This and the following verse are applications of the statement regarding adultery. Even if a man’s eye, which should keep him from stumbling, causes him to sin, it should be taken out and thrown away! Commentators agree that the right eye is chosen as an illustration on the analogy of the “right hand” (verse 30), which is generally regarded as more useful than the left. Quite often translators find it odd to speak of one particular eye causing sin, since we see with both. Therefore some say “your eye” or “your eyes.”

Causes … to sin translates a verb frequently used in Matthew’s Gospel (5.30; 11.6; 13.21, 57; 15.12; 17.27; 18.6, 8, 9; 24.10; 26.31, 33). The root meaning is “cause to stumble,” and the specific nature of the “stumbling,” whether physical or otherwise, is determined by the context. In Matthew the focus is generally upon the doing of something that may lead another to give up his faith. Causes … to sin can be translated as “causes you to do wrong,” “makes you sin,” or “makes you think about doing wrong so that you sin.”

The phrase needs to be restructured in many languages, as in “if, because of what your eye has seen, you sin” or “if you are led to do sin because of your eyes (or, because of what you have seen with your eyes).”

If translators have used the plural “your eyes,” then they will say “pluck them out” rather than pluck it out.

Of course, Jesus is using very exaggerated language to impress on his hearers the seriousness of what he is saying. There have been translators that have wanted to tone it down, or to make the application clear in the translation, as in “You must not let anything prevent you from entering the kingdom and send you to hell instead. Even your vision is less important.” But translators should retain the language of Jesus at this point.

One of your members means “one part of your body.” Some translations make it clear that the eye is the part of the body being spoken of here, as in “your eye, which is only one part of your body.”

Lose means “deprived of.” The sentence can be “It is better not to have one of the parts of the body” or “It is better to have one of the parts of your body missing.” “Lose” in the sense of “not able to find” would be wrong in this context.

Hell is the rendering of most modern translations (New Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible, Barclay, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Bible en français courant, Bijbel in Gewone Taal). An American Translation translates “the pit!” and Phillips “the rubbish-heap.” Revised Standard Version follows the translation hell with a note “Greek Gehenna”; both Moffatt and New American Bible translate “Gehenna.” The word “Gehenna” is merely a transliteration of the Greek, which itself is a Grecized form of the Hebrew. See comments at verse 22, where the word is first used.

The phrase thrown into hell is a passive construction. Many translations use an impersonal construction such as “they throw your body into hell” or “they force you to go to hell.” Others make God the indirect agent, as in “God has your body thrown.” Another way would be to say simply that you “go to hell.”

Some translations use a sentence with “worse” rather than “better,” as in “It is bad to lose a part of your body, but it is worse if the whole body gets thrown into hell.”

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 .