MAMMON: Aramaic for "wealth" or "gain."
It is a word of uncertain etymology, and is found
in the Aramaic (" what one has saved "), in Syriac,
and in Carthaginian and Phenician
(lucrum,
" wealth "), possibly in the Arabic (" a deposit ").
The Targum of Onkelos renders by it the Hebrew
for "ransom"
(Ex. xxi. 30;
Num. xxxv. 31),
also the word "gain"
(Gen. xxxvii. 26;
Ex. xviii. 21).
Accordingly in
Matt. vi. 24
and
Luke xvi. 9, 11, 13,
the word must mean " possession," " wealth," or
"money." The meaning was not necessarily sinister; the accompanying adjectival expression gives
it that sense in the Targum on
I Sam. viii. 3;
Isa. xxxiii. 15;
Ezek. xxii. 27;
Hos. v. 11;
Prov. xv. 27;
Hab. ii. 9;
and
Ezek. xxii. 13.
In
Luke xvi. 9
sqq. the meaning is not that money sinfully sogained is best spent in alms (Holtzmann), but that
the earthly possessions of the children of the kingdom of God are called "unrighteous" because
net
properly held by them, since their rightful
possession is the kingdom of God. The good which
is foreign [to one's nature] he is to bestow in order
to obtain that possession which is really his own.
There is known no god or demon "ma,mon" as
Weirs (on
Luke xvi. 9)
supposed.
(G. Dalman.)
Bibliography:
The commentaries on the passages cited,
particularly that of Plummer on
Luke ivi. 9-13
(New
York, 1898); the lexicons (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek)
on the word;
DB, iii. 224; EB, iii. 2912-15; JE, viii.
278
(elaborate).
