What Does Matthew 25:16 Mean in the King James?
Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents.
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
The Greek word translated “traded” also means “worked”: what is entrusted becomes more through engagement with it.
THE MEANING
What reaches your hands is not inert: you work with it, and its use becomes more. Receiving and making belong to one motion; the increase takes shape through what is done with what you have received.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that what you receive can only be preserved, never increased.
THE ROOT
ἠργάσατο
ērgasato
GROWS FROM
ἐργάζομαι
To work, labor, or bring something about through work.
The verb behind “traded” carries the sense of working with what was received. The verse’s increase comes through engagement with the entrusted talents, not through their remaining untouched.
ALSO GROWS
ergon: Work, deed, or action.
ἔργον
The related noun makes the activity in “traded” visible as work that takes form in deeds.
ergatēs: Worker or laborer.
ἐργάτης
This branch names the one who works, linking the servant’s role to the action that produces increase.
ἐποίησεν
epoiēsen
GROWS FROM
ποιέω
To make, do, or bring about.
The verse follows work with making: the result is not merely activity but five more talents. The root lets “made” carry the concrete sense of bringing something into form.
ALSO GROWS
poiēma: A thing made or a work produced.
ποίημα
This branch highlights the tangible result: the servant’s work yields something that can be counted.
poiētēs: A maker or doer.
ποιητής
This branch emphasizes the link between action and outcome in the servant’s making of more.
THE PATTERN
What is entrusted bears increase through active use and connection.
In all labour there is profit: but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury.I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;)THE THREAD
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.James uses ἔργα (erga, “works”), from the same Greek work-family as ἐργάζομαι (ergazomai, “to work”), the verb behind “traded” here. In both verses, what is received or held inwardly becomes visible through what it produces.
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