What Does Luke 12:34 Mean?
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
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 where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.THE KEY
Your heart follows the place where you have put your treasure.
THE MEANING
What you count as treasure shapes where your inner life resides. Your heart is found where what you prize is kept, and what you store there becomes its center.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that you can place your deepest value somewhere without letting it claim your inner life.
THE ROOT
θησαυρός
thēsauros
GROWS FROM
θησαυρ-
thēsaur-
A storehouse, or the treasure kept in it.
The Greek word holds both the treasure and its place of storage. What you keep gathering becomes the place your heart turns toward.
ALSO GROWS
thēsaurizō: To store up or lay up as treasure.
θησαυρίζω
The related verb makes clear that treasure is also something accumulated; the heart follows what is repeatedly stored.
apothēsaurizō: To store up as a treasure; rendered “laying up in store” in 1 Timothy 6:19.
ἀποθησαυρίζω
This related word connects treasure with deliberate storing, echoing the verse’s image of value having a place.
καρδία
kardia
GROWS FROM
καρδ-
kard-
Heart; the inner center of a person.
“heart” in this verse is kardia. Kardia reaches beyond emotion to the inner center from which a person perceives and responds. The verse says this center takes its place where value is held.
ALSO GROWS
kardiognōstēs: One who knows hearts.
καρδιογνώστης
This compound treats the heart as an inward center that can be known, not merely as a passing feeling.
sklērokardia: Hardness of heart.
σκληροκαρδία
This compound shows how the heart’s inner condition can shape a person’s response.
THE PATTERN
The heart’s center is revealed by what it holds and by what it brings forth.
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.A good human brings out good from the good treasure of the heart, and an evil human brings out evil from the evil treasure of the heart, for from the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks.THE THREAD
A good human brings out good from the good treasure of the heart, and an evil human brings out evil from the evil treasure of the heart, for from the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks.Luke uses the same Greek word for “treasure,” θησαυρός (thēsauros), and places it within the heart. The verse then shows what comes out of that stored abundance: where value is held, expression emerges.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us