Pursuing Justice
Learning the crucial importance of forgiveness
Introduction
Notes and Additional Info
b. The parable of the unmerciful servant (18:23–35)
23 “Therefore,” since Jesus requires his followers to forgive, the kingdom of heaven has become like (not “is like”; see on 13:24) a king who …: the reference is to the kingdom already being inaugurated. The reign of God establishes certain kinds of personal relationships, portrayed by this parable, whose point is spelled out in 18:35. It quite misses the point to identify kingdom and church and argue that just as the king, though merciful, must be severe in judging the unforgiving, so the church must follow a similar pattern (so Hill, Matthew). “Kingdom” and “church” are distinct categories (see esp. on 13:37–39), and the immediate context has returned to the question of repeated, personal forgiveness (18:21–22) and the reasons for it. Those in the kingdom serve a great king who has invariably forgiven far more than they can ever forgive one another. Therefore failure to forgive excludes one from the kingdom, whose pattern is to forgive.
The “servants” (douloi, lit., “slaves”) may include high-ranking civil servants in a huge colonial empire, for the amount of indebtedness is astronomical (v. 24). Yet Jesus may simply be using hyperbole to make clear how much the heirs of the kingdom have really been forgiven.
24–27 We glimpse some idea of the size of the indebtedness when we recall that David donated three thousand talents of gold and seven thousand talents of silver for the construction of the temple, and the princes provided five thousand talents of gold and ten thousand talents of silver (1 Chronicles 29:4, 7). Some recent estimates suggest a dollar value of twelve million; but with inflation and fluctuating precious metal prices, this could be over a billion dollars in today’s currency. (For “talent,” see on 25:15.)
Such indebtedness could not possibly be covered by selling the family into slavery (v. 25): top price for a slave fetched about one talent, and one-tenth that amount or less was more common. The practice of being sold for debt was sanctioned by the OT (Lev 25:39; 2 Kings 4:1), but such slaves had to be freed in the year of Jubilee (every fiftieth year). (For Jewish and Gentile slavery in Jesus’ day, cf. EBC, 1:489 SBK, 4:697–716; Jeremias, Jerusalem, pp. 312ff., 345ff.)
In this parable selling the slave and his family does not mean the debt is canceled but rather highlights the servant’s desperate plight. With neither resources nor hope, he begs for time and promises to pay everything back (v. 26)—an impossibility. So the master takes pity on him and cancels the indebtedness (v. 27). The word daneion (“loan,” a hapax legomenon) suggests that the king mercifully decides to look on the loss as a bad loan rather than embezzlement; but by v. 32 he abandons that terminology and calls it a “debt.”
28–31 The servant’s attitude is appalling. The amount owed him is not insignificant: though worth but a few dollars in terms of metal currency, a hundred denarii (v. 28) represented a hundred days’ wages for a foot soldier or common laborer. Yet the amount is utterly trivial compared with what has already been forgiven him. The similarity of his fellow servant’s plea (v. 29) to his own (v. 26) does not move this unforgiving man. He has him thrown into a debtor’s prison (v. 30). Even an inexpensive slave sold for five hundred denarii, and it was illegal to sell a man for a sum greater than his debt. But the other servants (v. 31), deeply distressed by the inequity, tell the master everything (diesaphēsan is a strong verb meaning “explained in detail,” not merely “told” [NIV]; it occurs in the NT only here and at 13:36).
32–34 When the servant owes ten thousand talents, the king forgives him; but when the servant shows himself unforgiving toward a fellow servant, the king calls him wicked (v. 32) and, foregoing selling him, turns him over to the “torturers” (basanistais, not merely “jailers,” NIV); the word reminds us of earlier warnings in this chapter (18:6, 8–9). The servant is to be tortured till he pays back all he owes (v. 34), which he can never do.
35 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. This is not to say that the king’s compassion can be earned: far from it, the servant is granted freedom only by virtue of the king’s forgiveness. As in 6:12, 14–15, those who are forgiven must forgive, lest they show themselves incapable of receiving forgiveness.