NOTES for Mat 18:15-35
The parable emphasizes the immeasurability of our mutual debts and God's forgiveness: ten thousand talents is a million times more than a hundred denarii, and there is simply no such numeral in the Greek language. It is as if, having received an apartment as a gift, we were to take a ruble away from some beggar, though even more grand comparisons could be invented. On the other hand, a debt of a hundred denarii is also a sum: the offense inflicted by those close to us can be very bitter.
We all owe one another something; all of us, in one way or another, hurt others and are hurt. But when God enters the tangled, complicated ball of our mutual grievances and old debts, He disrupts the whole moral and material balance of our human relationships. This happens when, in the face of misfortune, our disagreements and quarrels grow pale, or when on a deathbed life acquires such seriousness that grievances and the wounds we have inflicted on one another come to seem absurd.