For unto everyone that has shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that has not shall be taken away even that which he has.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
For unto every one that hath, &c. The Arab. Isaiah , Unto him that hath shall be given, and shall be added; and from him that hath not shall be taken away that which is with him.
To every one that hath. S. Chrysostom and S. Augustine explain this to mean, all who rightly use their talents. For Hebrews , in truth, possesses a talent who rightly uses it. For the idle person, who does not make use of it, does not appear really to have it.
But he who hath not, that is to say, the gain of the talents and the grace acquired by him; or, he who has not, in the sense that he does not use his talent, as I have said, even that which he seemeth to have, that Isaiah , the talent which he has suffered to lie idle, so that he has not so much had it, as seemed to have it, shall be taken away from him. After a like fashion saith the comic poet, "The covetous man lacks that which he hath as much as if he had it not." He hides it in his chest, so that it is the chest which hath it, not himself. The cov...
To every one that hath That is, who hath, so as to have made good use of, or to have improved, what was committed to his trust and management. See the notes Matthew xiii, ver. 12. (Witham)
When those who are gifted with the grace of understanding for the benefit of others, refuse to make a proper use of the gift, that grace is of consequence withdrawn; whereas had they employed it with zeal and diligence, they would have received additional graces. (St. Chrysostom, hom. lxxix.)
This, moreover, shows that God never requires of men more than he has enabled them to perform.
