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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Matthew 25:27 - 25:27
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Thou oughtest therefore (edsi se oun). His very words of excuse convict him. It was a necessity (edei) that he did not see.
The bankers (tois trapezeitais). The benchers, money-changers, brokers, who exchanged money for a fee and who paid interest on money. Word common in late Greek.
I should have received back (egō ekomisamēn an). Conclusion of a condition of the second class (determined as unfulfilled). The condition is not expressed, but it is implied. “If you had done that.”
With interest (sun tokōi). Not with “usury” in the sense of extortion or oppression. Usury only means “use” in itself. The word is from tiktō, to bring forth. Compound interest at six per cent doubles the principal every twenty years. It is amazing how rapidly that piles up if one carries it on for centuries and millenniums. “In the early Roman Empire legal interest was eight per cent, but in usurious transactions it was lent at twelve, twenty-four, and even forty-eight” (Vincent). Such practices exist today in our cities. The Mosaic law did not allow interest in dealings between Hebrews, but only with strangers (Deu 23:19, Deu 23:20; Psa 15:5).