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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - Luke 16:9 - 16:9
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Luk 16:9. Ποιήσατε-ἵνα ἵταν-δέξωνται, make-that when-they may be about to receive you) All these words are repeated from Luk 16:4 [ποιήσω-ἵνα ὅταν-δέξωνται].-φίλους, friends) Not merely are you to make single friends, each making one friend, but each should make more friends than one. See note on Luk 16:5. [A result which you will not truly be able to effect with gifts of mere pence or farthings.-V. g.] In this case, a thing which seldom happens, the debtor [the ‘friends’] loves the creditor [‘you’]. But, alas! what shall we say of the case of those, who not only are destitute of such friends, but who, by rapine and frauds, etc., make for themselves enemies, who sigh and cry to heaven against their oppressors.-ἐκ τοῦ μαμωνᾶ, out of [by means of] the mammon) not merely by the restoration of what has been [unjustly] taken away, but also by acts of beneficence, almsgiving, kindliness, indulgence, as Job did, Job 31:20.-ἵνα, that) Liberality alone is not sufficient: but yet this removes a great impediment in the way of entrance into the everlasting habitations [tabernacles].-ἐκλίπητε, ye shall have failed) viz. at death, when our stewardship is required of us [Ecc 9:10]. גרע LXX. render by ἐκλείπω, even in the case of the just. But in this passage He implies by the word, according to the force of the parable, such an ending of one’s office (as steward) and of one’s life, as would be wretched, if there were not friends already made, who should be ready to receive us.-δέξωνταί, they may be ready to receive) viz. the friends [may be ready to receive], either in this life, or in that which is to come.[173] The heirs of heavenly good things will say, The Father hath ordered that these good things should be ours (Luk 16:12, τὸ ὑμέτερον, “that which is your own”); we wish that these should belong to you also, seeing that ye have benefited us. The Divine judgment hath both many interceders for averting punishment, and many approvers of the sentence of condemnation passed (et deprecatores et subscriptores). See 1Co 6:2. [No doubt, it is not those only upon whom one may have conferred a benefit, that are indicated here, but all, without exception, who, before one dies, have already passed to everlasting habitations, or else who (though not having yet entered them) have their own appointed place there. For the cause of all these is a common cause. And benefits are laid out to the best account when bestowed on the sons and servants of GOD.-V. g.] If the friends had no part to play in this instance viz. in receiving their benefactors to everlasting habitations], what need would there be to make friends?-ΑἸΩΝΊΟΥς, everlasting) This is put in antithesis to the failure implied in ὅταν ἐκλίπητε.-ΣΚΗΝᾺς, tabernacles, or habitations) They are so called on account of their security, pleasantness, and the convenience of dwelling together, as it were, in one common mansion. There is not added their own [viz. habitations], as in Luk 16:4 [τοὺς οἴκους αὐτῶν], their own houses, because the σκηναὶ, habitations, belong to God.
[173] Some of the friends you have made may be still in this life when your stewardship shall come to its close, others may be in the world above. Both alike shall wish your eternal salvation.-E. and T.