59 I tell you, you will by no means get out of there, until you have paid the very last penny."
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Till thou hast paid the very last mite - And when can this be, if we understand the text spiritually? Can weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, pay to Divine justice the debt a sinner has contracted? This is impossible: let him who readeth understand.
The subject of the 47th and 48th verses has been greatly misunderstood, and has been used in a very dangerous manner. Many have thought that their ignorance of Divine things would be a sufficient excuse for their crimes; and, that they might have but few stripes, they voluntarily continued in ignorance. But such persons should know that God will judge them for the knowledge they might have received, but refused to acquire. No criminal is excused because he has been ignorant of the laws of his country, and so transgressed them, when it can be proved that those very laws have been published throughout the land. Much knowledge is a dangerous thing if it be not improved; as this will greatly aggravate the condemnation of its possessor. Nor will it avail a person, in the land of light and information, to be ignorant, as he shall be judged for what he might have known; and, perhaps, in this case, the punishment of this voluntarily ignorant man will be even greater than that of the more enlightened; because his crimes are aggravated by this consideration, that he refused to have the light, that he might neither be obliged to walk in the light, nor account for the possession of it. So we find that the plea of ignorance is a mere refuge of lies, and none can plead it who has the book of God within his reach, and lives in a country blessed with the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I tell thee,.... The Syriac version before these words, prefixes an "Amen", or "verily", for the sake of the stronger affirmation, which seems to be taken from Matthew 5:26
thou shalt not depart thence; get out of prison:
till thou hast paid the very last mite: of the sum in debate, which was what the Jews call a "prutah", and that was the eighth part of an Italian farthing, and half a common farthing; See Gill on Mark 12:42, with this agrees what Mainonides says (y), that
"when he that lends, requires what he has lent, though he is rich, and the borrower is distressed, and straitened for food, there is no mercy showed him in judgment, but his debt is, demanded of him, , "unto the last prutah, or mite".''
(y) Hilchot M. vah. c. 1. sect. 4.
A mite - was about the third part of a farthing sterling.
*More commentary available at chapter level.