What Does Luke 16:7 Mean in the King James?
Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The debt changes at the point it becomes binding: the written account is revised.
THE MEANING
You see a burden take concrete form as a written claim, and then shrink on the page. The account moves from one hundred measures of wheat to eighty, leaving twenty no longer demanded.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
What is written as owed is final simply because it is written.
THE ROOT
γράμματα
grámmata
GROWS FROM
γραφ-
graph-
Writing or marking; putting something into written form.
The bill is a written record, and the command to change it uses the same word family: γράψον (grápson, “write”). The document and the act of revising it belong to one family: the claim can be changed by changing what is written.
ALSO GROWS
graphō: To write or inscribe.
γράφω
This is the action the steward commands: the account changes through an act of writing.
graphē: Writing; a written text.
γραφή
The bill is a written claim, showing how an obligation becomes something that can be seen and revised.
ὀφείλεις
opheíleis
GROWS FROM
ὀφειλ-
opheil-
To owe or be under an obligation.
“owest” in this verse is opheíleis. The Greek makes the question specifically about what the debtor owes, not just how much wheat he has. When the written amount drops from one hundred measures to eighty, the claim of what is owed changes too.
ALSO GROWS
opheilétēs: A debtor; one who owes.
ὀφειλέτης
This word names the person held under the obligation that the account records.
opheílēma: A debt or obligation.
ὀφείλημα
This branch names the obligation itself, the thing reduced when the amount is rewritten.
THE PATTERN
A binding claim can be loosened when what is demanded is released or changed.
At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the LORD’s release.Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,THE THREAD
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.The same Greek debt-family, ὀφειλ- (opheil-, “owe; be under obligation”), appears here as “debts” and “debtors.” Luke shows a debt reduced in the written account; this prayer names debts as something released through ἀφίημι (aphíēmi, “release; forgive”).
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