Luke 15:16

16. Filled his belly For it is only his animal nature that man in his lost depravity is able to think of feeding or sustaining.

Husks Rather pods. These were not, as the American reader is apt to imagine, the husks of maize, that is, of Indian corn. They are the fruit of the carob tree, and are from their shape called in the Greek little horns. From the popular notion that they were the food of John the Baptist, they are called St. John’s bread. Dr. Thomson describes them as “fleshy pods somewhat like those of the honey locust tree, from six to ten inches long and one broad, lined inside with a gelatinous substance, not wholly unpleasant to the taste when thoroughly ripe. I have seen large orchards of this Kharub in Cyprus, where it is still the food which the swine do eat. In Syria, where we have no swine, or next to none, the pods are ground up and a species of molasses is made, which is much used in making certain kinds of sweetmeats. In Cyprus, Asia Minor, and the Grecian islands, you will see full grown trees bending under half a ton of green pods.”

The carob fruit is more properly a human food than husks. During famines, such as the prodigal suffered, in countries where the tree grows, it is a sort of support for the people. Unripe, it is slightly astringent to the taste; ripened on the tree, it has a disagreeable odor; but dried on hurdles, it becomes an eatable but not very agreeable article. It is generally abandoned by men to swine and cattle.

No man gave The question is asked by commentators, why did he not take and eat a share of the pods; inasmuch as he was feeding the swine with them? Some have answered, that he only drove the swine into the fields to feed on grass and herbage, while they were fed on pods at home under the master’s eye. But even then it may be replied that, being on hire, he would be fed at least as well as the swine he tended. To obviate all these difficulties other commentators have supplied anything after gave, and this would make the last clause signify that no man bestowed upon him any relief. But, first, it seems most natural to supply husks as the proper grammatical object of gave; and second, this interpretation still imputes to our Lord the very forced supposition, that the man should not be fed as well as the swine he was hired to herd.

We suggest that the vain desire for the unobtainable pods (including all of Luke 15:16) was a later stage of his history, and after he had been turned out from his swineherdship. It was bad enough to be a swineherd; but while he was a swineherd he could, at any rate, feed with the swine on carobs. It was worse to lose his place, and hunger for the pods he once dispensed to, and shared with, the lowest of animals. Even to feed swine is better than to be vainly ravenous for swine’s fare.

And such are the steps by which vice descends into the depths of degradation and misery. In his father’s house, the prodigal’s heart, soul, and spirit were fed with their high nourishment; with his harlots he descended to the sensual gratification of palate and lust; with the citizen he sunk to sustaining his animal nature with bestial husks; with himself, finally, he arrived at complete starvation. Happily, when the bottom was reached the ascent commenced. Such is not always the case; for beneath this lowest deep there is a lower deep, which has no bottom and admits no ascent.