TRANSLATION MATTHEW 18: 21

Then Peter approached and said to him, “How often can my brother sin and I forgive him? Up to seven times?”

Jesus said to him,”I am telling you, not up to seven times but up to seventy times seven! Because of this, the rule of heaven is likened to someone, a king, who wanted to settle his account with his slaves. When he started to settle them, a man was brought before him who owned him a huge sum. Since he was unable to repay it, the master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all he had, and his debt would be recovered. But the slave fell down, going on his knees to him, saying, “Persevere with me, and I will repay you everything.”

Moved with compassion for that slave, the master freed him and forgave him the debt.

But that slave went off and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a modest amount. Grabbing him by the throat, he throttled him, saying, “Give me back what you owe me!” His fellow slave fell down and begged him, saying, “Persevere with me and I will pay you back.” But he did not want to, and went off and threw him into prison, until he should repay the debt.

When his fellow slaves saw what had happened they were outraged and went and told the master the story of all that had taken place. Then the master summoned him, saying to him, “You evil slave, I forgave you all your debt because you begged me.Should you not have shown kindness to your fellow slave just as I showed kindness to you? And in a fury the master turned him over to the torturers until he repaid all that he owed.

In exactly the same way my father in heaven will treat each one of you who does nor forgive his brother from the heart.”

The image of debt is central to Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness. One of the reasons for this is that graeco-roman commerce, which prioritised city-dwellers and impoverished peasants, had resulted in more people with big debts, some of whom were sold into slavery to repay their debt.

At the same time, Jesus was aware of the Jubilee legislation in Leviticus, by which debtors should be released from debt every fiftieth year, and land returned to its original owners. This is the “Year of the Lord’s favour” mentioned in Luke 4..The debts are any kind of thing owed to another, material, moral, social, spiritual. Matthew’s magical king Jesus, proclaims the Jubilee forgiveness in one grand gesture of liberation. If historically he actually did this. one can see why rulers had to get rid of him.

The forgiveness of God and that of human beings to each other is the one rule of heaven, the first providing the obligation and capacity for the second. The parable is a drama of how being forgiven debts should lead to one doing so for others, not an allegory in which the master =. God. The fury of the master is there to emphasise the imporatance of this issue , especially in view of the preceding paragraphs regarding the power of binding or loosing. The parabLe emphasises that slaves can, no, are expected, to share the magical generosity of the master.