Prodigal Son WK 2
He Began to be in Want
To eat swine was to become as a Gentile and outside the covenant (Lev. 11:7; Isa. 65:4; 66:17). The pods referred to (v. 16) were the long pods of the carob tree, eaten by animals and, at times, by the extremely poor. Otherwise, terms, actions, and relationships belong to the human story and are clear to a modern audience.
14. He began to be in want—All his worldly pleasures failing, he grew conscious of his want of real good.
15. And he joined himself to a citizen of that country—Either the devil or one of his children, the genuine citizens of that country, which is far from God. He sent him to feed swine—He employed him in the base drudgery of sin.
16. He would fain have filled his belly with the husks—He would fain have satisfied himself with worldly comforts. Vain, fruitless endeavour!
17. And coming to himself—For till then he was beside himself, as all men are, so long as they are without God in the world.
18. I will arise and go to my father—How accurately are the first steps of true repentance here pointed out! Against heaven—Against God.
The father’s compliance with the request is noted simply: “So he divided his property between them” (15:12c). By contrast, the younger son’s downfall is described in slow motion, forcing the reader to take in every detail of the journey. The country to which he travels is “distant,” the property is “squandered,” his lifestyle is “dissolute,” a famine strikes, and this son from a well-to-do household (as the subsequent mention of servants, the lavish feast, and the symbols of a robe, sandals, and signet ring make clear) suddenly finds himself among the poor. More than simply poor, he is so desperate that he becomes a farm worker on someone else’s estate. The depth of his desperation is seen in that he not only cares for pigs, but envies them their food (15:13–16). The scribes and Pharisees in Jesus’ audience would hear that as a particularly dismal fate, because for them pigs were “unclean” animals. Although we are not told the ethnic identity of the family in the parable, from the audience’s perspective the point would be clear.
The journey to the distant country is resolved in an even more difficult journey: The young man “came to himself” (15:17). The journey home begins with an internal dialogue in which he resolves to throw himself on his father’s mercy (in the hope of being allowed to live the better life of a servant on his family’s estate), and he rehearses in detail his speech of repentance (15:18–20a).
One day the prodigal found himself with an empty purse—and an empty soul. A famine in that land compelled him to feed swine (v. 15) for a living. So hungry was he that he envied the hogs their diet of husks (v. 16)—that is, “pods of the carob tree.”
In Jewish thinking, this young prodigal had “hit bottom.” The Talmud has this saying: “Cursed is the man who rears swine, and cursed is the man who teaches his son Greek philosophy.” Another rabbinical saying is this: “When the Israelites are reduced to eating carob-pods, then they repent”; and still another: “When a son (abroad) goes barefoot (through poverty), then he remembers the comfort of his father’s house.” So it was with the prodigal.
He came to himself (v. 17), is the literal Greek, and also good Latin and English idiom, meaning “came to his senses.” He had been acting insanely; but sin is insanity.
Contrasting his destitute condition with the plenty which his father’s servants enjoyed, the Prodigal Son decided that he would go home. He planned carefully the speech of penitence that he would make (vv. 18, 19). Against heaven means “against God,” the Jews preferring to avoid using the sacred name. In thy sight means “against thee.”