For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
For whosoever hath (that is, keeps; as a thing which he values), to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance - he will be rewarded by an increase of what he so much prizes.
But whosoever hath not (who lets this go or lie unused, as a thing on which he sets no value) from him shall be taken away even that he hath - or as it is in Luke (Luke 8:18), "what he seemeth to have" х ho (G3588) dokei (G1380) echein (G2192)], or 'thinketh he hath.' This is a principle of immense importance, and, like other weighty sayings, appears to have been uttered by our Lord on more than one occasion, and in different connections. (See the note at Matthew 25:9.) As a great ethical principle, we see it in operation everywhere, under the general law of habit; in virtue of which moral principles become stronger by exercise, while by disuse, or the exercise of their contraries, they wax weaker, and at length expire, The same principle reigns in the intellectual world, and even in the animal-if not in the vegetable also-as the facts of physiology sufficiently prove. Here, however, it is viewed as a divine ordination, as a judicial retribution in continual operation under the divine administration.