The amount specified in the parable--ten thousand talents--is very great, of whatever species you may suppose the talent to be. The inquiry which has been prosecuted with a view to determine precisely the value of the talent in this case is difficult, and does not lead to any certain or important result. The question is interesting to Biblical scholars and antiquarians, but the solution of it is by no means necessary to the perception or the application of our Lord's meaning in the parable. The sense is completely obtained by taking the ten thousand talents as a vast but indefinite sum. A hundred talents of silver constituted the hire of a great army, 2 Chron. xxv. 6; and notwithstanding the lavish use of gold in the construction of the Tent-Temple in the wilderness, only twenty-nine talents were employed in all (Ex. xxxviii. 24). Besides the distinction between gold and silver, other variations occur in the value of a talent, depending upon time, place, and other circumstances. In any view of its worth, however, the disparity between the sum which this servant owed to the master, and the trifling amount which a fellow-servant owed to him, is as great as the imagination can effectually grasp; larger numbers would not sensibly intensify the impression. "One was brought to him:" this servant would not have come to the king of his own accord; but he could not escape the interview and the reckoning. Aware of his enormous debt, he would fain have kept out of his master's way, but could not. God looks on the heart, and grasps the conscience, whether the man will or be unwilling. The punishment is very severe, but in accordance with law and custom. No complaint is made against the sentence as if it were unjust in principle, or excessive in degree: the culprit appeals only to the mercy of the judge, and thus the righteousness of the verdict is tacitly acknowledged. His promise to pay means nothing more than his desire to escape. He made the promise, not in the expectation of being able to perform it, but as the most likely means of escaping from punishment. His worship was prompted by selfish fear, not by filial love. He did not know his master's heart: he thought he would gain his object most readily by leading the king to expect payment in full.