You are the light of the world is made into a simile by Good News Translation: “You are like light.” And Good News Translation understands of the world to mean “for the whole world.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “You are the light for the world.” INCL renders “You are like light that is needed by everyone in this world.”

As with “salt” in the previous verse, many translations have used a simile to translate You are the light of the world. Good News Translation and INCL are examples cited above. Those translations which have tried to show the basis of the comparison, in what way the disciples are like light, have said “You show people the way (to God) as a light does,” “You help people to see God as if you were a light,” or “People can see their way to God because of you who are like a light for them.”

Again, world means “all the people of the world” or “people everywhere.”

The saying about A city set on a hill may originally have been a secular proverb which could have been used in a variety of contexts. Here the meaning is clear: light is certain to be noticed.

The city on a hill cannot be hid, that is, “cannot remain unseen,” “people can easily see it.”

Some translations tie the two statements in this verse closely together with sentences such as “You are the light of the world that people cannot fail to see, just as they cannot fail to see a city built on a hill” or “People cannot fail to see the way to God (or, way of life) because you are a light for them which they can see as easily as they see a city on a hill.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .