Jesus Christ · On One Another
Seventy Times Seven
Peter thinks he is being generous. The rabbis’ maxim allowed a man three pardons; Peter doubles it and adds one, up to the perfect number — “till seven times?” Jesus’s answer reaches past the arithmetic of generosity entirely, back to the oldest revenge-song in the Bible, and runs it in reverse: the number Lamech claimed for unlimited vengeance becomes the number of unlimited forgiveness. Then, before anyone can admire the principle from a distance, He tells a story about two debts whose sizes cannot fit on the same page — and ends it in the one place a ledger cannot reach: the heart.
Peter's Offer
— Matthew 18:21 — double the rabbis, plus oneThe question comes right after Jesus has taught how to win back a brother who sins against you (Matt 18:15-20). Peter has been listening, and he wants a number: how many times does this go on? His “seven times” is not stinginess — the teaching he grew up under counted three pardons as righteous. Peter more than doubles the standing standard and rounds it up to the number of completeness, and by every measure he knows, that is magnanimous.
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not just seven times, but seventy-seven times!Till seven times? - Though seven was a number of perfection among the Hebrews, and often meant much more than the units in it imply, yet it is evident that Peter uses it here in its plain literal sense, as our Lords words sufficiently testify. It was a maxim among the Jews never to forgive more than thrice: Peter enlarges this charity more than one half; and our Lord makes even his enlargement septuple, see Mat 18:22. Revenge is natural to man, i.e. man is naturally a vindictive being, and, in consequence, nothing is more difficult to him than forgiveness of injuries.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Matt 18:21
The Number
— 490, or 77 — and why it does not matter whichThe Greek phrase — hebdomēkontakis hepta— can be read two ways, and the church has carried both from the beginning. Read it as “seventy times seven” and the count is four hundred and ninety — the reading of the King James tradition, and of Jerome, who spelled the figure out. Read it as “seventy-seven times” and it lands exactly on a verse from Genesis — the reading of Tertullian and Augustine, and of most modern margins. Neither reading has ever been the church’s test of anything, because both point the same direction:
Till seventy times seven - That is, as often as there is occasion. A certain number is put for an uncertain.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on Matt 18:22
What then saith Christ, the good God, who is loving towards man? "I say not unto thee, until seven times, but, until seventy times seven," not setting a number here, but what is infinite and perpetual and forever.
John Chrysostom· Homily on the Gospel of Matthew 61 (407), on Matt 18:21-22
Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, Until seventy times seven--that is, so long as it shall be needed and sought: you are never to come to the point of refusing forgiveness sincerely asked.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Matt 18:22
The two readings, and who holds eacha translation fork, honestly laid out
“Seventy times seven” (= 490):the rendering of the KJV, ASV and BSB text; Jerome entertained it arithmetically (“four hundred and ninety times”), and Adam Clarke did the sum in his notes. On this reading the number is a deliberately unreachable total — no one keeps a 490-row grievance ledger.
“Seventy-seven times”:the reading of Tertullian (quoted below), Augustine — who delighted that Luke’s genealogy runs seventy-seven generations from Christ back to Adam, every generation of sin answered — and of most modern translations’ main text or margin. Its strongest argument is that the Greek Old Testament uses this exact phrase at Genesis 4:24, in Lamech’s boast.
Both readings agree on the point every commentator above states: a certain number stands for an uncertain one. Jesus is not raising the ceiling; He is removing it.
Lamech's Song, Run Backwards
— Genesis 4:24 — the oldest revenge-boast in the BibleSeven generations from Adam, Lamech — Cain’s line — stands over a man he has killed and sings to his wives: if Cain is avenged seven times, Lamech seventy-seven. It is the Bible’s first poem after Eden, and it is a boast of escalating, unlimited vengeance. When Jesus reaches for that number and hangs it on forgiveness instead, the echo is not an accident: the arithmetic of Cain’s family is repealed at its own figure.
Then Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; wives of Lamech, listen to my speech. For I have slain a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”Lamech's boast — the number in its first mouth.
Watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to say, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”the same teaching in Luke — seven times in one day, forgiven seven times.
And when Peter had put the question whether remission were to be granted to a brother seven times, "Nay," saith He, "seventy-seven times; " in order to remould the Law for the better; because in Genesis vengeance was assigned "seven times" in the case of Cain, but in that of Lamech "seventy-seven times.
Tertullian· On Prayer (c. 220), on Matt 18:21
Seventy times seven - There is something very remarkable in these words, especially if collated with Gen 4:24, where the very same words are used - If any man kill Lamech, he shall be avenged seventy times seven. The just God punishes sin in an exemplary manner. Sinful man, who is exposed to the stroke of Divine justice, should be abundant in forgiveness, especially as the merciful only shall find mercy. See the note on Mat 5:7, and on Mat 6:14, Mat 6:15 (note). The sum seventy times seven makes four hundred and ninety.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Matt 18:22
The Unmerciful Servant
— Matthew 18:23-35 — the arithmetic is the sermonThen Jesus tells the story: a servant owing his king a figure so large it was the biggest number Greek arithmetic could write, forgiven outright on a plea for patience — who walks out and takes a colleague by the throat over three months’ wages. The parable’s two debts are not close enough to compare, and that is the entire point:
What the servant owed the king
10,000 talents
≈ 60,000,000 days' wages. a myriad — the largest number Greek arithmetic wrote — of the largest unit of money it had
What his fellow servant owed him
100 denarii
≈ 100 days' wages — about three months. real money to a working man; nothing beside the first line
600,000 to 1
the second bar above is drawn at its true scale — and still drawn generously
One was brought who owed him ten thousand talents - According to the usual computation, if these were talents of gold, this would amount to seventy-two millions sterling.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on Matt 18:24
Seest thou how great the difference between sins against man and against God? As great as between ten thousand talents, and a hundred pence, or rather even much more.
John Chrysostom· Homily on the Gospel of Matthew 61 (407), on Matt 18:23-35
Observe the exactness of Scripture; the servant who owed many talents fell down, and worshipped the king; he who owed the hundred denarii falling down, did not worship, but besought his fellow servant, saying, Have patience. But the ungrateful servant did not even respect the very words which had saved himself, for it follows, but he would not.
Origen of Alexandria· Catena Aurea by Aquinas (c. 253), on Matt 18:29-30
From Your Hearts
— Matthew 18:35 — where the ledger cannot reachThe parable ends with the king’s question — “shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?” — and Jesus ends with an application He states in the plainest terms in the Gospels. The forgiveness He requires is not procedural. It is “from your hearts,” the one place no count of seven or seventy-seven or four hundred ninety can be kept at all.
Then the master summoned him and declared, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave all your debt because you begged me. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had on you?’That is how My heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”the teaching's last word — 'from your hearts.'
(Verse 35) In this way, my heavenly Father will also do to you, unless each one of you forgives his brother from your heart. This is a frightening statement, if the divine judgment is turned and changed according to our own judgment. If we do not forgive our brothers for small offenses, God will not forgive us for great offenses.
Jerome· Commentary on Matthew (420), on Matt 18:35
What then means the parable? "So likewise shall my Father do also unto you," He saith, "if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses." He saith not "your Father," but "my Father." For it is not meet for God to be called the Father of such a one, who is so wicked and malicious.
John Chrysostom· Homily on the Gospel of Matthew 61 (407), on Matt 18:35
The same clause He put in the prayer
This is not the only place Jesus binds the Father’s forgiveness and ours into one sentence — He built the same clause into the prayer He taught, and it is the only petition He stopped to underline afterward:
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive yours.the Lord's Prayer's own footnote — the full study lives at its page.
Where It Points
— the ten thousand talents, paidThe parable is not finally about a king and a servant. The unpayable debt is the hearer’s own, and the story only works on someone who knows it has been forgiven. The cross is where the ten thousand talents were paid — which is why the New Testament’s own restatement of this teaching runs through it: forgiving one another, “just as in Christ God forgave you.”
Closing
Peter asked for a ceiling and was handed Lamech’s number turned inside out — a figure chosen precisely because no one counting that high is counting at all. The parable supplies the reason: whoever has been forgiven ten thousand talents has lost the standing to choke anyone over a hundred denarii.