Mammon
In KJV the word occurs 3 times in Lukas 16 and once in Matthew 6.
Per the Encyclopedia of religion and Ethics:
The word is not Greek, nor is it found in the Hebrew Bible. Rather, it is a Hellenized form of the Aramaic אמן (Strongs H539), which means "money / riches / worldly goods". Wyclif and Purvey translated the word by "riches", but Tindal followed the Vulgate in transliterating the word, and so did all later English versions, except Geneva.
In order to understand the meaning of the word, one would thus need to find the source thereof (since it is nog Greek) and then understand the context of that language in order to actually understand the meaning thereof. This is what they refer to as the "root word".
Exactly this "root word" is what scholars are divided on.
J Drusins (quoted in J. Buxtorf, Lexicon Chaldaicium, 1640, Basel) and Dalman (PRE xii. 153) derive the word from אמן which would mean "that on which man trusts" or, as Dalman prefers, "that which brings man into saftey"
Jastrow (Talmud Dictionary p794) - that which one accumulates
Levy (Neuhebräisches und chaldäisches Wörterbuch) - to distribute
Gesenius (Thesaurus linguae Hebreae et Chaldeae) - "hide", "that which one hides or treasures". Gen43:23, Job3:21, Pr 2:4, Is45:3, Jer41:8)
Separately from the "root" where meaning to the word can be derived from, there is off course also the fact that it is actively used in other writings. Since the word is also not Greek, would it not make sense that in order to understand the meaning thereof, to look for the use of this word in the native language where it originated from and understand the context of the word where it is used there and obtain the meaning to it this way?
From Trade - The trade world before the time of Alexander, hand long been in the hands of Phoenicians and Arameans, and we have evidence that in both languages, "mamon" was the word for "money". As to the former, it occurs on Phoenician inscriptions on tombstones; and Augustine, in two passages states that the Punie word for lucrum (wealth) is "mammona". It's Aramaic usage is also abundantly attested.
Jerome (Exp cxxi. 6) affirms - "Non Hebraeorum sed Syrorum lingua, mammona divitiae nuncupantur". In English this is, In the language of the Syrians, not the Hebrews, they refer to wealth as "mammon"
The Aramaic Targums (these are translations of the Hebrew writings into Aramaic), contain the word more often, for example in Pr3:9 Honor Yahuah with thy mamon; Is55:1 O ye that wish to learn...come and learn without the price and without mammon; Jg5:19 They accepted no mamon of silver; Exo18:21 the ideal judges are those who hat ethe receiving of mamon.
In the Aramaic sections of the Palestine Talmud the same story is told twice (Nazir, v.3; Berakhoth, vii. 2) of 300 poor Nazirites who came for purification. R Simeon asked King Jannaens to give half the cost, but it turned out that the king paid all
Modern "Money" Characteristics
Today we may think to have a more clear understanding of what "money" is, how to use it and how it is used by some to use others.
Definitions
Money a commodity accepted by general consent as a medium of economic exchange. It is the medium in which prices and values are expressed; as currency, it circulates anonymously from person to person and country to country, thus facilitating trade, and it is the principal measure of wealth. https://www.britannica.com/money/topic/money
Currency is a system of money in common use within a specific environment over time, especially for people in a nation state.
Commodity money is money whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made. Commodity money consists of objects having value or use in themselves (intrinsic value) as well as their value in buying goods. Examples of commodities that have been used as media of exchange include gold, silver, copper, platinum, etc.
Representative money or receipt money is any medium of exchange, printed or digital, that represents something of value, but has little or no value of its own (intrinsic value). Unlike some forms of fiat money (which may have no commodity backing), genuine representative money must have something of intrinsic value supporting the face value.
Fiat Currency is a type of currency that is not backed by a commodity, such as gold or silver. It is typically designated by the issuing government to be legal tender, and is authorized by government regulation. Since the end of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, the major currencies in the world are fiat money.
Trust means believing that another person will do what is expected. It brings with it a willingness for one party (the trustor) to become vulnerable to another party (the trustee), on the presumption that the trustee will act in ways that benefit the trustor. In addition, the trustor does not have control over the actions of the trustee.
Analysis
In summary therefore, money in itself is rather an intellectual concept than a physical item. It is the idea that something neutral exists which is viewed more or less equally by a large number of people and against which those people would be willing to exchange things, or alternatively, work for in order to later exchange this "money" for other things.
So far so good, since generally there is a lot of these things, that could be used in this manner, why is there a problem?
Well, the problem comes in with the "trust" element. You see, as per above definition, we are essentially dealing with two types of money currently, both of which we call "currency".
- The one type of currency has what we call "intrinsic value", either in itself or, where a representative system is used, is backed up by such intrinsic value. This is for example either physical gold or a paper currency system which is fully backed by gold (or other real value).
- The second type of currency does not have any value in itself. It is exchangeable amongst the public purely because the authority over such people has decreed it to be exchangeable. This type of currency therefore requires trust, in the sense that the one who accepts this type of currency in exchange of something, "trusts" that it will hold it's value until such time when it is to be exchanged once again.
Conclusion
With our modern "Fiat Currency" system, we literally place our trust on nothing. If anything, we place ourselves at the mercy of our Governments to maintain the scarcity of the fiat money they have decreed. This scarcity involves the prevention of participants do not bypass the system by forgery and also the prevention of the Government itself to not abuse the system by creating too many units of currency. The latter is the one which usually is not upheld due to the fact that when Governments find themselves in situations where they require resources and have no other means of raising the means to acquire such resources through taxes and other incomes, they eventually start creating more and more currency to exchange for the resources they need, which leads to the scarcity not being maintained resulting in the trust becoming diminished.
The public however being forced to accept the currency in exchange, have no other way to counter the lack of trust but to increase the amount of this currency demanded in exchange. This "increase in amount demanded in exchange" is what we call increase in prices or "inflation".
Money references in the scriptures
Since the root word of this term "mammon" is not Hebrew, also not Greek, but Aramaic, I would like to follow the Aramaic Targums with searching for scriptural references, since the word itself does not occur in the Hebrew scripture. In the Aramaic it however does occur, giving us opportunity to compare with the Hebrew and understand better the context thereof:
KJV Pro3:9 Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase: