The Hard Sayings: Matthew 18:22

I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

This article is part of a series explaining the sayings of Jesus that are hard to understand from a list put together by Lord's Library. To see their list of these verses, go to this page.

This verse appears in a chapter of Luke that starts with Jesus’s students asking him “who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” We wrote about his answer in our previous article. Jesus then said a number of things about children and then switches to discussing what to do when we have a conflict with our brothers. Then, we come to this section of this chapter surrounding today’s verse.

A Question and its Answer

Like that earlier verse, this one also answers a question. Peter asked Jesus how many times he should “forgive” his brother's “sins.” The term he uses for “forgive” really means “let go.” And the Greek word translated as “sins” is closer in meaning to “mistakes.” For more about both these words, see this article. Peter suggests the number as seven times for reasons we explain below. We should note that Peter does not say the Jesus said this.

What is funny about this question is that we know who Peter’s brother was: he was the apostle, Andrew. Of course, Peter could have meant “brother” in the generic sense of anyone, but he and his real brother both followed Jesus. We can assume that, like most brothers, they didn’t get along all the time. Jesus answered Peter‘s question in the context of knowing Peter’s personal relationship with Andrew.

In our not-very-accurate biblical translations, Jesus responds with Matthew 18:22:

NIV: I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

The words in boldface are those that need explanation.

He could have said this in such a way that it made those who knew the two brothers laugh.

Jesus follows this verse by telling his students the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. This is the parable where a king forgives a servant a large debt instead of selling him and his family into slavery. The king did this because the servant begged him for mercy. That servant then turned around and tried to collect a debt from a fellow servant, who also begged for mercy, but the unforgiving servant threw him into jail because he couldn’t pay. The other servants told the king, and it doesn’t go well for the unforgiving servant, which tells us about the politics of palace life.

He Didn’t Say

Jesus did not say that seven times was the wrong number, even though he goes onto offer a bigger number to correct it. What Jesus says is that he didn’t say seven times. He never spoke those words. The Greek negative negates the verb “say,” so its sense is “I didn’t say.”

This raises the question of what Jesus actually said and where he said it. Of course, we might not know the answer because the Gospels don’t contain every word that Jesus spoke during his life. But it seems likely that Jesus is referring to a verse from the previous chapter of Luke.

Luke 17:4 (NIV) Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”

So, Jesus told his followers to let offenders go seven times in a single day not just seven times. Peter seems to have forgotten this. Before we go further, we should explain the symbolic meaning in Judaic culture of “seven” and “ten.” The “ten” comes from seventy being ten times seven.

The Number Seven

The number “seven” is used over seven hundred times in the Old Testament. It becomes important right at the beginning, because Genesis describes the creation of the earth being completed on the seventh day. So, the number seven is associated with completion. The number in Hebrew for seven is sheba, derived from the Hebrew word meaning satisfaction or fullness (saba שָׂבַע). Because of seven’s symbolic association with completeness, forgiving someone seven times means forgiving them completely.

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This also associates forgiving wrongdoing with an oath or promise. The Hebrew word for swearing an oath is shaba (הִשָּׁ֨בְעָה) which is also derived saba, the word for satisfaction or fullness. This does not refer to the honoring or fulfillment of an oath, which would be our sense today of completing it, like paying off a loan. The verb refers to swearing the oath, more like the act of borrowing. Taking the oath was completing a contract, establishing the relationship. This is swearing an oath like swearing marriage vows or swearing loyalty to someone. So, forgiving someone seven times is like swearing an oath that the matter is finished between them.

And this verse doesn’t say “seventy-seven.” What Jesus said is “seventy times seven.” The Greek word meaning “seventy times” appears only in Matthew and does not appear previously in Greek. The result of this multiplication is four-hundred and ninety, but that is irrelevant, and, as they say, irrelevants eat peanuts.

Seventy is ten times seven. In Judaic tradition, the number ten was also symbolic of completion from being the number of the ten commandments. So, seventy as ten times seven has the sense of the completion of a completion.

However, this was not a common idea and not something Jesus said before. It is not anything from elsewhere in the Bible either. This means that it was most likely meant to be surprising and confusing, something that his listeners had to think about. Which makes sense because this “seventy times seven” is the punchline of the verse.

Lucky Seven

Listeners Heard: I didn't tell you up until seven times; instead up until seventy times seven.

There word I translated as “up until” before “seven times” and “seventy times” is ignored in English translation. It sets a long-term limit. Seven times a day is a daily maximum. Seventy times seven sets a maximum limit over time. So, this isn’t infinite forgiveness. Jesus is telling us that we can’t always expect forgiveness. We cannot push our luck.

Note: We today think of “seven” as a lucky number. One source of this idea comes from Jewish tradition. Using the Jewish method of converting words to numbers, (gematria), the most common word for luck converts to seven.