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Forgive “77” Times? The Correct Math Behind The Parable

Forgive “77” Times? The Correct Math Behind The Parable

Last updated on: September 12, 2026 at 8:17 pm by Mauricio Pérez

Forgive “77” Times? The Correct Math Behind The Parable 2026-09-12T20:17:18-07:00 Mauricio Pérez

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Jesus tells us to forgive it all | AI generated image

We, Catholics, belong to a religion of forgiveness. God sent His Son to the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. But how many times are we actually supposed to forgive? Most people would answer “77” — and it’s easy to see why. It’s interesting to notice how English translations of the Gospel according to Matthew lead people to believe that Jesus told us to forgive 77 times. But when we look at translations of that same Gospel into other languages, the number 77 disappears. Instead, we find something else — something consistent across languages. How can that be?

The Parable in Scripture

Let’s look at the passage read at Mass on the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Liturgical Cycle A, which centers on this Gospel text. It’s a parable built entirely on numbers, so paying attention to them matters:

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive?
As many as seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began the accounting,
a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.
Since he had no way of paying it back,
his master ordered him to be sold,
along with his wife, his children, and all his property,
in payment of the debt.
At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,
‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’
Moved with compassion the master of that servant
let him go and forgave him the loan. (Mt 18:21-27)

Now as the servant went out, he happened to meet a fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarii. He seized him by the throat and began to throttle him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe me.’ His fellow servant fell at his feet and appealed to him, saying, ‘Be patient with me and I will pay you.’ But the other would not agree — on the contrary, he had him thrown into prison until he should pay the debt.

When the other servants saw what had happened, they reported it to their master, and he had to pay the consequences for his lack of mercy — even though he himself had just been the beneficiary of his master’s mercy (Cf. 28-34).

Seven, or Seventy Times Seven? Peter’s Question

Peter asks Jesus if he must forgive seven times. Seven is a significant number in Scripture — it represents totality. So by saying “seven times,” Peter is really asking, “Are we supposed to forgive it all?”

Jesus takes this to an extreme when he answers, “Not seven, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.” Or is it “seventy-seven”? Other translations of Scripture make clear that Jesus said something different. He didn’t say seventy-seven at all. So what did he actually say?

When translations of Scripture disagree, the way forward is to go back to the original text and see what it actually says.

What the Gospel in Greek Actually Says

In the Greek version of Matthew’s Gospel, Peter uses the word ἑπτάκις — “seven times,” from ἑπτά, “seven”, and κις, “times”. Jesus, in his answer, says we are to forgive not ἑπτάκις, but ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά.

ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά does not mean 77. It means “seventy times seven.” That’s exactly how this verse has been translated into Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. The actual Greek word for “seventy-seven” would be ἑβδομηκοντα ἑπτά — a completely different construction from ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά. These are not the same number: one is 77, the other is 70 multiplied by 7.

So Jesus did say ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά — seventy times seven.

Why So Many Translations Say “77”

If Jesus really said “seventy times seven,” why do so many English readers come away thinking he said 77? It comes down to how the sentence is punctuated. Some English translations render it as: “Not seven, I tell you, but seventy-seven times” — with a hyphen between “seventy” and “seven.” In some versions, that hyphen gets replaced with a comma to make the meaning clearer, because what Jesus said was “seventy, seven times” — which is not the same as “seventy seven”. Yet, when people get accustomed not to reading this pericope from the Bible, but to listening to its proclamation in Mass, it is natural that this expression gets to their ears as “77 times”.

The Other 70 Times 7: Lamech’s Revenge

The first time we find 70 times 7 in Scripture, is in the book of Genesis — but it represents the exact opposite of extreme forgiveness. It represents extreme revenge.

In Gn 4, we meet Lamech, a descendant of Cain, the son of Adam and Eve who murdered his brother Abel. Scripture records his words to his wives:

“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; wives of Lamech, listen to my utterance: I have killed a man for wounding me, a boy for bruising me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold” (Gn 4:23-24).

When Lamech speaks of Cain’s punishment, he uses “sevenfold” — the maximum measure of vengeance. But when it comes to himself, Lamech claims a punishment not of seven, like Cain, but of seventy-seven. In this story, the number of total, unrestrained vengeance, i.e. the very opposite of Jesus’ call to absolute forgiveness.

The Math Behind the Debt

Jesus makes his point not just with a number, but with a parable built on numbers — and those numbers are worth unpacking.

The servant in the parable owes his master ten thousand talents. Ten thousand was the highest number expressible in the numeric system of the Jews the time — they could count from one to ten thousand, and no further. Jesus deliberately uses the largest number available.

A single talent was worth 6,000 denarii, and one denarius was a day laborer’s daily wage. To save 6,000 denarii, a laborer would need to work 6,000 days — roughly 16 years. That’s just one talent. Ten thousand talents, then, comes to 60 million denarii — a debt so large that a person’s entire lifetime of labor could never repay it. That’s precisely why the master’s first instinct is to sell the servant, his wife, his children, and all his possessions: even that would not be enough.

Jesus uses this figure to describe a debt that is, by definition, unpayable — and therefore, in ordinary terms, unforgivable. Yet the master is moved by mercy and cancels it anyway, despite its being impossible to repay.

The forgiven servant then encounters a fellow servant who owes him just 100 denarii — a debt repayable in under three and a half months of labor. Set against the 60-million-denarii debt he was just forgiven, it’s almost nothing. And yet, having just received immeasurable mercy, he shows none.

Forgiving It All

Put together, the numbers make Jesus’ meaning unmistakable: forgiving “seventy times seven” is the same as forgiving a debt of ten thousand talents. It means forgiving even what seems unforgivable — cancelling a debt that could never be repaid. It is, in the end, a matter of forgiving it all.

Be passionate about our faith.

About Mauricio I. Pérez

Mauricio I. Pérez is a Catholic writer, journalist and YouTuber. He has received five national journalism awards by the Catholic Media Association. Mauricio has authored 18 books on Biblical commentary, spirituality and Catholic fiction, six of them bestsellers in Amazon. He has earned a diploma in Sacred Liturgy by the Universidad Pontificia de México and has graduated from several Liturgy programs at the Pontificio Istituto Liturgico in Rome. You can read more about the author here.

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