What Does Matthew 25:18 Mean?
But the one who had received one went and dug into the ground, and hid his lord's silver.
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
But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.THE KEY
He keeps what was entrusted to him intact, but buries it beyond every possibility of use.
THE MEANING
What is placed in the reader’s hands can be made inaccessible, left intact yet removed from every work it could do. The verse exposes a kind of stewardship that preserves the object while burying its purpose.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that keeping an entrusted thing untouched is the same as being faithful with it. Preservation can become concealment when it removes the thing from use.
THE ROOT
ἔκρυψεν
ekrypsen
GROWS FROM
κρυπ-
kryp-
To hide or conceal.
The Greek root also appears in words for what is hidden or kept secret, so “hid” carries the sense of putting something out of sight. Here the money is not lost; it is placed beyond use, and its concealment buries the possibility it held.
ALSO GROWS
kryptos: Hidden or secret.
κρυπτός
This related form appears in Matthew 6:4 for giving in secret; concealment can shelter an act, while here it removes entrusted money from use.
apokryptō: To hide away or keep concealed.
ἀποκρύπτω
This compound keeps the same κρυπ- root and makes the act of putting something out of sight explicit, echoing the servant’s burial of what he received.
THE PATTERN
What is entrusted becomes stewardship through active tending and use.
And the LORD God took Adam and set him down in the garden of Eden, to serve it and to guard it.And he called ten of his servants, and gave them ten minas, and said to them, "Trade with it until I come."As each has received a gift, serve it to one another as good stewards of the many-colored favor of God.THE THREAD
For nothing is hidden that will not be made visible, nor anything concealed that will not be known and come into the light.The word translated “hid” here and the hidden thing in Luke share the Greek κρυπ- (kryp-) root, meaning to conceal. Luke’s verse opens the image further: what is concealed is not beyond coming into the open.
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