Matthew 18:24

Ten thousand talents. — It is hardly necessary to discuss in detail the value in modern coinage of the sum thus described. Assuming the Greek “talent” to have been rightly used by the LXX. translators for the Hebrew kikar in Exodus 38:25, we have a basis of calculation which makes the talent equal to 3,000 shekels; and taking the shekel as equal to four drachmæ, this makes the 10,000 talents about £2,500,000 sterling. The sum is evidently named in its vague vastness to indicate the immensity of the debt which man owes to God, the absolute impossibility of his ever clearing off the aggregate, ever-accumulating, of sins of omission and commission which are brought home to his conscience when God “takes account” with him.