin, and the bed, with a few seats, were all its furniture". A bushel ( τὸν μόδιον ) . This is probably equivalent to the seah (so Peshito), which was "the ordinary measure for domestic purposes," and, as slated in the margins of the Authorized and the Revised Versions on Matthew 13:33 , held "nearly a peck and a half" dry measure. The Latin modius , here used to render scab , itself held nearly a peck. In Luke 8:16 the vaguer term δκεῦος is used. "Bushel" is retained in the Revised Version probably because it can be used of the vessel apart from all thought of measure; cf. "The Sense represents the Sun no bigger than a Bushel". But on a candlestick ; Revised Version, but on the stand ( ἐπὶ τὴν λυχνίαν ); Vulgate, from Old Latin, Neque accendunt lucernam et possunt cam sub modio sed super candelabrum. Candelabrum (cf. "chandelier") meant a stand for either candles or lamps; hence Wickliffe, translating from the Vulgate, could say, "Ne me[n] teendith not a lanterne a puttith it vndir a buyschel: but on a candilstik." We still use "candlestick" in the rarer sense when we speak of the seven-branched "candlestick" of the tabernacle, which was lighted by lamps, not candies (cf. Humphry, on Revised Version, in loc. ) . It giveth Light ; Revised Version, it shineth ( λάμπει ). The Rheims alone of the older English versions renders" shine," thus showing that the same Greek word is used as in the next verse. The Vulgate (followed by Wickliffe and Rheims) renders it in the subjunctive, ut lucent , possibly originally a copyist's error from the luceat of Luke 8:16 . If so, it was apparently made before the time of Tertullian ('De Prescript.,' § 26). The thought is stir primarily of the light itself being necessarily seen rather than of its benefiting others ( φωτίζω , Luke 11:36 ; cf. John 1:9 ). To all. For in a room none can help noticing it, even though the lamp and the light itself be but small. The negative of this verse is given in Pseudo-Cyprian, 'De Aleat.,' 3., "Monet dominus et dicit: nolite contris tare Spiritum Sanctum, qui in vobis est, et nolite exstinguere lumen, quod in vobis efful sit ".