What Does 1 Timothy 6:10 Mean?
For the love of silver is a root of all evil, which some, reaching out for it, have wandered away from trust, and pierced themselves through with many pains.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.THE KEY
The love of money is a seed whose growth can pull its pursuer from trust and wound them with its own fruit.
THE MEANING
When money becomes what you keep reaching toward, your attachment to it can draw you away from trust. The verse names the pursuit as self-wounding: many pains grow from it. The harm lies not only in what money buys or withholds, but in what its pursuit grows in the person reaching for it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that pursuing wealth as your deepest security can only make you safer; this verse shows how that attachment can pull you away from trust and bring pain to the pursuer.
THE ROOT
φιλαργυρία
philargyria
GROWS FROM
φιλο- + ἀργυρ- (philo- + argyr-)
A Greek compound joining love or affection (philo-) with silver (argyr-): love of money.
“love of silver” in this verse is philargyria. The word binds the attachment and its object together: it names a love fixed on silver, not simply the presence of money. That love becomes the root from which the verse’s harms grow.
ALSO GROWS
philargyros: loving money
φιλάργυρος
This related form describes a person by the same money-loving attachment.
argyrion: silver coin; money
ἀργύριον
This form shares the silver stem in the compound, making concrete what the attachment reaches toward.
ἀπεπλανήθησαν
apeplanēthēsan
GROWS FROM
πλαν-
plan-
To wander or lead astray; with ἀπο- (apo-, away), to wander away.
“erred” in this verse is apeplanēthēsan. The verse describes leaving trust as losing one’s direction, not merely holding a mistaken idea. The money-love that takes root can redirect the person who reaches for it.
ALSO GROWS
planē: wandering; error
πλάνη
This noun carries the same image of straying from a path.
planētēs: wanderer
πλανήτης
This related word names one who wanders, making the verse’s loss of direction vivid.
ῥίζα
rhiza
GROWS FROM
ῥιζ-
rhiz-
Root: the part from which a plant takes hold and grows.
“root” in this verse is rhiza. The verse’s image makes money-love a source that can feed many evils, rather than one isolated act. Its pains are growths that emerge from an attachment taking hold beneath the surface.
ALSO GROWS
rhizoō: to root; to establish roots
ῥιζόω
The related verb pictures something becoming firmly established, as the attachment takes hold.
errizōmenos: rooted
ἐρριζωμένος
This related form describes a settled condition; the verse’s root image suggests how an inward attachment can become a source of outward consequences.
THE PATTERN
What takes root in the heart can direct a person’s course and shape what grows from their life.
Above every watch you keep, guard your heart, for from it flow the springs of life.For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.Then craving, when it has conceived, gives birth to falling short; and falling short, when it is full-grown, bears death.THE THREAD
The separated ones also heard all these things, being silver-lovers, and they turned up their noses at him.The Greek word translated “covetous” here, φιλάργυροι (philargyroi), shares the money-loving stem of φιλαργυρία (philargyria) in this verse. Luke shows that this attachment can shape not only what a person reaches for, but how they hear.
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