What Does Matthew 6:21 Mean in the King James?
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
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
Your heart goes where you have stored what you value, so your treasure is already a map of your inner life.
THE MEANING
What you keep as treasure draws your inner center toward it. The place where your stored value rests is also where your heart takes its place. Your inner life follows the value you hold.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The heart is an independent guide whose desires arise apart from what you value and accumulate. This verse shows its direction following the treasure you keep.
THE ROOT
θησαυρός
thēsauros
GROWS FROM
θησαυρ-
thēsaur-
A store, repository, or stock of value, what is laid up.
English “treasure” can sound like an abstract value, but this Greek word also names the store or stock itself: what is actually kept. Its word family includes verbs for storing up, so the verse joins the heart to what you lay up as valuable.
ALSO GROWS
thēsaurizō: Store up; lay up
θησαυρίζω
The verb from this word family appears in the surrounding passage about laying up treasure, making the heart’s direction follow what is stored.
apothēsaurizō: Store up for the future
ἀποθησαυρίζω
This related verb describes laying up value for what is to come, showing how stored treasure can orient a life beyond the present moment.
καρδία
kardia
GROWS FROM
καρδ-
kard-
Heart; the inner center.
English “heart” can sound like emotion alone, while this Greek word names the inward center of thought, desire, and intention. Here that center is joined to material value: it takes its place where the treasure is.
ALSO GROWS
sklērokardia: Hardness of heart
σκληροκαρδία
This compound uses the same heart word to describe an inner center that has become hardened, showing that the heart is more than a passing feeling.
kardiognōstēs: Knower of hearts
καρδιογνώστης
This compound names one who knows the heart, treating it as the inward center where a person’s orientation is held.
THE PATTERN
The heart’s direction is shaped by what it receives, guards, and stores as valuable.
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.THE THREAD
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:The preceding verse uses θησαυρός (thēsauros, treasure or store) for what is laid up in heaven. Then this verse places the heart where that treasure is, linking the heart’s destination to where value is stored.
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