BILL.1. In the parable of the Unjust Steward (Luk_16:6 f.) bill, RV [Note: Revised Version.] better bond, renders the Gr. grammata, the equivalent of the contemporary Heb. legal term shetâr (lit. writing), an acknowledgment of goods or money received written and signed by the debtor himself (Baba bathra X. 8). Edersheims statement (Life and Times of Jesus, ii. 272) that the Gr. word was adopted into Hebrew is based on a false reading. See, further, Debt. 2. Bill of divorce; see Marriage.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
Bill
(סֵפֶר, se'pher, βιβλίον), any thing written, and usually rendered book. The passage in Job_31:35, " Oh! that one would hear me! .... that mine adversary had written a book," would be more properly rendered, " that mine adversary had given me a written accusation," or, in modern phraseology, "a bill of indictment." In other places we have the word "bill," as "bill of divorcement" (Deu_24:1; Deu_24:3; Isa_50:1; Jer_3:8; Mat_19:7; Mar_10:4) SEE DIVORCE, and in Jer_32:10-16; Jer_32:44, " the evidence," or, as in the margin, " the book," which there implies a legal conveyance of landed property.
In the New Testament, the word γράμμα (properly a written mark) is translated " bill" in the parable of the unjust steward (Luk_16:6-7). Here, too, a legal instrument is meant, as the lord's " debtors" are presumed to have been tenants who paid their rents in kind. The steward, it would appear, sought their good-will, not merely by lowering the existing claim for the year, but by granting a new contract, under which the tenants were permanently to pay less than they had previously done. He directed the tenants to write out the contracts, but doubtless gave them validity by signing them himself. This, like the Hebrew term, signifies a "letter" or written communication (1Ki_21:8; 2Ki_5:5; 2Ki_10:1; 2Ki_19:14; 2Ki_20:12; 2Ch_32:17; Est_1:22; Est_3:13; Est_8:5, etc. Act_28:21; Gal_6:11).
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.