The Evil Eye (2)
Jealousy and the Justice of God
This is part 2 of a two-part series titled "The Evil Eye", exploring how Jesus used the idiom to address generosity & jealousy. If you haven’t read the part 1, I strongly recommend you do. Read Part 1 →
All Bible quotations are from LSB (Legacy Standard Bible) except otherwise stated.
The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
Across the gospels, we see that the kingdom of God is at the heart of Jesus’ purpose. As part of his tools for communicating the reality and presence of the kingdom of God, Jesus told a number of parables. We must keep in mind that the parables are not tools to teach universal truths, nor are they merely moral lessons. Every parable gives us an insight into the culture and reality of the kingdom of God which Jesus brought and taught.
One of such parables is the one we will examine in this post — The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard.1
In this parable, a landowner went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard, agreeing to pay them a denarius for the day. As the day progressed, he returned to the marketplace at the third, sixth, ninth, and even the eleventh hour, each time hiring more laborers and promising to pay them what was right. At the end of the day, he called the workers to receive their wages, beginning with those hired last. To everyone's surprise, each worker received the same full day's wage, regardless of how long they had worked. Those hired first complained, expecting more, but the landowner reminded them of their agreed wage and defended his right to be generous with what was his.
The landowner’s rebuke of the early workers reveals that the central focus of the parable isn’t merely about reward — it’s about his prerogative to be just on his own terms. This should however not suggest relativism or injustice. It should also not be interpreted as the landowner being unpredictable or inconsistent (which would be the opposite of the actual lesson of the parable). The landowner grounds his rebuke in his fairness to the early workers — “…did you not agree with me for a denarius?”
God is good and just
Our understanding of the “evil eye” idiom should also help us gain further insight into what this parable is really about.
“But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? ‘Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. ‘Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’2
In more literal terms, what Jesus said was “…is your eye evil because I am good?”3
In this context, the “evil eye” speaks of their envy/jealousy, and not a lack of generosity as we saw in Part 1. The early workers were satisfied with their pay until they saw what the landowner paid other workers who came after. By their jealousy, they revealed that they had judged the landowner to be unjust. The landowner was challenging their notion of justice and fairness, and their perception of his generosity.
Our envy of others is often a quiet protest against God’s justice and generosity. Jealousy often reveals that we’ve stopped trusting God to be just and generous.
When we are jealous of others because of God’s blessings on them, what we are implicitly saying is that we consider God to be unjust. Our loving and generous God “causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”4 His goodness to others should not cause us to feel cheated — rather, it should remind us of His nature.
The first person in Scripture who shows us what can happen when we let the “evil eye” dominate our judgment is Cain5. When God graciously accepted his brother Abel’s offering, Cain’s face fell—he was consumed with envy rather than repentance. God warned him, inviting him to do what is right, but Cain refused. His jealous heart eventually led him to kill his brother. From the beginning, Scripture shows us that unchecked envy—an evil eye—distorts our vision of God’s goodness and poisons our relationship with others. The “evil eye”:
Uses a zero-sum scale to measure success/fairness. It makes us believe that success must be at the expense of another person
Only finds satisfaction in comparison and so is never really content.
Is blinded to its own privileges
Does not know how to genuinely rejoice at the success of others
A posture of resentment toward the good others receive makes us lose sight of God’s fairness and generosity, and the joy of living in His kingdom. May God give us a clear eye and a generous heart, that we may rejoice in His goodness to others and trust His grace towards us.
If this reflection has helped you see Jesus’ words in a fresh way, I’d love for you to stick around. You can subscribe below to receive future posts.
Matthew 20:1-16
Matthew 20:13-15
Matthew 20:15. See footnotes in LSB, NASB95, CSB translations
Matthew 5:45
Genesis 4