Bible Strands
Matthew 25:18
But the servant who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master’s money.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jesus addresses his disciples within the parable, positioning this servant’s action between the productive steward’s success and the master’s eventual return. The narrative moment captures the interval of entrusted responsibility before final accountability.
The words — ἀπελθὼν (apelthōn) means "having gone away" and ὤρυξεν (ōruxen) means "he dug," describing the servant’s deliberate withdrawal and excavation. These Greek forms highlight the intentional sequence of hiding the master’s money.
The thread — The pattern of concealing entrusted resources parallels the warning in Proverbs 18:9 that slothful work makes one a brother to a destroyer. It also anticipates the New Testament charge against spiritual ineffectiveness found in 2 Peter 1:8.
Why it lands — The text states that the servant actively buried the master’s funds rather than multiplying them. It requires the reader to treat passive preservation of what is entrusted as failure and to prepare for direct accountability.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.
Cross-references
- 2 Peter 1:8 For if you possess these qualities and continue to grow in them, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
- Proverbs 18:9 Whoever is slothful in his work is brother to him who destroys.
- Proverbs 26:13 The slacker says, “A lion is in the road! A fierce lion roams the public square!”
- Haggai 1:2 that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the LORD.’”
- Malachi 1:10 “Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would no longer kindle useless fires on My altar! I take no pleasure in you,” says the LORD of Hosts, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.
- Luke 19:20 Then another servant came and said, ‘Master, here is your mina, which I have laid away in a piece of cloth.
- Hebrews 6:12 Then you will not be sluggish, but will imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.