Then Peter approaching asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. 23 That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. 25 Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt. 26 At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’ 27 Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan. 28 When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ 29 Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ 30 But he refused. Instead, he had him put in prison until he paid back the debt. 31 Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair. 32 His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. 33 Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’ 34 Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. 35 So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.”
Peter approaches Jesus with a practical question: “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” (v. 21). Peter’s proposal sounds generous, but it still assumes that forgiveness can eventually reach a limit. Jesus answers, “not seven times but seventy-seven times” (v. 22). He is not replacing Peter’s number with a larger number that must be counted. He is teaching that His disciples must be willing to forgive without limit.
Jesus’ words recall Genesis 4:24, where Lamech boasts that vengeance will be multiplied seventy-seven times. Jesus reverses that pattern. Where sin produces ever-increasing vengeance, life in the kingdom of heaven is to be marked by ever-renewed forgiveness. The response of the disciple to injury is not to calculate how many offenses remain before forgiveness ends.
Jesus then explains why by telling a parable. A king begins settling accounts with his servants, and one is brought before him who owes “a huge amount” (v. 24)—literally ten thousand talents. One talent was worth about six thousand denarii, and a denarius was roughly a laborer’s daily wage. The amount is deliberately beyond ordinary calculation. The servant could never repay what he owed.
Yet he falls before the king and begs, “Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full” (v. 26). His promise is impossible to fulfill. The king nevertheless gives him far more than he asks. “Moved with compassion,” he releases the servant and forgives the entire debt (v. 27). The enormous debt allows us to see the magnitude of the mercy being shown. Jesus is teaching us something about the mercy of God toward sinners: what we could never repay is forgiven through a mercy far greater than anything we could claim or earn.
The servant then meets a fellow servant who owes him one hundred denarii. This is a genuine debt—about one hundred days’ wages—but it is tiny compared with the debt that has just been forgiven. The second servant falls down and makes almost exactly the same plea: “Be patient with me, and I will pay you back” (v. 29). In his case, repayment is actually possible. Yet the man who has just received extraordinary mercy refuses even patience. He has his fellow servant thrown into prison until the debt is paid.
The contrast reveals the servant’s real failure. The problem is not simply that he has forgotten the size of his own debt. The mercy he received has not changed the way he treats another person. He wants mercy for himself while insisting upon strict payment from someone else.
When the king learns what has happened, he asks the question at the heart of the parable: “Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?” (v. 33). The servant was not being asked to produce mercy from nothing. He had already experienced it. The mercy shown to him was meant to become the pattern for the mercy he showed to others.
This is the same relationship Jesus teaches in the Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). Immediately afterward Jesus teaches that our forgiveness of others is inseparably connected with the forgiveness we seek from the Father (Matthew 6:14–15). We do not earn God’s mercy by forgiving others. Rather, receiving His mercy is meant to transform us so deeply that we become merciful toward those who have sinned against us.
Jesus ends the parable with a serious warning: “So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart” (v. 35). Forgiveness therefore cannot be only an outward statement or a few words spoken while resentment is deliberately preserved within us. It must become an interior act—a genuine act of the will to surrender vengeance and extend mercy.
Forgiving from the heart does not mean that painful memories immediately disappear or that emotional wounds cease to hurt simply because we decide to forgive. Some injuries are deep, and healing may take time. But with God’s grace we can refuse to nourish hatred or vengeance, pray for the person who has harmed us, and ask that our wounded hearts gradually be changed by the mercy we ourselves have received.
Jesus therefore gives Peter no number at which forgiveness may stop. God’s mercy toward us becomes the measure of the mercy we are called to extend to others. The servant’s tragedy is that he received mercy without allowing it to enter his heart. Jesus calls us to something different: to receive the Father’s mercy so deeply that it changes how we respond to those who have sinned against us.
Heavenly Father, help us recognize how greatly You have shown us mercy. Give us the grace to surrender resentment, to forgive those who have sinned against us, and to forgive them genuinely from our hearts. Amen.
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Sources and References
- The New American Bible, Revised Edition. Washington, DC: Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 2011. Notes on Matthew 18:21–35.
- Hahn, Scott, and Curtis Mitch. The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010. 39–40.
- Casciaro, Jose Maria, gen. ed. The Navarre Bible: New Testament, Expanded Edition. Dublin: Four Courts Press; New York: Scepter Publishers, 2008. 111–112.
- Brown, Raymond E., Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy, eds. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990. 662, para. 116.
- Mitch, Curtis, and Edward Sri. The Gospel of Matthew. Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010. 233–236.
- Aguilar Chiu, Jose Enrique, et al., eds. The Paulist Biblical Commentary. New York: Paulist Press, 2018. 946.
- Collins, John J., Gina Hens-Piazza, Barbara Reid, OP, and Donald Senior, CP, eds. The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century. 3rd fully rev. ed. London: T&T Clark, 2022. 1210–1211.
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