In the course of the eighteenth chapter of the book of Matthew, the apostle Peter brought up the topic of forgiveness, asking:
“Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21-22)
Some Bible versions translate this as “seventy times seven,” which is also a legitimate way to translate the original Greek. Jesus either said His disciples should forgive someone 77 times or 490 times. In any case, Jesus’ point was that His followers are always meant to forgive others. This conversation is followed by theparable of the unforgiving servant.
The parable starts with:
The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. (Matthew 18:23-24)
This is a fantastical opening because ten thousand talents represented an astronomical amount of money. A talent was a measure of weight used in those days, probably about thirty kilograms (about 66 pounds). When referring to monetary value, it was more specifically a weight of either silver or gold.
If Jesus was referring to talents of silver, one talent would have had the value of about six thousand denarii (a silver coin of the time). One denarius was considered a day’s wage for a laborer. So one talent of silver (six thousand silver coins) was worth about 20 years of work. Ten thousand talents, or sixty million denarii, was clearly an absurdly huge debt.
And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. (Matthew 18:25)
The servant’s inability to repay such an immense loan meant that he and his family were to be sold into slavery until the debt was paid. In 2 Kings we read of an example in biblical times of children being sold until a debt was paid:
The wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.” (2 Kings 4:1)
So the servant fell on his knees, imploring [the king], ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. (Matthew 18:26-27)
The servant was asking for an extension of time so that he could pay the debt, but the king went well beyond the request and completely freed him from having to repay it at all. What an act of magnanimity! He forgave a debt of three hundred thousand kilos of silver. Imagine the shock, relief, and gratitude of the indebted servant.
Jesus continued the story:
But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. (Matthew 18:28-30)
The servant who had been forgiven his own debt—which amounted to sixty million denarii—was owed one hundred denarii by another servant, the equivalent of four months’ wages for a common worker. The ratio between what the servant had owed the king and what the fellow servant owed his coworker was 600,000 to 1.11
The man who had been forgiven the astronomical amount responded not with the compassion which had been showed to him, but with violence and judgment. The indebted servant acted in the same manner as the forgiven servant had, by prostrating himself before the one he was indebted to and begging for patience, while promising to repay the debt. However, the response was the opposite. Instead of giving his fellow servant more time to pay or compassionately cancelling the debt, the unforgiving servant sent the man to jail.
When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. (Matthew 18:31)
While it might have been legitimate at the time to send someone to prison for nonpayment of debts, this act showed a serious lack of compassion under the circumstances. The other servants, appalled at the unforgiving servant’s heartlessness and harshness, informed the master of this injustice.
Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. (Matthew 18:32-34)
The king was rightfully furious, calling the servant wicked. He referred to the huge amount of debt that he had forgiven because the servant had beseeched him for mercy; yet he, who had been forgiven so much, was unwilling to forgive another. Having been shown such abundant mercy, the servant should have done the same for others. But he didn’t, and he was going to be judged for it. This unforgiving servant was condemned until all his debt would be repaid—which, due to the massive amount, meant he would die in prison suffering.
After telling this parable, Jesus addressed the listeners with a deeply unsettling statement:
So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. (Matthew 18:35)
This parable dramatically portrays how serious it is to not forgive others, and it aligns with Jesus’ teachings about forgiveness elsewhere in the Gospels. When teaching His disciples to pray, He included the phrase:
Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. (Matthew 6:12)
He also taught:
If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6:14-15)
This parable puts these teachings into story form in order to help us recognize how important it is to forgive others. It illustrates the necessity of human forgiveness as a condition for divine mercy.
When God passed before Moses on Mount Sinai, He described Himself by saying: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.” (Exodus 34:6-7) One of God’s attributes is forgiveness, and as Jesus illustrated through this parable, as God’s children we are meant to imitate Him by forgiving others—just as He has forgiven us.
Text adapted from the series “The Stories Jesus Told”
