Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers. — Literally, table or counter-keepers, just as bankers were originally those who sat at their bancum, or bench. These were the bankers referred to in the Note on Matthew 25:14. In that case, if the servant had been honestly conscious of his own want of power, there would have been at least some interest allowed on the deposit.
Usury. — Better, interest; the word not necessarily implying, as usury does now, anything illegal or exorbitant. The question — What answers to this “giving to the exchangers” in the interpretation of the parable? — is, as has been said, analogous to that which asks the meaning of “them that sell” in the answer of the wise virgins in Matthew 25:9. Whatever machinery or organisation the Church possesses for utilising opportunities which individual men fail to exercise, may be thought of as analogous to the banking-system of the old world. When men in the middle ages gave to a cathedral or a college, when they subscribe largely now to hospitals or missions, doing this and nothing more, they are “giving their money to the exchangers.” It is not so acceptable an offering as willing and active service, but if it be honestly and humbly given, the giver will not lose his reward.