I say unto you - I, Jesus, say to you, my disciples.

Make to yourselves friends - Some have understood the word "friends," here, as referring to the poor; others, to holy angels; and others, to God. Perhaps, however, the word should not be considered as referring to any particular "persons," but is used in accordance with the preceding parable; for in the application our Saviour uses the "language" appropriated to the conduct of the steward to express the "general" truth that we are to make a proper use of riches. The steward had so managed his pecuniary affairs as to secure future comfort for himself, or so as to find friends that would take care of him "beyond" the time when he was put out of the office. That is, he would not be destitute, or cast off, or without comfort, when he was removed from his office. So, says our Saviour to the publicans and those who had property, so use your property as "to secure" happiness and comfort beyond the time when you shall be removed from the present life. "Have reference," in the use of your money, to the future.

Do not use it so that it shall not avail you anything hereafter; but so employ it that, as the steward found friends, comfort, and a home by "his" wisdom in the use of it, so "you" may, after you are removed to another world, find friends, comfort, and a home - that is, may be happy in heaven. Jesus, here, does not say that we should do it "in the same way" that the steward did, for that was unjust; but only that we should "secure the result." This may be done by using our riches as we "should do;" that is, by not suffering them to entangle us in cares and perplexities dangerous to the soul, engrossing the time, and stealing away the affections; by employing them in works of mercy and benevolence, aiding the poor, contributing to the advance of the gospel, bestowing them where they will do good, and in such a manner that God will "approve" the deed, and will bless us for it. Commonly riches are a "hindrance" to piety. To many they are snares; and, instead of positively "benefiting" the possessor, they are an injury, as they engross the time and the affections, and do not contribute at all to the eternal welfare of the soul. Everything may, by a proper use, be made to contribute to our welfare in heaven. Health, wealth, talents, and influence may be so employed; and this is what our Saviour doubtless means here.

Of the mammon - "By means" of the mammon.

Mammon - A Syriac word meaning riches. It is used, also, as an idol the god of riches.

Of unrighteousness - These words are an Hebrew expression for "unrighteous mammon," the noun being used for an adjective, as is common in the New Testament. The word "unrighteous," here, stands opposed to "the true riches" in Luke 16:11, and means "deceitful, false, not to be trusted." It has this meaning often. See 1 Timothy 6:17; Luke 12:33; Matthew 6:19; Matthew 19:21. It does not signify, therefore, that they had acquired the property "unjustly," but that property was "deceitful" and not to be trusted. The wealth of the steward was deceitful; he could not rely on its continuance; it was liable to be taken away at any moment. So the wealth of the world is deceitful. We cannot "calculate" on its continuance. It may give us support or comfort now, but it may be soon removed, or we taken from "it," and we should, therefore, so use it as to derive benefit from it hereafter.

When ye fail - When ye "are left," or when ye "die." The expression is derived from the parable as referring to the "discharge" of the steward; but it refers to "death," as if God then "discharged" his people, or took them from their stewardship and called them to account.

They may receive you - This is a form of expression denoting merely "that you may be received." The plural form is used because it was used in the corresponding place in the parable, Luke 16:4. The direction is, so to use our worldly goods that "we may be received" into heaven when we die. "God" will receive us there, and we are to employ our property so that he will not cast us off for abusing it.

Everlasting habitations - Heaven, the eternal "home" of the righteous, where all our wants will be supplied, and where there can be no more anxiety, and no more removal from enjoyments, 2 Corinthians 5:1.

The mammon of unrighteousness - Μαμωνα της αδικιας - literally, the mammon, or riches, of injustice. Riches promise Much, and perform Nothing: they excite hope and confidence, and deceive both: in making a man depend on them for happiness, they rob him of the salvation of God and of eternal glory. For these reasons, they are represented as unjust and deceitful. See the note on Matthew 6:24, where this is more particularly explained. It is evident that this must be the meaning of the words, because the false or deceitful riches, here, are put in opposition to the true riches, Luke 16:11; i.e. those Divine graces and blessings which promise all good, and give what they promise; never deceiving the expectation of any man. To insinuate that, if a man have acquired riches by unjust means, he is to sanctify them, and provide himself a passport to the kingdom of God, by giving them to the poor, is a most horrid and blasphemous perversion of our Lord's words. Ill gotten gain must be restored to the proper owners: if they are dead, then to their successors.

When ye fail - That is, when ye die. The Septuagint use the word εκλειπειν in this very sense, Jeremiah 42:17, Jeremiah 42:22. See the note on Genesis 25:8. So does Josephus, War, chap. iv. 1, 9.

They may receive you - That is, say some, the angels. Others, the poor whom ye have relieved will welcome you into glory. It does not appear that the poor are meant:

1. Because those who have relieved them may die a long time before them; and therefore they could not be in heaven to receive them on their arrival.

2. Many poor persons may be relieved, who will live and die in their sins, and consequently never enter into heaven themselves.

The expression seems to be a mere Hebraism: - they may receive you, for ye shall be received; i.e. God shall admit you, if you make a faithful use of his gifts and graces. He who does not make a faithful use of what he has received from his Maker has no reason to hope for eternal felicity. See Matthew 25:33; and, for similar Hebraisms, consult in the original, Luke 6:38; Luke 12:20; Revelation 12:6; Revelation 16:15.

And I say unto you,.... These are the words of Christ, as are also the latter part of the preceding verse, accommodating and applying the parable to his disciples, and for their instruction:

make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness: by "mammon" are designed riches, wealth, and substance; See Gill on Matthew 6:24 and is called "mammon of unrighteousness", because such wealth is often unrighteously detained, and is not made use of to right and good purposes, by the owners of it; or because, generally speaking, it is possessed by unrighteous men; and, for the most part, used in an unrighteous manner, in luxury, pride and intemperance, and is the root, instrument, and means of such unrighteousness: or it maybe rendered "mammon of hurt", or "hurtful mammon"; as it often is to those who are over anxious and desirous of it, or other disuse or misuse of it: or, as best of all, "mammon of falsehood", or "deceitful mammon"; so in the Targum (w), frequent mention is made of , "mammon of falsity"; and stands opposed to "true riches" in Luke 16:10 for worldly riches are very empty and fallacious; wherefore deceitfulness is ascribed to them; and they are called uncertain riches, which are not to be depended upon. Matthew 13:22 unless it should be rather thought that it is so called, because gotten in an unrighteous way; as it was by Zacchaeus, and might be by Matthew, one of the disciples, Christ now speaks to, and the publicans and sinners, who were lately become his followers, and whom he advises, as the highest piece of wisdom and prudence, to dispose of in such a manner, as of it to "make" themselves "friends"; not God, Father, Son, and Spirit. These indeed are friends to the saints, but they are not made so by money; reconciliation and redemption are not procured this way; nor is the favour of the judge to be got by such means; the only means of reconciliation, are the blood and death of Christ; though indeed acts of beneficence, rightly performed, are well pleasing to God: nor are the angels meant, who are very friendly to all good men; nor rich men, to whom riches are not to be given, Proverbs 22:16 but rather riches themselves, which, if not rightly used, and so made friends of, will cry, and be a witness against the owners of them, James 5:1 though it may be the poor saints are intended; who by their prayers are capable of doing either a great deal of hurt, or a great deal of good; and it is the interest of rich men to make them their friends:

that when ye fail: of money; or "that fails", as the Ethiopic version reads; or rather, when ye leave that, that is, when ye die; so in Jeremiah 42:22 "know certainly that ye shall die"; the Septuagint renders it, "ye shall fall by the sword", &c.

they may receive you into everlasting habitations: the mansions of glory, which are many, and of an eternal duration: this is to be understood of their being received thither, not by the poor, to whom they have been benefactors; for though these may now pray for their reception to glory when they die, and will hereafter rejoice at their reception thither; yet they themselves will not be receivers of them, or their introducers into the everlasting tents, or tabernacles: nor are the angels intended, who carry the souls of the righteous into Abraham's bosom, and will gather the elect together at the last day; for not they, but God and Christ, receive the saints to glory: the words may be rendered impersonally, "you may be received"; in a way of welldoing, though not for it; mention is made of the "everlasting tabernacles", in

"Their glory also will I take unto me, and give these the everlasting tabernacles, which I had prepared for them.'' (2 Esdras 2:11)

and so the phrase may be rendered here, as opposed to the earthly and perishable tabernacles of the body 2 Corinthians 5:1

(w) Targum in Job 27.8. & in Isa v. 23. & xxxiii. 15. & in Ezekiel 22.27. & in Hos. v. 11.

Make to yourselves friends

Compare Virgil, "Aeneid," vi., 664:. Among the tenants of Elysium he sees "those who, by good desert, made others mindful of them."

Of the mammon of unrighteousness (ἐκ τοῦ μαμωνᾶ τῆς ἀδικίας)

The same idiom as in Luke 16:8, steward of injustice. Compare unrighteous mammon, Luke 16:11. Mammon should be spelt with one m. It is a Chaldee word, meaning riches. It occurs only in this chapter and at Matthew 6:24. "Of the mammon" is, literally, by means of. In the phrase of unrighteousness, there is implied no condemnation of property as such; but it is styled unrighteous, or belonging to unrighteousness, because it is the characteristic and representative object and delight and desire of the selfish and unrighteous world: their love of it being a root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10). Wyc., the riches of wickedness.

Ye fail (ἐκλίπητε)

But all the best texts read ἐκλίπῃ, "when it (the mammon) fails."

They may receive

The friends.

Habitations (σκηνάς)

Lit., tents or tabernacles.

And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon {c} of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting {d} habitations.

(c) This is not spoken of goods that are gotten wrongly, for God will have our bountifulness to the poor proceed and come from a good fountain: but he calls those things riches of iniquity which men use wickedly.

(d) That is, the poor Christians: for they are the inheritors of these habitations; Theophylact.

16:9 And I say unto you. The parable has ended and Christ now makes the application.

Mammon of unrighteousness. Mammon is equivalent to money, or wealth; called the mammon of unrighteousness, not because it is acquired unrighteously, but because most use it unrighteously, treating it as their own, when they are only stewards. What is the use the Lord charges us to put it to? It is: Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness (riches), that when it shall fail (when you can use it no longer), they shall receive you into eternal tabernacles (heaven). It is strange that there is any difficulty over this passage, as translated clearly in the Revised Version. The only friends who can receive us into heaven are the Father and the Son. These are, then, the friends we must secure. During life our means must be so used as to please God and to lay up eternal treasure. If we use it as a trust of the Lord we will secure such a friend. Instead of hoarding we must make heavenly friends.

16:9 And I say to you - Be good stewards even of the lowest talents wherewith God hath intrusted you. Mammon means riches or money. It is termed the mammon of unrighteousness, because of the manner wherein it is commonly either procured or employed. Make yourselves friends of this, by doing all possible good, particularly to the children of God: that when ye fail, when your flesh and your heart faileth, when this earthly tabernacle is dissolved, those of them who have gone before may receive, may welcome you into the everlasting habitations.

mammon: or, riches

9. Make . friends of-Turn to your advantage; that is, as the steward did, "by showing mercy to the poor" (Da 4:27; compare Lu 12:33; 14:13, 14).

mammon of unrighteousness-treacherous, precarious. (See on [1678]Mt 6:24).

ye fail-in respect of life.

they may receive you-not generally, "ye may be received" (as Lu 6:38, "shall men give"), but "those ye have relieved may rise up as witnesses for you" at the great day. Then, like the steward, when turned out of one home shall ye secure another; but better than he, a heavenly for an earthly, an everlasting for a temporary habitation. Money is not here made the key to heaven, more than "the deeds done in the body" in general, according to which, as a test of character-but not by the merit of which-men are to be judged (2Co 5:10, and see Mt 25:34-40).

16:1-12 Whatever we have, the property of it is God's; we have only the use of it, according to the direction of our great Lord, and for his honour. This steward wasted his lord's goods. And we are all liable to the same charge; we have not made due improvement of what God has trusted us with. The steward cannot deny it; he must make up his accounts, and be gone. This may teach us that death will come, and deprive us of the opportunities we now have. The steward will make friends of his lord's debtors or tenants, by striking off a considerable part of their debt to his lord. The lord referred to in this parable commended not the fraud, but the policy of the steward. In that respect alone is it so noticed. Worldly men, in the choice of their object, are foolish; but in their activity, and perseverance, they are often wiser than believers. The unjust steward is not set before us as an example in cheating his master, or to justify any dishonesty, but to point out the careful ways of worldly men. It would be well if the children of light would learn wisdom from the men of the world, and would as earnestly pursue their better object. The true riches signify spiritual blessings; and if a man spends upon himself, or hoards up what God has trusted to him, as to outward things, what evidence can he have, that he is an heir of God through Christ? The riches of this world are deceitful and uncertain. Let us be convinced that those are truly rich, and very rich, who are rich in faith, and rich toward God, rich in Christ, in the promises; let us then lay up our treasure in heaven, and expect our portion from thence.