What Does Luke 19:20 Mean?
And another came, saying, "Lord, look, here is your mina, which I have kept laid away in a cloth.
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
And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin:THE KEY
The servant returns the pound intact, but the napkin shows that he has kept it out of circulation.
THE MEANING
You can preserve what has been entrusted to you and still keep it withdrawn from its purpose. The pound is returned, while the cloth makes visible how it has been held: covered and set aside.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that keeping something untouched is always the same as being faithful to it.
THE ROOT
ἀποκειμένην
apokeimenēn
GROWS FROM
κεῖμαι
keimai
To lie, be laid, or be placed; with ἀπό (apo), away, it means to be laid away or stored.
“laid away” in this verse is apokeimenēn. The pound is described as lying away, held in a state of withdrawal. English spreads this across “kept laid up,” while the Greek gathers it into one image: what is laid aside remains present, but out of reach and use.
ALSO GROWS
keimai: To lie, be laid, or be placed.
κεῖμαι
This is the base verb inside “laid up”: the pound occupies a place where it has been put.
anakeimai: To recline, especially at a table.
ἀνάκειμαι
This compound uses the same root for lying in a place at a shared meal; the surrounding word tells whether what lies there is set aside or brought into use.
THE PATTERN
What is entrusted can be put to use or hidden away, and its handling reveals what the holder has done with it.
But the one who had received one went and dug into the ground, and hid his lord's silver.But the one who did not know, and did what deserves blows, will be beaten with few blows. To everyone to whom much is given, much will be sought from him, and to whom much has been placed beside him, they will ask all the more of him.Give the LORD weight with your wealth, and with the first of all your yield.THE THREAD
And this will be a sign for you, that you will find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.“Lying” here is κείμενον (keimenon), from κεῖμαι (keimai), meaning “to lie” or “be laid”, the same base contained in “laid up.” In one verse the root describes a sign openly lying in a manger; here its compound describes a pound laid away.
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