This parable will be a challenge for some of us. You must forgive, or your Father in heaven won’t forgive you. Serious!
By now you may have read the memes: “Unforgiveness is like taking a poison pill yourself, which you had intended to give to the offending person” (or something like that). Unforgiveness is torment. You must end the torment even if it means to forgive. You may not be reconciled with the one who offended you, but you must forgive him or her.
Before we begin the exegesis …..
Quick definition of a parable:
Literally, the word parable (parabolē in Greek) combines para– (pronounced pah-rah) and means “alongside” and bolē (pronounced boh-lay) which means “put” or even “throw”). Therefore, a parable puts two or more images or ideas alongside each other to produce a new truth. […] The Shorter Lexicon says that the Greek word parabolē can sometimes be translated as “symbol,” “type,” “figure,” and “illustration,” the latter term being virtually synonymous with parable.
For more information on what a parable is and its purposes, click on this link:
The translation is mine. If you would like to see other translations, click here:
If you don’t read Greek, ignore the left column.
I often quote scholars in print because I learn many things from them. They form a community of teachers I respect (1 Cor. 12:28), though I don’t agree with everything they write. But they do ensure I do not go astray. There is safety in numbers (for me at least).
Now let’s begin.
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Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matt. 19:21-35) |
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| 21 Τότε προσελθὼν ὁ Πέτρος εἶπεν αὐτῷ· κύριε, ποσάκις ἁμαρτήσει εἰς ἐμὲ ὁ ἀδελφός μου καὶ ἀφήσω αὐτῷ; ἕως ἑπτάκις; 22 λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· οὐ λέγω σοι ἕως ἑπτάκις ἀλλ’ ἕως ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά.
23 Διὰ τοῦτο ὡμοιώθη ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν ἀνθρώπῳ βασιλεῖ, ὃς ἠθέλησεν συνᾶραι λόγον μετὰ τῶν δούλων αὐτοῦ. 24 ἀρξαμένου δὲ αὐτοῦ συναίρειν προσηνέχθη αὐτῷ εἷς ὀφειλέτης μυρίων ταλάντων. 25 μὴ ἔχοντος δὲ αὐτοῦ ἀποδοῦναι ἐκέλευσεν αὐτὸν ὁ κύριος πραθῆναι καὶ τὴν γυναῖκα καὶ τὰ τέκνα καὶ πάντα ὅσα ἔχει, καὶ ἀποδοθῆναι. 26 πεσὼν οὖν ὁ δοῦλος προσεκύνει αὐτῷ λέγων· μακροθύμησον ἐπ’ ἐμοί, καὶ πάντα ἀποδώσω σοι. 27 Σπλαγχνισθεὶς δὲ ὁ κύριος τοῦ δούλου ἐκείνου ἀπέλυσεν αὐτὸν καὶ τὸ δάνειον ἀφῆκεν αὐτῷ. 28 ἐξελθὼν δὲ ὁ δοῦλος ἐκεῖνος εὗρεν ἕνα τῶν συνδούλων αὐτοῦ, ὃς ὤφειλεν αὐτῷ ἑκατὸν δηνάρια, καὶ κρατήσας αὐτὸν ἔπνιγεν λέγων· ἀπόδος εἴ τι ὀφείλεις. 29 πεσὼν οὖν ὁ σύνδουλος αὐτοῦ παρεκάλει αὐτὸν λέγων· μακροθύμησον ἐπ’ ἐμοί, καὶ ἀποδώσω σοι. 30 ὁ δὲ οὐκ ἤθελεν ἀλλ’ ἀπελθὼν ἔβαλεν αὐτὸν εἰς φυλακὴν ἕως ἀποδῷ τὸ ὀφειλόμενον. 31 ἰδόντες οὖν οἱ σύνδουλοι αὐτοῦ τὰ γενόμενα ἐλυπήθησαν σφόδρα καὶ ἐλθόντες διεσάφησαν τῷ κυρίῳ ἑαυτῶν πάντα τὰ γενόμενα. 32 Τότε προσκαλεσάμενος αὐτὸν ὁ κύριος αὐτοῦ λέγει αὐτῷ· δοῦλε πονηρέ, πᾶσαν τὴν ὀφειλὴν ἐκείνην ἀφῆκά σοι, ἐπεὶ παρεκάλεσάς με· 33 οὐκ ἔδει καὶ σὲ ἐλεῆσαι τὸν σύνδουλόν σου, ὡς κἀγὼ σὲ ἠλέησα; 34 καὶ ὀργισθεὶς ὁ κύριος αὐτοῦ παρέδωκεν αὐτὸν τοῖς βασανισταῖς ἕως οὗ ἀποδῷ πᾶν τὸ ὀφειλόμενον. 35 οὕτως καὶ ὁ πατήρ μου ὁ οὐράνιος ποιήσει ὑμῖν, ἐὰν μὴ ἀφῆτε ἕκαστος τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῶν καρδιῶν ὑμῶν. |
21 At that time Peter approached and said to him, “Lord, how many times will my brother sin against me and I will forgive him? Up to seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not tell you seven times, but seventy-seven times!
23 For this reason, the kingdom of heaven is like a person, a king, who wanted to settle the accounts with his servants. 24 As he began to settle them, one debtor of ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25 Since he did not have it to pay him back, the lord ordered that he and his wife and children and everything he had to be sold and that he should be paid back. 26 So then, falling down, the servant prostrated himself before him and said, ‘Be patient with me!’ I’ll pay everything back to you!’ 27 The lord of that servant was moved with compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But that servant left and found one of his fellow-servants who owed him one hundred denarii. He seized and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe!’ 29 So then his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, saying, ‘Be patient with me! I’ll repay you!’ 30 But he was unwilling. Instead, he left and threw him into prison until he should pay back what was owed. 31 So then when his fellow-servants saw the things that happened, they were deeply grieved and went and reported to their lord everything that happened. 32 At that moment the lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt, because you pleaded with me! 33 Wasn’t it required that you show mercy to your fellow servant, just as I showed you mercy?’ 34 His lord, becoming angry, handed him over to the tormentors, until he should pay back everything that was owed. 35 So also in this way my Father who is in heaven will do to you unless you, each one, forgive his brother or sister, from your hearts.” |
The Gospel of Matthew was written for an original community (or communities). Here is commentator R. T. France’s insight, offering the main point of the parable.
“A community of the forgiven must be a forgiving community” (p. 702).
Wow. I wish I had thought of that!
Reminder: in Matthew 19:1-12, Jesus is about to teach on divorce. Forgiveness is the background to his teaching on divorce.
With those preliminaries concluded, let’s take the passage verse by verse.
21-22:
Peter approached Jesus and asked him a great question. Peter thought the number seven was the perfect number, which connoted completion. For him seven must have proven generosity of soul to forgive. However, Jesus multiplied that number to seventy. Another correct translation is seventy times seven or four hundred and ninety! Neither seventy nor seventy times seven should be taken literally, for they signify an endless number of times.
BDAG is a thick Greek lexicon. The initials stand for the four main editors who added to it over the decades: Bauer, Danker, Arndt, Gingrich. Many believe it to be the authoritative lexicon of the Greek NT. It is a remarkable achievement in any case.
“forgive”: it comes from the verb aphiēmi (pronounced ah-fee-ay-mee), and BDAG defines it with the basic meaning of letting go: (1) “dismiss or release someone or something from a place or one’s presence, let go, send away”; (2) “to release from legal or moral obligations or consequence, cancel, remit, pardon”; (3) “to move away with implication of causing a separation, leave, depart”; (4) “to leave something continue or remain in its place … let someone have something” (Matt. 4:20; 5:24; 22:22; Mark 1:18; Luke 10:30; John 14:18); (5) “leave it to someone to do something, let, let go, allow, tolerate.” The Shorter Lexicon (based on BDAG) adds “forgive.”
In sum, God lets go, dismisses, releases, sends away, cancels, pardons, and forgives our sins. His work is full and final. Don’t go backwards or dwell on it. Clearly the most significant definition in this context is the second one and the Shorter Lexicon’s. It means to forgive.
In these two verses, it means to forgive. In the rest of the entire pericope (pronounced puh-RIH-koh-pea) or section of Scripture about monetary debt, it can be translated “cancel” a debt or “release” a debt. The same word is used when the king released or dismissed his servant just after the king forgave or cancelled or released the servant’s debt.
Recall the verse in the Lord’s Model Prayer: “And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12). This is an extended parable which fills out that verse.
Matthew 6 (scroll down to v. 12)
23:
“servants”: The word servants here comes from the noun doulos (pronounced doo-loss and singular) and could be translated as slaves (in the plural), but I chose servants because in Jewish culture a Hebrew man who sold himself into servitude to his fellow Jew was like an indentured servant whose term of service had a limit; he was freed in the seventh year. But then the indentured servant could stay with his family, if he liked his owner (Exod. 21:2-6; Lev. 25:38-46; Deut. 15:12-18). So there was a lot of liberty even in servitude, in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).
Slavery and Freedom in the Bible
It is a sure thing, however, that Matthew’s Greek-speaking audience, knowledgeable about Greek culture, would have heard “slave” in the word doulos. So if you wish to interpret it like that, then that’s your decision. But culturally at that time slavery had nothing to do with colonial or modern slavery.
In this parable, however, a king had lots of slaves (and servants), so you can definitely run with the term.
“a person”: it is the Greek noun anthrōpos (pronounced ahn-throw-poss), and even in the plural some interpreters say that it means only “men.” However, throughout the Greek written before and during the NT, in the plural it means people in general, including womankind (except in some cases). In the singular it can mean “person.” So a “person” or “people” or “men and women” (and so on) is almost always the most accurate translation, despite what more conservative translations say.
As for “king,” this indicates a generic or fictitious king, and a king in Jesus’s parables almost always represents God, and servants represent Israelites. But in this context we should understand them to be all disciples of Jesus or his community.
24:
Once again, Jesus uses a startling image: “ten thousand talents.”
BDAG says of the talent:
The value […]
[…] differed considerably in various times and places, but was always comparatively high; it varied also with the metal involved, which might be gold, silver, or copper. In our literature only in Mt. 18:24; 25:15-28. In 18:24, at six thousand drachmas or denarii to the Tyrian talent, a day laborer would need to work 60,000,000 days to pay off the debt. Even assuming an extraordinary payback rate of 10 talents per year, the staggering amount would ensure imprisonment for at least 1,000 years. The amounts distributed in 25:15-28 are not small change, either (p. 988, slightly edited).
BDAG also (humorously) suggests translating the noun by the slang: “zillions.” We are forgiven “zillions,” but we are unwilling to forgive “peanuts” (Turner).
R. T. France:
A talent was originally a weight (probably thirty kilograms [or 66 pounds]) of metal; when used as a monetary term without specifying the metal involved, it would probably have been understood to be of silver. While the exact amount varied, a talent of silver was conventionally reckoned at six thousand denarii. If one denarius was an acceptable day’s wage for a laborer (see 20:1-15), a single talent would then represent what a laborer might hope to earn in half a lifetime. It was, at all events, a very large sum of money. Ten thousand talents (sixty million denarii; or some three hundred tons of silver!) is therefore a sum far outside any individual’s grasp. Ten thousand (myria, hence “myriad”) is the largest numeral for which a Greek term exists, and the talent is the largest known amount of money. When the two are combines, the effect is like our “zillions.” What God has forgiven his people is beyond human calculation. (p. 706).
The last sentence is the important one. His forgiveness is incalculable.
The literal number was hyperbole (pronounced hy-PER-boh-lee), which is rhetorical exaggeration for the purpose of shocking the listeners. The number is hyperbolic because it is doubtful that a large economy in the area could have so many talents flowing through it. And it was not possible that one servant could handle or acquire that amount. Jesus was proclaiming the surprising truth that our debt before God cannot be paid back by human means. And of course, the main truth of the parable is that we have to forgive, even if someone owes us an astronomical amount of debt.
25:
Biblical law allowed a man who became poor to sell himself into servitude, but he must not be treated as a slave (Lev. 25:29). Also, biblical law allowed a man to sell his daughter into servitude, and it seems to be for marriage, but she shall not be as a male slave (Exod. 21:7).
2. Torah and Slavery: Israelite Indentured Servants
However, this king was not subjected to biblical law. He intended to sell the servant and his wife and children. And even in that case the proceeds of the sale would not come anywhere near paying the amount owed. So once again, the story or illustration is built on hyperbole to illustrate our need to forgive others and our need for a Savior to save us from our sin-debt before God.
26-27:
Now of course the servant did the only thing he could do. He fell down to the ground and prostrated himself before the king his lord and begged for mercy.
Before we move on to the rest of the story, let’s do an old-fashioned word study of mercy and explore the verb and the related noun more deeply. The verb is splanchnizomai (pronounced splankh-nee-zoh-my) and is used 12 times, exclusively in the Gospels. “It describes the compassion Jesus had for those he saw in difficulty” (Mounce, New Expository Dictionary, p. 128). BDAG defines the verb simply: “have pity, feel sympathy.”
BDAG further says the noun splanchnon (pronounced splankh-non) is related to the inward part of the body, especially the viscera, inward parts, entrails. But some update their translation with the noun as “heart.” So the verb is also related to the inward parts of a person. It could be translated as “He felt compassion in the depths of his heart.”
As an important side note, in Hebrew the verb raḥam (pronounced ra-kham, and used 47 times) means “to have compassion on, show mercy, take pity on and show love.” The noun raḥamim (39 times) (pronounced rakh’meem) means “compassion, mercy, pity.” Both words are related to the word for “womb,” when a woman feels close to and love for the human life growing there. It’s deep in God, too.
Do I Really Know God? He Is Compassionate and Merciful
28-30:
He went out of the king’s presence and instantly found a fellow-servant (it could be translated literally as “co-servant”) who owed him 100 denarii. A denarius was a farm laborer’s daily wage, so the amount could be paid back, with difficulty, because the second debtor had to keep back some for his own living. On the other hand, the king may have supplied the food for all of his household, and if so, then the co-servant could have paid him back in less than a year. Regardless, the detailed historical background is not the main point. Forgiveness is.
31:
I like how the co-servants responded. They were deeply grieved. They could see that mercy was the right response from someone who had just been shown mercy. Mercy for mercy—not mercy for cruelty. The unforgiving servant was morally blind.
32-34:
Now his lord heard the report about the unforgiving servant who had just been forgiven. He summoned the forgiven servant and asked the obvious, so that question was really a statement. It was required to return mercy for mercy or rather to pay mercy forward. But the obtuse forgiven servant did not extend even a small amount of mercy to his co-servant. His lord became angry and tossed the man to the prison and tormenters in prison.
35:
The pronouns “you … “his” … “your” are like that in Greek because Jesus says, “unless you, each one, forgive …” He shifts from second person plural (“you forgive”) to third person singular (“each one”).
In any case, let’s get back to the main point.
So our Father will do the same to us. So now the question becomes: will the Father turn us over or hand us over to the tormentors? Isn’t the Father more merciful than that? He must be the one who torments, right? No, he is not the one who torments. He judges our heart and sees what is in it. He turns us over or hands us over to our own hearts, just as he turned Pharaoh over to judgment because the Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. God works with what we humans have in our hearts because he has gifted us with a large degree of free will. And if our hearts refuse to forgive, then God, in response to what is in there, hands us over to our own heart’s shriveled capacity. If our heart is generous and open, he gladly gives us wonderful gifts. If our hearts are cold and small, then he treats us accordingly.
In any case, unforgiveness is like being tormented in your soul. You must be willing to forgive and then actually forgive. It may be an act of the will, not of your emotions. But if you do not forgive, your soul will be turned over to the tormenters.
Incidentally, the Greek noun for “tormenters” can be translated as “jailers.” So someone who does not forgive is either in prison of the soul or in torment of the soul.
The most challenging phrase in the whole parable is: if we don’t forgive each person from our hearts. Only God’s grace can enable us to so that, and it may be a process. Pray!
Commentator D. L. Turner: “It may be difficult to reconcile the discipline process in 18:15-20 with the obligation of unlimited forgiveness in 18:21-35. Yet both are consistent with the controlling motif of the chapter: the proper treatment of the little ones, the brothers and sisters, the children of the heavenly Father. Disciples dare not allow this family to be disrupted by offenses, yet they cannot resolve offenses without a forgiving spirit. … If this delicate balance between discipline and forgiveness is faithfully maintained, excommunication is self-imposed exile” (p. 452).
Commentator D. A. Carson: “Jesus sees no incongruity in the actions of a heavenly Father who forgives so bountifully and punishes so ruthlessly, and neither should we. Indeed, it is precisely because he is a God of such compassion and mercy that he cannot possibly accept as his those devoid of compassion and mercy” (p. 405).
GrowApp for Matt. 18:21-35
A.. Wow. This is a very challenging parable about forgiving others, as we have been forgiven. Study Matt. 6:12. Are we willing to forgive from the heart as we have been forgiven?
B.. Tell your story of God showing you forgiveness of your astronomical sin-debt and then his requiring you to forgive a small moral debt someone else owed you.
SOURCES
At this link you will find a bibliography at the very bottom:
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 