The Hard Sayings: Matthew 13:44

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

This article is part of a series explaining the sayings of Jesus that are hard to understand. To see a list of these verses, go to this page.

This verse is part of Jesus's explanation of the Parable of the Weeds. Jesus spoke this to his apostles after they went off with him into a house and asked him to explain his parable. As in the previous hard verse, the key problems here result from sloppy translation, which grows sloppier in the more modern versions. The problems here come from one of the commonly neglected areas of translation that seldom causes problems: the tenses of verbs. The translators confuse the tenses of the far past, the story’s time and the present. This is an unusual problem because Jesus seldom uses verb tense to make his point as he does here.

Below is Jesus’s parable given in a modern Biblical translation of Matthew 13:44:

NIV: The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

As we detail in the analysis of this verse at ChristsWords.com, this modern version has seventeen translation issues. Below, we show the NIV version with its translation issues noted with boldfaced letters.

The kingdom of (MW) heaven(WN) is like treasure hidden(WT,WV) in a(WW) field. (MW) When(IW) a man found(WF, WT) it, he hid(WT) it again(IW), and then in(CW) his (MW) joy went(WT) and sold(WT) all he had(WT) and bought(WT) that (MW) field.

Along with the common Missing Words (MW) and other problems (see analysis), seven verbs in this verse are in the Wrong Tense (WT). These sentences are unusual because their verbs go from the past perfect tense (hidden), to the special Greek tense that is used for most stories (found, hid), to the present tense (went, sold, had, bought). This present tense is what is very unusual here. In the Greek, this use of the present in a story calls attention to itself and implies a purpose.

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The phrase "the kingdom of heaven" is one of Jesus’s most common catchphrases. He uses it in over a hundred verses. In Greek, it is literally, “the realm of the skies.” In his era, “the skies” were the highest things that people could see. This made it an analogy for the highest states of being. Why is it plural? Jesus might mean all our earthly skies, “sunny,” “cloudy,” starry,” etc. Or he might mean more than just the “sky” we can see. The "realm of the skies" might be understood as a description of higher realities. Jesus equates this dimension with “the Divine,” using the realm of the skies and the realm of the Divine somewhat interchangeably (see this article).

Far Past

The word translated as "hidden" describing the treasure means "hide," "bury," and "cover." It is passive and in the perfect tense indicating an action completed in the past, "having been hidden."  Someone was hiding the treasure, but it is no longer currently being hidden, even though the treasure is still there. The ability to buy the land makes it clear that the landowner knows nothing about it. This suggests that its hiding was so long ago that the treasure is now long forgotten. We can think of this past perfect as the “far past.”

However, the English tense of the modern translation is the simple past, an incomplete act, suggesting that someone still owned this treasure. This makes it seem as though the owner was still around, and that the discoverer is stealing it by buying the land to get its ownership,

Story Time

The next two verbs are in the Greek tense that means “at some time,” which is the normal tense Jesus uses in stories. This special tense can be translated as the past, present, or future depending on the context, but it is usually translated in the English past tense, as most of our stories are. This Greek story tense simplifies story-telling. Greek does not have all the past tense form of English so this tense is completely determined by context.

There are two verbs written in this “story time” tense. The term used for "found" means "find out" and "discover." It is in the form of an adjective, "finding." This verbal adjective describes the man as having found it. The verb translated as "hides" is the same as the verb “hidden” above, but here it is an active verb, describing his first action at the time.

The Present

After the phrase “then in his joy,” the action suddenly changes to the present tense. The rest of this verse in the present. In modern Gospel translations, these verbs are translated as the past (went, sold, had, bought) instead of the present (goes, sells, has, buys).

The first three are common verbs. "Went " is from a Greek verbal command that Jesus usually uses to mean "go away" and "depart." The Greek word translated as "sold" is from a word that means "to sell" and "to exchange." The word translated as "had" means "to possess" or "to keep." However, "bought " is an uncommon verb that means "to buy in the market" and "to buy for oneself." Its latter meaning is key here.

Because these verb are translated into the past, we cannot hear what must have been so surprising to his listeners: the sudden change from the story tense to the present tense. It is a little odd for us as well since our stories are usually written in the various forms of the past tense.

Here is how this verse reads, accurately translating its words tenses:

LISTENERS HEARD: This realm of these skies is like a treasure having been hidden in this field, which a person finding it, concealed, and, out of that joy of his, he departed and exchanges as much as he possesses and buys for himself that field there.

The Lost Meaning

What did this change of tense mean to his apostles? It meant that the end of this story was happening now. This analogy is changed into a story about the past to one about the apostles themselves. They were the ones who at that time were selling all they had in order to buy the land with the hidden treasure. But he is forcing them to figure this out on their own. Their only clue being his change of verb tense to the present and the meaning of the final verb, “he buys for himself.”

This is also the way that we should hear this verse today. We should feel that we or should be giving up everything for a hidden treasure. Does Jesus explain this more in the following verse? We will find out next week.

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