Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [Matthew: Chapter 18].
that those gathered together are really disciples with the spirit
of Christ as well as "in his name" (\eis to emon onoma\). One of
the Oxyrhynchus _Sayings of Our Lord_ is: "Wherever there are
(two) they are not without God, and wherever there is one alone I
say I am with him." Also this: "Raise the stone and there thou
shalt find me, cleave the wood and there am I." See Mal 3:16.
18:21 {Until seven times?} (\he•s heptakis?\) Peter thought that
he was generous as the Jewish rule was three times (Am 1:6).
His question goes back to verse 15. "Against me" is genuine
here. "The man who asks such a question does not really know what
forgiveness means" (Plummer).
18:22 {Until seventy times seven} (\he•s hebdom•kontakis hepta\).
It is not clear whether this idiom means seventy-seven or as the
Revised Version has it (490 times). If \heptakis\ were written it
would clearly be 490 times. The same ambiguity is seen in Ge
4:24, the LXX text by omitting \kai\. In the _Test. of the
Twelve Patriarchs, Benj._ vii. 4, it is used in the sense of
seventy times seven. But it really makes little difference
because Jesus clearly means unlimited forgiveness in either case.
"The unlimited revenge of primitive man has given place to the
unlimited forgiveness of Christians" (McNeile).
18:23 {Make a reckoning} (\sun•rai logon\). Seen also in 25:19.
Perhaps a Latinism, _rationes conferre_. First aorist active
infinitive of \sunair•\, to cast up accounts, to settle, to
compare accounts with. Not in ancient Greek writers, but in two
papyri of the second century A.D. in the very sense here and the
substantive appears in an ostracon from Nubia of the early third
century (Deissmann, _Light from the Ancient East_, p. 117).
18:24 {Ten thousand talents} (\muri•n talant•n\). A talent was
6,000 denarii or about a thousand dollars or 240 pounds. Ten
thousand times this is about ten or twelve million dollars, an
enormous sum for that period. We live today in the age of
national debts of billions of dollars or even of pounds sterling.
The imperial taxes of Judea, Idumea, and Samaria for one year
were only 600 talents while Galilee and Perea paid 200 (Josephus,
_Ant_. xi. 4). But oriental kings were free in the use of money
and in making debts like the native kings of India today.
18:25 {Had not wherewith to pay} (\m• echontos autou apodounai\).
There is no "wherewith" in the Greek. This idiom is seen in Lu
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