“Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.”
Jesus replaces Peter's generous number with an impossible one — the point is that you stop counting. A ledger of forgiveness is a contradiction in terms.
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Bible Verses About Bible Verses for Unforgiveness
There is a person — maybe one specific person — and you have tried to forgive them and it hasn't held. The resentment is still there. It surfaces at odd moments, in your body, in your dreams. You may have forgiven them out loud and still gone home carrying the weight. Scripture doesn't shame you for this. But it does press on the question Peter asked, which turns out to be the wrong question entirely.
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“Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?”
The parable's logic is debt cancellation, not emotional release. The servant was forgiven an unpayable sum. The question is whether that forgiveness changed anything in him about what he holds over others.
“Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.”
Bitterness is described as a root — it grows underground, in the dark, and spreads into people and relationships that had nothing to do with the original offense.
“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.”
Airo — remove, take away. The same word John uses for the Lamb who takes away sin. Paul uses a strong removal word, not a gradual-fading one.
“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
You can release the account because it is not being erased — it is handed to one with the authority and information to settle it completely. Release is not erasure.
“Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”
Charizomai — forgive as a grace-act, not a fairness-act. The root is charis, grace. You extend what you yourself received, not what the other person deserved.
“Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”
Cast is an active, throwing word — a deliberate release, not a gradual letting go. The bitterness you carry is a weight. You throw it, not set it down gently.
Theological Context
Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive a brother who sins against him, and he offered what he probably thought was a generous answer: seven times. Seven was the number of completeness in Jewish thought. He was essentially asking, "Is there a limit to how many times love covers this?" Jesus answered: not seven times, but seventy times seven. The Greek is hebdomekontakis hepta — a number so large it cannot be tracked. The point is not the arithmetic. The point is that you stop keeping a ledger entirely.
The parable Jesus tells immediately after Peter's question (Matthew 18:23–35) is brutal in its arithmetic on purpose. A servant owes 10,000 talents — roughly 200,000 years of wages for a common laborer. That number is meant to be absurd. It cannot be paid back in any realistic timeline. Jesus is saying: the debt you are holding over someone else is real, but the debt that was cancelled over you is so staggering that placing those two things side by side breaks down as a comparison. This is not an emotional argument; it is a debt-cancellation argument. You can forgive a debt you are still owed. The debt doesn't disappear from reality — you release your claim on it.
Hebrews 12:15 names bitterness as a root: "lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled." A root is underground. It grows in the dark. And the word enochleo — trouble — means to crowd, to press in, to irritate persistently. Bitterness doesn't stay contained to the person who offended you; it spreads into everything around it, including people who had nothing to do with the original offense.
Commentary is from a charismatic Protestant perspective, drawing on KJV text and public-domain sources including Spurgeon, Andrew Murray, and Matthew Henry.
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Ephesians 4:31 is a list of things Paul commands you to remove: "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice." The Greek word for bitterness — pikria — comes from the root for something sharp, cutting, piercing. In classical Greek it was used for the bite of an arrow, the sting of an insect. It describes something that entered you and is still embedded.
The verb airo — "put away" — is the same word used in John 1:29 when John the Baptist says the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. Paul uses a strong removal word, not a gradual fading one. The implication is that bitterness can be surrendered, not merely outlasted.
The theological weight of forgiveness in Scripture rests on a specific logic: forgiveness is not saying the thing was acceptable. It is not pretending you weren't hurt. It is the decision that the offense stops here — that you will not pass it forward, that the account is transferred to God. Romans 12:19 — "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" — is not just a command to stop seeking revenge. It is a reassurance that the account will be settled. You can release it because it is not being erased; it is being handed to someone with both the authority and the full information to handle it.
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