and I was afraid, and went away and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, thou hast thine own.

And being afraid I went and hid thy talent in the earth: behold here thou hast that which is thine.

and being afraid I went away and hid thy talent in the earth; behold, thou hast that which is thine.

and having been afraid, having gone away, I hid thy talent in the earth; lo, thou hast thine own!

So being afraid I went and buried your talent in the ground: there you have what belongs to you.'

And I was in fear, and went away, and put your talent in the earth: here is what is yours.

and, in my fear, I went and hid your money in the ground; look, here is what belongs to you!'

I was afraid - I feared lest, by some accident, thy talent would be lost if I put it out to trade, and that I should be severely punished by a hard master. I therefore kept it laid up safely, and hid it where it could not be lost.
That is thine - There is what properly belongs to thee. There is the original talent that thou gavest me, and that is all that can be reasonably required. Observe here:
1. That this expresses exactly the feelings of all sinners. God, in their view, is hard, cruel, unjust.
2. All the excuses of sinners are excuses for indolence and sin, and the effect is to cheat themselves out of heaven. The effect of this excuse was that the reward was lost, and such will always be the result of the excuses of sinners for not doing their duty.
3. Sinners grudge everything to God. They are never willing to be liberal toward him but are stinted and close; and if they give, they do it with hard feelings, and say that that is all that he can claim.

And I was afraid,.... The Persic version adds, "to negotiate with thy money": he was afraid, lest by trading he should not gain what his Lord expected; and most of all, lest he should lose the talent itself; and dreaded his Lord's austerity, should that be the case, fearing that he would have no mercy on him. This was his pretence; but the true causes were sloth and earthly mindedness:
and went and hid thy talent in the earth; that it might not be lost, though it lay useless, and turned to no account. The Arabic version renders it, "and buried thy goods in the earth": he owned the money to be his Lord's, and thought he did very well, and enough, that he preserved it, though he had not improved it; and this he hoped would be a sufficient excuse, and on which he laid the greatest stress:
lo! there thou hast that is thine: he again acknowledges, that the gifts he had were not his own, but his master's; and whereas he had kept them entire, as he had received them, and there was the full sum he was intrusted with, he hoped no more would be required: but it is not sufficient to retain what is given, it must be made use of and improved; for every spiritual gift is given to profit with: and besides, there seems to be a degree of rudeness in these words; he does not bring the talent with him, and return it, but only signifies that he had hid it in the earth, in such a place, and "there" it was, where his Lord might take it, and have it again, if he pleased.

And I was afraid--of making matters worse by meddling with it at all.
and went and hid thy talent in the earth--This depicts the conduct of all those who shut up their gifts from the active service of Christ, without actually prostituting them to unworthy uses. Fitly, therefore, may it, at least, comprehend those, to whom TRENCH refers, who, in the early Church, pleaded that they had enough to do with their own souls, and were afraid of losing them in trying to save others; and so, instead of being the salt of the earth, thought rather of keeping their own saltness by withdrawing sometimes into caves and wildernesses, from all those active ministries of love by which they might have served their brethren.
Thou wicked and slothful servant--"Wicked" or "bad" means "falsehearted," as opposed to the others, who are emphatically styled "good servants." The addition of "slothful" is to mark the precise nature of his wickedness: it consisted, it seems, not in his doing anything against, but simply nothing for his master.
Thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed--He takes the servant's own account of his demands, as expressing graphically enough, not the hardness which he had basely imputed to him, but simply his demand of a profitable return for the gift entrusted.

And I was afraid - Lest if I had improved my talent, I should have had the more to answer for. So from this fear, one will not learn to read, another will not hear sermons!