Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 16:5
So he called every one of his lord’s debtors [unto him,] and said unto the first, how much owest thou unto my lord?
5. So he called every one of his lord’s debtors unto him ] In the East rents are paid in kind, and a responsible steward, if left quite uncontrolled, has the amplest opportunity to defraud his lord, because the produce necessarily varies from year to year. The unjust steward would naturally receive from the tenants much more than he acknowledged in his accounts.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Called every one – As he was steward, he had the management of all the affairs, and, of course, debts were to be paid to him.
Debtors – Those who owed his master, or perhaps tenants; those who rented land of his master.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
5-7. fifty . . . fourscoredeductinga half from the debt of the one, and a fifth from that of the other.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
So he called every one of his Lord’s debtors,…. Either the Gentiles, who were greatly indebted to God, having sinned against him, and the law, and light of nature, at a great rate; into whose affections, houses, and palaces, the Jews found ways and means to introduce themselves; and, in process of time, got leave to have synagogues built, and their worship set up again: or else the Jews, their countrymen; since these were under those stewards, tutors, and governors, and were debtors to do the whole law; and had, by breaking the law, contracted large debts; and against whom the ceremonial law stood as an handwriting: these the steward called
unto him, and said unto the first, how much owest thou unto my Lord? and it is observable, that the debts of these men, of the first, lay in oil, and of the other in wheat; things much used in the ceremonial law, in the observance of which they had been, greatly deficient; see Ex 29:40
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
He called. Alford and Trench think that the debtors were together; but the words seem to me to indicate that he dealt with them separately. He called to him each one, and said unto the first; after that [] another.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “So he called every one of his lord’s debtors unto him,” (kai proskalesamenos hena hekaston ton chreopheileton tou kuriou heautou) “And he called to him each of the debtors, to whom he had loosely released properties of his master,” to curry their friendship and cooperation, one by one he called them, perhaps to avoid being put in prison for misuse of trust funds.
2) “And said unto the first,” (elegen to proto) “And he said to the first (priority) debtor,” who came to review his debt and consider a proposed settlement. Two examples of delinquent or default debts are considered.
3) “How much owest thou unto my lord?” (poson opheileis to kurio mou) “Just how much do you owe (acknowledge that you owe) to my master?” in rent or goods you have received in cash, and for use of produce production, that you have not paid? He took him in confidence for friendship purposes under trial, Pro 18:24.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(5) So he called every one of his lords debtors.The debtors might be either men who had bought their wheat and their oil at the hands of the steward; or, as the sequel renders more probable, tenants who, after the common custom of the East, paid their rent in kind. Who, we ask, are the debtors, in the interpretation of the parable? The Lords Prayer supplies the answer to that question. The debtors are those who have sinned against God, who have left undone the things which they were bound to do, who have made no return for the outward blessings they have received. The unfaithful Church or party tries to secure its position by working on the lower nature of those who have the sense of that burden upon them. It neither gives the sense of peace or pardon, nor asserts the righteous severity of Gods commandments. It keeps their consciences uneasy, and traffics in its absolutions.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. So he called His purpose is to gain the favour of the tenants by cancelling a large part of the rents due This was a fraud upon his landlord; but he was one of the children of this world. (Luk 16:8.)
Every one So that they might all be in the plot and none be on the landlord’s side.
Debtors Who owed for rents.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“And calling to him each one of his lord’s debtors, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe to my lord?’ And he said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bond, and sit down quickly and write fifty’.”
The first debtor he approaches admits to owing a hundred measures of oil. The measure would be between five and ten gallons. Thus the debt is considerable. So he suggests a fifty percent discount on condition he pays immediately. To the debtor such an opportunity appears too good to miss, so he agrees. Both appear to be satisfied, the one because of his discount, and the other because he has obtained immediate payment. And the estate manager no doubt makes it clear as to whom he really owes this generosity. It should be noted that as the estate manager he would almost certainly have the right to allow such discounts, especially if large late payment penalties had been added to the amount due, and it is clear that there was a large mark up on oil.
The listening crowds might not know much about business, but they would know enough to recognise that this was an astute bit of business which indicated exceptionally high margins which had been reduced, and the cancellation of large penalties, not the making of a huge loss. The rogue had simply become more reasonable. (We can almost see them looking at each other and nodding knowingly. All would have suffered under such treatment, or have known someone who had).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Luk 16:5-6. So he calledhis lord’s debtors Calling the tenants, he intimated his purpose; and whereas one by his bargain bound himself to pay yearly a hundred , [from the Hebrew , betim] baths of oil, each bath equal to seven gallons, four pints, and a half, English measure]he let him have the land for fifty: and whereas another was to pay an hundred , Luk 16:7. [from the Hebrew kur] homers of wheat, yearly, each homer being equal to eight bushels and a half, Winchester measure]he gave him his lease at eighty; and altered the obligatorywritings accordingly. As this homer containedten ephahs, or baths, (Eze 45:11; Eze 45:14.) and each of these latter ten homers, (Exo 16:36.)twenty homers, which the steward allowed the tenant to deduct, would on this computation contain a hundred and seventy bushels of wheat, and might be as valuable as fifty baths, or about three hundred and seventy-eight gallons of oil; so that the obligation conferred on both these debtors might be equal. Dr. Doddridge is rather of a different opinion: he supposes that the bill here mentioned, was something equivalent to a note of hand, acknowledging the receipt of so much oil, and promising payment of it; the alteration of which plainly shews how much they are mistaken, who suppose that the steward did no wrong to his master in this affair, but only gave the debtors the value of what he set off out of his own stock: for, not to say how improbable it is that this bankrupt should be able or willing to make such a considerable present, it is plain that if he had intended it, he would have let the account remain unaltered; but by the exchange of bills, he craftily made each of the debtors an accomplice with himself in defrauding his lord, and thereby provided against a discovery.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Luk 16:5-7 . .] of the debtors they had borrowed , the natural products named from the stores of the rich man. This agrees better with the word, the opposite of which is (Luk 7:41 ; Plut. Caes . 12), than the notion of tenants .
From it is seen that subsequently the two debtors are mentioned by way of example .
] By the debtors of his own master he knew how to help himself.
. . .] Going to work promptly and surely, he questions their own acknowledgment of obligation, which must agree with the contents of the bond.
Luk 16:6 . ] ( ) , Josephus, Antt. viii. 2. 9. Therefore equal to an Attic .
] take away. The steward, who has the documents in his keeping, gives up the bill ( , that which is written, in the plural used even of one document, see on Gal 6:11 ), that the debtor may alter the number. Usually, that he may write a new bond with the smaller amount. But this is not contained in the words; moreover, for that purpose not the surrender of the document, but its destruction, would have been necessary.
] pictorial. belongs not to this graphic detail, (Luther and others, including Ewald), but to ; the latter corresponds to the haste to which the carrying out of an injustice urges.
Luk 16:7 . ] to another. Comp. Luk 19:20 .
] ( ) , Josephus, Antt. xv. 9. 2.
The diversity of the deduction, Luk 16:6-7 , is merely the change of the concrete picturing without any special purpose in view. Comp. already Euthymius Zigabenus.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
5 So he called every one of his lord’s debtors unto him , and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord?
Ver. 5. How much owest thou? ] Some are ever owing; and may say of debt, as the strumpet Quartilla did of her virginity, Iunonem meam iratam habeam, si unquam me meminerim virginem fuisse. Petron.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
5. ] It is more natural to suppose that these had borrowed , i.e. not yet paid for these articles of food out of the stores of the rich man, than that they were contractors to the amounts specified.
. , of his own lord, shewing the unprincipled boldness of his plan for saving himself; as we express the same when we say, ‘he robbed his own father.’
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Luk 16:5 . : he sees them one by one, not all together. These debtors might be farmers, who paid their rents in kind, or persons who had got supplies of goods from the master’s stores; which of the two of no consequence to the point of the parable. , the first, in the parable = to one. Two cases mentioned, a first and a second ( ), two, out of many; enough to exemplify the method. It is assumed that all would take advantage of the unprincipled concession; those who had accused him and those who had possibly been already favoured in a similar manner, bribed to speak well of him.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
called. Separately.
every = each.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
5.] It is more natural to suppose that these had borrowed, i.e. not yet paid for these articles of food out of the stores of the rich man, than that they were contractors to the amounts specified.
. , of his own lord,-shewing the unprincipled boldness of his plan for saving himself; as we express the same when we say, he robbed his own father.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Luk 16:5. , every one) in order that he might put as many as possible under obligations to him; therefore two instances merely, for the sake of example, are subjoined in the following verses.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
his: Luk 7:41, Luk 7:42, Mat 18:24
Reciprocal: Gen 41:34 – and take 2Sa 3:12 – Make
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
5
The steward still had charge of his lord’s goods and the accounting of them, and he decided to manage the bookkeeping in a way to be an advantage to himself.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Luk 16:5-7. So he called, &c. In pursuance of this scheme he sent for all those of his lords debtors whom he could hope to oblige by so fraudulent a proposal, determining to lower the several articles in his book, which stood chargeable to the account of each of them: and said to the first, How much owest thou How much hast thou agreed to pay for the rent of the ground thou occupiest, or of how much hast thou acknowledged the receipt? And he said, A hundred measures of oil The word , here rendered measures, is evidently derived from the Hebrew , which we render baths, in the Old Testament. According to Bishop Cumberland, a bath contained about seven gallons two quarts and half a pint. And he said, Take thy bill , thy writing; the writing in which thou hast promised the payment of so many baths as rent, or in which thou hast acknowledged the receipt of so many. The writing, whatever it was, was doubtless of the obligatory kind, and probably in the hand-writing of the tenant, or debtor, who thereby bound himself to pay these baths, and was signed by the steward, who here ordered him to alter, or write it over again, and make himself liable to pay only fifty, instead of a hundred. The word , rendered measures, in the next verse, is the , or homer, of the Hebrews, containing about eight bushels and a half, standard measure. The twenty homers which he allowed the debtors to deduct, would contain one hundred and seventy bushels of wheat, and might be as valuable as fifty baths, or three hundred and seventy-eight gallons of oil; so that the obligation conferred on both those debtors might be equal.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The agent’s plan involved discounting the debts of the people who owed his master money, probably by canceling the interest they owed. The fact that he dealt in commodities rather than cash is inconsequential since many traders dealt on these terms in Jesus’ day, as they do in ours. The amounts these debtors owed were quite large. Therefore the discount each one received represented a significant amount of money and drew the goodwill of the debtors to the manager. The debtors were probably people who had received goods from the master’s estate and had given the agent a promissory note rather than cash. This was and is a standard accepted way of doing business.
Did the manager dishonestly cheat his master out of what others owed him, or did he deduct the interest that would have come to him as the agent for each transaction? The first alternative is a real possibility. [Note: Derrett, Law in . . ., pp. 72-73.] However it seems unlikely that Jesus would have proceeded to commend the manager and hold him up to the disciples as an example to follow if he was that dishonest (Luk 16:9). Furthermore if the agent had chosen to cheat his employer further he probably would have ended up in jail rather than in the good graces of his master’s debtors. The second alternative is possible and probable. [Note: J. A. Fitzmyer, Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament, pp. 175-76; idem, "The Story of the Dishonest Manager," Theological Studies 25 (1964):23-42. See also Edersheim, 2:267; and J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible with J. Vernon McGee, 4:317-19.] The agent could well have received a commission for each of the transactions that he had negotiated for his employer and deducted these commissions from the debtors’ costs. Even a 100 percent commission (Luk 16:6) was not unknown in Jesus’ culture. [Note: Marshall, The Gospel . . ., p. 619.] Probably the commission was part of the original bill. [Note: J. D. M. Derrett, "’Take thy Bond . . . and Write Fifty’ (Luke xvi. 6) The nature of the Bond," Journal of New Testament Studies NS23 (1972):438-40.] Another possibility is that the steward eliminated his fee plus illegal interest that had been charged. [Note: Inrig, p. 112.] It appears that the steward cancelled the interest due that would have come to him as a commission. Whatever the sum that the servant discounted, it must have come out of his own pocket rather than that of his employer.