Seventy Times Seven
21 Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I don’t tell you until seven times, but, until seventy times seven. 23 Therefore the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he had begun to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 But because he couldn’t pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 The servant therefore fell down and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, have patience with me, and I will repay you all!’ 27 The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him and forgave him the debt. 28 “But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him one hundred denarii, and he grabbed him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ 29 “So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will repay you!’ 30 He would not, but went and cast him into prison until he should pay back that which was due. 31 So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were exceedingly sorry, and came and told their lord all that was done. 32 Then his lord called him in and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. 33 Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?’ 34 His lord was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors until he should pay all that was due to him. 35 So my heavenly Father will also do to you, if you don’t each forgive your brother from your hearts for his misdeeds.”
Peter offers a generous limit on forgiving and is given a number meant to end the counting — then a parable about a debt nobody could pay.
Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?”
Peter has been listening, and the question follows straight from the procedure just given. His figure is generous — more than anyone would have required of him — and it is still a ceiling. The trouble with a ceiling is what it implies about the eighth time.
Jesus said to him, “I don’t tell you until seven times, but, until seventy times seven.
The number is not a raised limit. It is an answer designed to destroy the arithmetic, and anyone keeping a tally to four hundred and ninety has stopped forgiving and started auditing. There is an old echo in it too: a man in the line of Cain boasted of avenging himself seventy-seven fold Genesis 4:24, and the scale of the vengeance is turned into the scale of the pardon.
Then the parable, which is Matthew's own.
When he had begun to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.
The figure is deliberately absurd. A talent was many years' wages for a laborer, and ten thousand was the largest number the language had a word for; the sum is larger than the annual revenue of the province. This is not a debt anyone could work off. It is a number chosen to make repayment impossible.
The servant therefore fell down and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, have patience with me, and I will repay you all!’
The promise is sincere and it is nonsense, and it is exactly what a cornered man says. What he asks for is time.
The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him and forgave him the debt.
What he gets is not time. The debt is not rescheduled, reduced or secured against future earnings; it is canceled, and the loss lands entirely on the man who forgave it. That is what forgiveness costs, always — someone absorbs it.
“But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him one hundred denarii, and he grabbed him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’
The second debt is real. A hundred days' wages is a serious sum for a working man, and the parable does not pretend otherwise — the point is not that small wrongs do not matter. The point is the ratio, and the ratio is not close. The words the second man uses are almost the same words the first used minutes earlier, and in his case they were achievable: "Have patience with me, and I will repay you!" He could have. He is refused.
Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?’
The charge is not that he failed to be nice. It is that he received something and did not let it change how he handled the next case, which means he never understood what he received.
So my heavenly Father will also do to you, if you don’t each forgive your brother from your hearts for his misdeeds.”
The warning is severe and it is not a doctrine that pardon is earned by pardoning. The order in the parable runs the other way: the mercy came first, unasked for and total, and everything after it is response. What the ending says is that a forgiveness which stops at the recipient was never received at all — the same thing the prayer he taught them says in one line, and the only line of it he went back to explain Matthew 6:14–15.
And from your hearts closes the door on the procedure being used as a technique. The chapter has given a method for handling wrongs; it ends by saying the method is worthless without the thing it exists to serve.
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