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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Luke 16:8 - 16:8
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The lord
Of the steward. Rev., properly, “his lord.”
Commended
Admiring his shrewdness, though he himself was defrauded.
Unjust steward
Lit., steward of injustice. See on forgetful hearer, Jam 1:25; and compare words of grace, Luk 4:22; unjust judge, Luk 18:6; son of his love, Col 1:13; lust of uncleanness, 2Pe 2:10. The idiom is a Hebrew one. The phrase expresses Jesus' judgment on what the steward's master praised.
Wisely (φρονίμως)
See on Mat 10:16. Wyc., prudently. I would suggest shrewdly, though in the modern sense of sagaciously, since the earlier sense of shrewd was malicious, or wicked. Plato says: “All knowledge separated from righteousness and other virtue appears to be cunning and not wisdom.” In Mat 7:24-26, it is applied to the sagacious man who built his house on the rock, opposed to the foolish (μωρός) man who built on the sand. “It is a middle term, not bringing out prominently the moral characteristics, either good or evil, of the action to which it is applied, but recognizing in it a skilful adaptation of the means to the end - affirming nothing in the way of moral approbation or disapprobation, either of means or end, but leaving their worth to be determined by other considerations” (Trench, “Parables”).
In their generation (εἰς τὴν γενεὰν τὴν ἑαυτῶν)
The A. V. misses the point, following Wyc. Lit., in reference to their own generation; i.e., the body of the children of this world to which they belong, and are kindred. They are shrewd in dealing with their own kind; since, as is shown in the parable, where the debtors were accomplices of the steward they are all alike unscrupulous. Tynd., in their kind.
Than the children of light
Lit., sons of the light. The men of the world make their intercourse with one another more profitable than the sons of light do their intercourse with their own kind. The latter “forget to use God's goods to form bonds of love to the contemporaries who share their character” (Godet); forget to “make friends of the mammon,” etc.