What Does Matthew 19:22 Mean in the King James?
But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
What looks like abundance can become a narrow place when holding it costs the next step.
THE MEANING
What has accumulated around you can make an opening toward fuller life feel like loss. Plenty does not cancel grief; what you hold can be the very thing that keeps your feet turned away.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This verse undoes the belief that having more always means being freer: abundance can coexist with grief and make movement harder.
THE ROOT
κτήματα
ktēmata
GROWS FROM
κτα-
kta-
Acquire, obtain
The noun κτήματα names things acquired and comes from κτάομαι, “to acquire” or “to obtain.” English “possessions” can sound static, but the Greek keeps acquisition inside the word: what has been gathered now stands at the point where movement stops.
ALSO GROWS
ktaomai: to acquire, obtain
κτάομαι
The possessions in the verse are the result of acquiring; the root keeps their gathering in view.
ktēsis: acquisition, possession
κτῆσις
This related noun holds both the act of getting and what is gotten, echoing the verse’s tension between accumulated things and the way forward.
λυπούμενος
lypoumenos
GROWS FROM
λυπ-
lyp-
Grief, distress, pain
“sorrowful” in this verse is lypoumenos. The word comes from λυπέω, “to grieve” or “to distress,” a family that names grief as felt pain. The verse places that pain beside his abundance: having much does not mean being free of sorrow.
ALSO GROWS
lypē: grief, sorrow
λύπη
This noun names the grief that the verse makes visible alongside abundance.
perilypos: deeply grieved
περίλυπος
This related form intensifies the same family of grief, showing how the root can describe sorrow that fills a person.
THE PATTERN
Accumulated wealth cannot secure life, and attachment to it can become a source of grief.
He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.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 THREAD
Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.The saying he hears names a release of accumulated goods, generosity, and movement toward following; this verse shows grief arise where those paths meet. Read together, they make his departure visible as the cost of holding what he has acquired.
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