Deuteronomy 15:9

15:9 Be careful lest you entertain the wicked thought that the seventh year, the year of cancellation of debts, has almost arrived, and your attitude ¹  be wrong toward your impoverished fellow Israelite ²  and you do not lend ³  him anything; he will cry out to the Lord against you and you will be regarded as having sinned. ⁴ 

Proverbs 23:6

23:6 Do not eat the food of a stingy person, ⁵ 

do not crave his delicacies;

Proverbs 28:22

28:22 The stingy person ⁶  hastens after riches

and does not know that poverty will overtake him. ⁷ 

Matthew 20:15

20:15 Am I not ⁸  permitted to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ ⁹ 

¹ tn Heb “your eye.”

² tn Heb “your needy brother.”

³ tn Heb “give” (likewise in v. 10).

⁴ tn Heb “it will be a sin to you.”

⁵ tn Heb “an evil eye.” This is the opposite of the “good eye” which meant the generous man. The “evil eye” refers to a person who is out to get everything for himself (cf. NASB, NCV, CEV “selfish”). He is ill-mannered and inhospitable (e.g., Prov 28:22). He is up to no good – even though he may appear to be a host.

⁹ tn Heb “a man with an evil eye” (as opposed to the generous man who has a “good” eye). This individual is selfish, unkind, unsympathetic to others. He looks only to his own gain. Cf. NAB “The avaricious man”; NLT “A greedy person.”

¹⁰ sn The one who is hasty to gain wealth is involved in sin in some way, for which he will be punished by poverty. The idea of “hastening” after riches suggests a dishonest approach to acquiring wealth.

¹³ tc ‡ Before οὐκ (ouk, “[am I] not”) a number of significant witnesses read ἤ (h, “or”; e.g., א C W 085 Ë^1,13 33 and most others). Although in later Greek the οι in σοι (oi in soi) – the last word of v. 14 – would have been pronounced like ἤ, since ἤ is lacking in early mss (B D; among later witnesses, note L Z Θ 700) and since mss were probably copied predominantly by sight rather than by sound, even into the later centuries, the omission of ἤ cannot be accounted for as easily. Thus the shorter reading is most likely original. NA²⁷ includes the word in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

¹⁴ tn Grk “Is your eye evil because I am good?”