Hebdomekontakis appears once in the New Testament (Matthew 18:22), where Jesus uses it to describe the limitless forgiveness believers must extend. The phrase 'seventy times seven' (or 'seventy-seven times') responds to Peter's suggestion that seven acts of forgiveness was generous.
Jesus' use of hebdomekontakis hepta (seventy times seven) deliberately echoes Genesis 4:24, where Lamech boasted of seventy-sevenfold vengeance. Jesus transforms the ancient formula of unlimited vengeance into a formula of unlimited forgiveness — what Lamech claimed in wrath, the disciple extends in grace. The parable that follows (Matthew 18:23-35) grounds this forgiveness in the incalculable debt God has forgiven us. Those who have been forgiven billions must forgive pennies. The arithmetic is theological: our capacity to forgive others must be proportional to the grace we have received.