What Does Mark 10:21 Mean?
Jesus looked at him and loved him, and said to him, One thing is lacking to you. Go, sell what you have, and give to the emptied, and you will have treasure in heaven. Come, take up the cross, and follow me.
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
Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.THE KEY
Jesus holds the man in love while naming the thing he must release to follow.
THE MEANING
Jesus looks at you with love and names a lack that possessions cannot fill. The invitation is concrete: release what you own to the poor, place your treasure in heaven, and follow him, even carrying the cross.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being loved means nothing costly will be asked of you.
THE ROOT
ὑστερεῖ
hysterei
GROWS FROM
ὑστερ-
hyster-
To be behind or come short; hence, to lack.
“lackest” in this verse is hysterei. The word carries the sense of falling short, not merely having too little. Jesus names a real lack in the midst of abundance: what the man owns has not brought him to the freedom of following.
ALSO GROWS
hysterēma: Lack, deficiency
ὑστέρημα
This related word makes the shared root’s sense of a shortfall explicit.
hysteros: Later, behind
ὕστερος
The same root’s sense of being behind gives “lackest” a dimension English can flatten into simple absence.
θησαυρόν
thēsauron
GROWS FROM
θησαυρ-
thēsaur-
Treasure or a store of value.
The verse does not ask the man simply to become poorer; it speaks of where his treasure is stored. What he releases toward the poor is joined to a different store, “in heaven.”
ALSO GROWS
thēsaurizō: To store up treasure
θησαυρίζω
This related verb appears in the invitation to lay up treasure in Matthew 6:20, clarifying the sense of value being stored.
thēsaurophylakion: Treasury, storehouse
θησαυροφυλάκιον
This compound word names a place where treasure is kept, echoing the verse’s attention to treasure’s location.
THE PATTERN
Possessions become treasure with God when they are released toward people in need.
But you shall open your hand wide to him, and you shall surely lend him enough for what he lacks.Whoever lends to the LORD shows favor to the emptied one, and what his hands have done, he makes whole for him.Sell what you have, and give compassion. Make for yourselves purses that do not wear out, a treasure in the heavens that does not run out, where no thief draws near and no moth destroys.THE THREAD
For all have missed the mark, and fall short of the weight of God.The verb translated “lackest” here and “come short” there belongs to the same Greek family: ὑστερέω (hystereō), to lack or fall short. The shared root opens this moment beyond one man’s possessions: the loving gaze meets a shortfall without concealing it.
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