Luke 16:9

Make to yourselves friends. Compare Virgil, "Aeneid," 6, 664.

Among the tenants of Elysium he sees "those who, by good desert, made others mindful of them."

Of the mammon of unrighteousness [ε κ τ ο υ μ α μ ω ν α τ η ς α δ ι κ ι α ς].

The same idiom as in ver. 8, steward of injustice. Compare unrighteous mammon, ver. 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 [ε κ λ ι π η τ ε]. But all the best texts read ejkliph, "When it (the mammon) fails."

They may receive. The friends.

Habitations [σ κ η ν α ς]. Lit., tents or tabernacles.