Be sure
that if the steward cheated his master a second time, the master was
foolish and mistaken, and as it were a partner in the steward's sin by
commending him. But if so; why does our Lord mention it? What had our
Lord to do, what have we to do, with the opinion of so foolish a man?
It seems to me that the only reason for our Lord's using the words of the
text, must be, that the master was right, not wrong, in commending the
steward. But it seems to me, also, that the master could be right only,
if the steward was right also--if the steward had done the right and just
thing at last, and, instead of cheating his master a second time, had
done his best to make restitution for his own sins.
But how could that be? We know nothing of what these debtors were. All
we know is that one believed that he owed the Lord a hundred measures of
oil; and another believed that he owed him a hundred measures of wheat;
and that the steward told one to put down in his bill eighty, and the
other fifty. Now suppose that the steward had been cheating and
oppressing these men, as was common enough in those days with stewards,
and has been common enough since; suppose that he had been charging them
more than they really owed, and, it may be, putting the surplus into his
own pocket, and so wasting his master's goods--that the one really owed
only eighty measures of oil, and the other really owed only fifty of
wheat; what could be more simple, or more truly wise either, when he was
found out, than to do this--to go round to the debtors and confess: I
have been overcharging you; you do not owe what I have demanded of you;
take your bill and write four-score, for that is what you really owe?
This is but a guess on my part.
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