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Do You Have a Good Eye!

 

Among the people that followed Jesus in the first century, “have a good-eye” was probably a regular greeting that they heard every day. What does “good eye” mean? It is also found the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 6:22-23. This saying begins with a statement, followed by two parallelisms, to make the points he wanted to make.

 

The lamp of the body is the eye.

 

If therefore you have a good eye,

your whole body will be full of light.

 

But if you have an evil eye,

your whole body will be full of darkness.

 

The underlined terms -- good eye and evil eye -- are Hebrew idioms.

 

● The words in an idiom cannot be understood by using their literal meanings. This easily seen in this English idiom -- “he really put his foot in his mouth.” We know he did not literally put his foot in his mouth, but a non-English speaker might think he did.

 

● Since these are Hebrew idioms, it indicates that Jesus and his audience were Hebrew speakers.

 

In order to discover what the Hebrew idioms mean, we look for verses in the Hebrew texts of Jewish Scriptures in which they appear. “Good eye” appears in Proverbs 22:9.

 

He who has a good eye will be blessed,
For he gives of his bread to the poor.

 

A good model for working with parallelisms is to make the first line in the parallelism a question and answer it with the second line.

 

● Question: Who is the person with a “good eye?” 

 

● Answer: It is the one who “gives his bread to the poor.”

 

In the verse from Proverbs, “good eye” describes “a generous person that helps the poor.”

 

We find “evil eye” in Deuteronomy 15:9.

 

“The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand;

and you have an evil eye against your poor brother,

and you give him nothing . . . .”

 

I will use the model above to unlock the meaning again.

 

● Question: Who is the person with an “evil eye?” 

 

● Answer: He is the one who “does not give his poor brother anything.”

 

In this verse, “evil eye” describes “a greedy stingy person that does not give to the poor.”

 

Now let’s update the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:22-23:

 

The lamp of the body is the eye.

 

If you are a generous person that gives food to the poor,

your whole body will be full of light.

 

But if you are a greedy stingy person that does not give anything to the poor,

your whole body will be full of darkness.

 

In my previous email I discussed key points found throughout the teachings of Jesus – two are guarding justice and rescuing members of the community.

 

● People with a good eye did acts that guarded justice by rescuing members of the community.

 

● People with a good eye caused the light of life to break forth through their actions.

 

Jesus will use this to make different points to two different groups he addressed. I will discuss those points in my next two emails. Thank you for exploring biblical heritages with me. Please share and discuss it with others.

 

Shalom,

Jim Myers

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