What Does Luke 19:23 Mean?
Why then did you not put my silver upon the table, so that when I came I might have collected what was mine with its offspring?"
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
Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?THE KEY
The word translated “usury” is τόκος (tókos), meaning interest or offspring: the verse pictures entrusted money as something expected to bring forth more.
THE MEANING
The expectation reaches even a simple deposit: what is entrusted is meant to enter a process that can yield a return. The master’s coming makes that return visible and answerable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that keeping what is entrusted untouched is automatically faithful; even placing it with a bank would have produced a return.
THE ROOT
τόκος
tókos
GROWS FROM
τικτ- (τίκτω, tíktō)
To bring forth or bear; τόκος names offspring and, by extension, interest.
English “usury” can sound like a fee, but τόκος carries the image of something born from what was entrusted. The word makes the return feel like offspring: the original value yields more.
ALSO GROWS
tíktō: To bring forth or bear.
τίκτω
It is the verb behind the root image: the money is expected to bring forth a return.
téknon: Child or offspring.
τέκνον
This related word preserves the birth-and-issue image carried by τόκος, making “interest” more than a bare financial term.
THE PATTERN
What is entrusted is expected to enter a process that yields a return.
You ought, then, to have put my silver with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received what is mine along with its offspring.I planted, Apollos gave to drink, but God made it grow.THE THREAD
You ought, then, to have put my silver with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received what is mine along with its offspring.Matthew uses the same Greek word, τόκος (tókos), translated “usury” in both verses. Its sense of offspring reveals the shared image: entrusted value is expected to bring forth a return.
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