The Similar Sayings: Matthew 5:15, Mark 4:21, & Luke 8:16
Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
This article is part of a series on the Jesus verses that are similar, but not the same, in different Gospels. The list of articles in this series is here.
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Todays’ article looks again at verses where similar versions appear in all three Synoptic Gospels. In this case, we see Jesus using very different sentence structures as well as a number of very different Greek words in different forms to convey the same message. Since there are many translation problems in the modern English version of these verses, this discussion will refer to more literal translations.
The verse from Matthew was spoken at the Sermon on the Mount after the lead-in verse of, “you are the light of the world.” The context of the Mark and Luke versions is very different from Matthew’s but similar to each other. Both come after the Parable of the Sower, (Mark, Luke) and that parable is so vague that Jesus had to take his apostles aside to explain its meaning. Jesus’s use of parables to hide his meaning seems contrary to the message of these verses which is against hiding the light.
This makes me suspect that both the Mark and Luke versions were given in a much different context that was not recorded, one spoken not just to the apostles, but to a crowd. The context may have been so similar to what was in Matthew, that Mark and Luke chose not to repeat it. We can see evidence of this later in the article in the more accurate translation of Mark.
Matthew 5:15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
Mark 4:21 Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand?
Luke 8:16 No one lights a lamp and hides it in a clay jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, they put it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light.
Though the consistent message is preserved, none of these translations is very accurate. The most glaring error here is that the Mark version in Greek was not in the second-person. Its pronouns should be “they” instead of “you.”
Here are more literal translations.
Matthew: Nor do they light a lamp and put it under the measuring jar, instead upon the lamp stand, and it illuminates all those in the household.
Mark: Much less is this lamp started so that it might be put under the measuring jar…or under the couch. No, so that it might be put upon the lamp stand.
Luke: No one, however, working a lamp, hides it with a vessel or puts it underneath a couch, Instead, he puts it upon a lamp stand so that those going in might see the light.
The words in boldface are explained below.
The Hidden Differences
The “much less” at the beginning of Mark ‘s version is not translated in the NIV. These words strongly indicate that something was said before this verse that was not recorded. It is much like the “neither/nor” that begins Matthew, where we know the lines before about light of a city not being able to be hidden on a hill.
The first Greek verb referring to using the lamp is different in all three verses. The words in Matthew and Mark are both uncommon. They are both translated as “to light”, but only the verb in Matthew means “to light.” The verb in Luke means “to work” and “to begin.” It is in the form of an adjective, describing the one “working the lamp”. It is closer in meaning to the verb in Mark, which is translated as “to bring” but means “to start,” as in “starting a lamp.” This Greek verb is one of the most common words that Jesus uses, but it is almost always translated as “come.”
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The Greek word translated as “bowl” in the biblical Matthew and Mark is a measuring vessel. It held almost eight dry quarts, what is called “a peck.” This was used to measure both dry and wet goods so it was probably commonly made of clay. Shown above is a picture of a bronze version of this vessel, called the Carvoran Modius. The Roman army used it to measure out a week’s worth of grain to each soldier. Luke uses a different and less common word that simply means a “vessel.”
The Greek word translated as "put" in Matthew and Mark means "to place" but it has two other meanings that are relevant here. Jesus uses it to mean "bury" in the sense of "hide" in several other verses, which works for hiding a light under something. The more common word for “hide” is used in Luke to refer to placing the light under a vessel. The word “put” in Matthew and Mark also is metaphorically used in Greek to mean "to put in one's mind,” which works perfectly here with “light” as a metaphor for knowledge.
The phrase “under the couch” first appears in Mark and Luke. The Greek word means “couch.” It described both the couches used at meal tables and couches used for sleeping. It almost seems an afterthought because it appears after the verb instead of with the other phrase “under the big jar.” It would have been easier to simply say, “under the big jar or the couch,” but instead Jesus adds it as a separate phrase at the end of the sentence. This makes it look like a punchline in Jesus’s humor. Why would people put a light under a couch? Perhaps to hide what was served at the table or what was in the bed.
The only clear punchline, here, however, is in the Luke version. It is "see the light" appearing at the end of the verse. The Greek has the same metaphorical meaning of sudden understanding that it does in English. The word translated as “illuminate” in Matthew does not have this sense.
Again, I see evidence that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written in chronological order. The phrase “under the couch” was first by Jesus added to his Matthew framework. In this Mark verse, Jesus seems focused more on the purpose of the lamp, being be put on a lampstand instead of hidden. To this end, Jesus cuts the phrase about illuminating the house, perhaps because it is obvious. However, he adds that phrase back in Luke because he thinks of a way to sharpen it into a better punchline with the double meaning of “see the light.”