What Does Luke 16:7 Mean?
Then he said to another, And how much do you owe? And he said, A hundred measures of wheat. And he said to him, Take your writing, and write eighty.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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 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.
“writing” in this verse is grámmata. 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 you shall make a release. And this is the word of the release. Every one whose hand has lent to his neighbor shall let it fall, and he shall not press it from his neighbor or from his brother, for it is called the LORD's release.Then the lord of that servant was stirred in his inward parts, and let him go, and released the debt.The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.THE THREAD
And release our debts, as we also release 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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