What Does Matthew 25:18 Mean in the King James?

But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.

Matthew 25:18 · KJV

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

He keeps what was entrusted to him intact, but buries it beyond every possibility of use.

THE MEANING

What is placed in the reader’s hands can be made inaccessible, left intact yet removed from every work it could do. The verse exposes a kind of stewardship that preserves the object while burying its purpose.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that keeping an entrusted thing untouched is the same as being faithful with it. Preservation can become concealment when it removes the thing from use.

THE ROOT

ἔκρυψεν

ekrypsen

GROWS FROM

κρυπ-

kryp-

To hide or conceal.

The Greek root also appears in words for what is hidden or kept secret, so “hid” carries the sense of putting something out of sight. Here the money is not lost; it is placed beyond use, and its concealment buries the possibility it held.

ALSO GROWS

kryptos: Hidden or secret.

κρυπτός

This related form appears in Matthew 6:4 for giving in secret; concealment can shelter an act, while here it removes entrusted money from use.

apokryptō: To hide away or keep concealed.

ἀποκρύπτω

This compound keeps the same ⁨κρυπ-⁩ root and makes the act of putting something out of sight explicit, echoing the servant’s burial of what he received.

THE PATTERN

What is entrusted becomes stewardship through active tending and use.

And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Genesis 2:15 · KJVThe garden is placed in human hands to be tended and kept.

And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.

Luke 19:13 · KJVThe servants receive what belongs to their master with a charge to put it to work.

As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

1 Peter 4:10 · KJVA gift received becomes stewardship as it is used in service to others.

THE THREAD

For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.

Luke 8:17 · KJV

The word translated “hid” here and the hidden thing in Luke share the Greek ⁨κρυπ-⁩ (kryp-) root, meaning to conceal. Luke’s verse opens the image further: what is concealed is not beyond coming into the open.

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