When he began (Good News Translation “He had just begun to do so”) translates a participial construction in Greek, which Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch makes into an adverbial phrase (“At the very first”).

Reckoning can be rendered by “checking the accounts” or, as in Good News Translation, with a phrase such as “began to do this.”

The passive was brought probably suggests that the man was in prison. In those languages which will not naturally use a passive, translators should say “his people (or, his other servants) brought to him.” “Took” or “led” will be better than brought in many languages.

One refers, of course, to “one of his servants” or “one of his people.”

Ten thousand talents is transformed into contemporary U.S. currency by Good News Translation: (“millions of dollars”). Both the sum (ten thousand) and the monetary unit (talent) are significant, for in the ancient Near East ten thousand was the highest number used in calculating, and the talent was the largest currency unit of that time. In other words, the amount is intended to stagger the imagination; it is the highest sum imaginable, to be contrasted with the trifling amount of the debt in verse 28. New English Bible indicates that the debt “ran into millions,” while the footnote of New Jerusalem Bible states “the amount is deliberately fantastic.” RSV’s footnote points out that a single talent was “more than fifteen years’ wages of a laborer.”

Some translators have maintained the biblical form, ten thousand talents, but tried to give it some meaning by using an expression such as “ten thousand huge units of money called talents” or “ten thousand talents, each one the money of fifteen years’ wages.” Others have followed the Revised Standard Version with a literal translation in the text and a footnote suggesting the value. Another common method translators have used is to employ a very general term such as “a huge sum of money.” There can be problems in using a modern local currency, as Good News Translation: (“millions of dollars”) and Barclay (“two and a half million pounds”) have done. For one thing, currencies can change value radically so that a few years after publication the meaning may be quite different. Then, too, to use modern money removes the passage from its historical context. Any expression that will indicate that the sum of money is almost beyond imagination can be considered by translators.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .