In the UBS Greek text verse 24 stands alone under the heading “God and Mammon.” The Lukan parallel is found in Luke 16.13, where it forms the conclusion to the parable of the dishonest steward. Other than the difference in contextual setting, Luke has “No servant” where Matthew has “No one.” The verse consists of three parts, and the first part has proverbial character.
No one can serve two masters is the proverbial part of the verse. Its background is the relationship between slave and master in the Roman world, according to which a slave’s master had absolute rights of life and death over his slave. Given this situation it was impossible for a slave to have been at the same time the property of two owners. He would have belonged absolutely to one owner; he could not have belonged to two owners.
Some translations have wanted to say “No one can work for two employers,” but that clearly is not true. Nowadays many people do work for more than one employer. Good News Translation has thus made it clear that what is being discussed here is the relationship between slave and master, and other translations often find this a useful model. In other situations where this causes problems, perhaps because the concept of slave is not known, then the idea of being totally devoted to a master must be emphasized. Examples are “No one can devote all his services to two different people at the same time” or “No one can serve with his whole being two different employers at once.”
The second part of the verse is linked to the first by for. The full relationship that is being expressed is “For if he does, the result will be.” The context may make this clear without any word or phrase of transition. Other languages may require a phrase such as “Because” or “Because the result would be.”
For either he will hate … and despise the other explains what would result if a slave ever got into the position of trying to serve two masters. The four verbs (hate … love and be devoted to … despise) are in a chiastic arrangement, in which the first and fourth members and second and third members respectively are parallel with one another (see comments on chiasm under 5.45). In many languages it will be more natural to invert the order of the second and third verbs so that a strict parallelism results. In 7.6 Good News Bible has done precisely this sort of thing, in order to make all four members of the verse clear in their relationship one to the other.
The words hate and love do not relate primarily to feelings and emotions, but to a decision in behalf of one master as over against the other. In fact, what is at issue here are degrees of loyalty. Thus translators can say “He will not care for one of them but only for the other,” “He will neglect one of them in favor of the other,” “He will love one more than the other,” or “He will be loyal to one and not to the other.”
Notice that these last two examples actually reverse the order of hate and love in the text, which makes them parallel to be devoted to and despise. Translators should do whatever restructuring is necessary to make the whole verse natural in their language.
The Greek verb translated be devoted to occurs only three other times in the New Testament. It is found in the Lukan parallel (Luke 16.13), where the meaning is the same. In 1 Thessalonians 5.14 it is rendered “help (the weak)” by Good News Bible, and in Titus 1.9 Good News Bible translates “hold firmly to (the message).” Here New English Bible renders “be devoted to” (so Barclay and New International Version), while Moffatt and An American Translation have “stand by.”
Other than in the Lukan parallel at 16.13, the verb translated despise is found in seven other New Testament passages: Matthew 18.10; Romans 2.4; 1 Corinthians 11.22; 1 Timothy 4.12; 6.2; Hebrews 12.2; 2 Peter 2.10. One standard Greek lexicon gives the primary meanings as “look down on, despise, scorn, treat with contempt.”
Be devoted to and despise have a similar meaning to hate and love. Translators can say “be devoted to one and look down on the other (or, and have no interest in the other).”
You cannot serve both God and mammon (Good News Translation “money”) is the third part of the verse, and it forms the conclusion to the first part. Mammon, a term that has no meaning in English, is the transliteration of the word used in the Greek text. The footnote in Revised Standard Version explains its origin: “Mammon is a Semitic word for money or riches.” Many modern translations render “money,” as Good News Translation has done (New English Bible uses a capital “M”). The word mammon is well attested in Jewish literature, with the meaning “money, profit, wealth.” As used by the Jews it had no negative connotations, which makes the contrast in the present passage even more striking. Jesus’ words are concerned with property in general, not with possessions obtained by evil means. Traduction œcuménique de la Bible also translates with a capital, followed by a footnote indicating that “Money” is here personified as a power which enslaves the world. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates the entire verse in the following way: “No one can serve two masters at the same time. He will neglect the one and prefer the other. He will be loyal to one and cheat the other. You cannot serve them both: God and money.”
For some, the main problem is how to speak of serving money, since men can only serve a person or God. Possible solutions are to say “You cannot love and be devoted to both God and money” or “You cannot give your service to God and to gaining money at the same time.”
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 .