Jesus told this parable near Jericho, in the last stage of His journey toward Jerusalem, because those who heard Him supposed that the kingdom of God was about to appear at once. Luke states the occasion plainly: "And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear."1 What follows does not deny that the kingdom is coming. It corrects the timing. Between the king's departure and his return stands an interval, and the parable addresses what his servants are to do inside that interval.
The Nobleman’s Departure and the Refusal of His Rule
"He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come. But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us."2
The scene drew on an event within living memory of Jesus' hearers. After the death of Herod the Great in 4 B.C., his son Archelaus traveled to Rome to have his father's kingdom confirmed by Augustus. A delegation of his own subjects followed him there to oppose his rule before Caesar, and Augustus confirmed him regardless, though as ethnarch rather than king. A nobleman traveling abroad to receive a kingdom while his own people petitioned against him was not an invented image. It was recent history, and it gave the parable a setting no listener needed explained to him.
The pound, called a mina in Greek, was a unit worth about a hundred drachmae, roughly four months' wages for a laborer, a significant sum but a modest one beside a talent, which was sixty times as much. Each of the ten servants received the identical amount. The difference the parable goes on to record is not a difference in what was given. It is a difference in what was done with it. "Occupy till I come" names the whole of the instruction, and it is a command to trade and to labor, not permission to wait.
The citizens who rejected the nobleman stand apart from the ten servants from the first sentence in which they appear. The servants are inside the household, entrusted with the master's goods and answerable to him for their use of it. The citizens have refused the nobleman altogether, and the parable does not lose track of their case. It returns to them at the end.
The Reckoning of the Faithful
"And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds. And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities. And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds. And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities."3
The first servant returns a tenfold gain and receives authority over ten cities. The second returns a fivefold gain and receives five. Both are called good and faithful, and both receive a reward proportioned to what their trading produced rather than an identical reward for an identical starting sum. This is the reward that follows faithful service, and it is distinct from the gift of salvation itself, which the New Testament gives on the same terms to every believer regardless of what precedes it. The rule that governs cities in this parable governs something other than entrance into the kingdom. It governs what is entrusted to a servant once he is already inside it, and Paul describes the same reckoning in other language: "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."4 The nobleman's commendation, and the cities that follow it, are the reward of that reckoning, given according to what each servant did with an identical trust.
The Servant Who Buried His Trust
"And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin: For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow: Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury? And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds."5
The third servant offers fear as his reason for doing nothing, and the master turns the excuse against him. If the servant genuinely believed his master exacting, the least he could have done was place the money with a bank to draw interest, a course that required no risk and no skill. He did neither. He buried the sum where it could neither grow nor be lost, and called this caution. The master calls it wickedness, a term the parable reserves for this servant alone among the three, and applies the term not to theft or waste but to plain inactivity.
The bystanders object that the servant already holds ten pounds, and the master's answer to that objection states the governing rule outright: "For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him."6 Paul states the standard this servant failed to meet: "Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful."7 A steward is not required to succeed by some fixed measure. He is required to act, and this servant did not act at all.
The Citizens Who Would Not Have Him Reign
"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."8
The parable closes by returning to the citizens introduced at its opening, the ones who sent word after the nobleman that they would not have him reign over them. Their sentence is death, carried out at the king's own command once his kingdom is his to govern. This closing verse sets two failures side by side rather than one. The servant who buried his pound is a member of the household who failed in the use of what was given him, and his penalty is loss, the pound taken from him and given to another. The citizens never received anything to use, because they refused the nobleman's rule from the start, and their penalty is death rather than loss. The parable treats unfaithful service inside the kingdom and outright rejection of the king as two distinct things, judged by two distinct sentences, and it ends its account of the one in the same verse in which it closes the account of the other.
Occupy Till He Comes
The parable's own instruction stands at its center rather than at its end: "Occupy till I come."9 It is phrased as a command rather than encouragement, given to every servant alike and requiring no waiting for further word. The interval between the king's departure and his return is neither empty nor incidental to the story. It is the whole space in which a servant's faithfulness, or the absence of it, is formed, and the accounting that follows measures exactly what was done inside that space.
John records the promise that closes the interval from the other end: "And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be."10 The reward comes with him, not ahead of him, and it is given according to what has been done, the same principle the two faithful servants had already illustrated within the parable itself. The instruction Jesus gives His hearers is not to calculate the length of the wait. It is to trade faithfully with what has been placed in their hands until the one who gave it returns to require an account of it.
You May Also Enjoy
The Parable of the Talents: Faithful Stewardship of God-Given Gifts
The Parable of the Faithful Servant and the Evil Servant: Vigilance and Stewardship
The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins: Readiness for Christ's Return
The Parable of the Unjust Steward: Wise Stewardship and Eternal Investments
The Parable of the Prodigal Son: Repentance, Forgiveness, and the Father's Love
Behold, the Bridegroom Comes: The Ten Virgins and the Visible Church