Luke 15

Luke 15:7

[a] repentance] The difference of μετάνοια, change of mind, from λύπη, grief, or sorrow for sin, or dislike of what a man hath done, is sufficiently known, and as it hath place in many other passages, so eminently in this. For as he that lives a godly life may and doth often fall into such sins as deserve his sorrow and displeasure at himself, and so cannot be said not to want that sorrow, so it is certain that that man continuing all his life so, without any eminent fall into wilful sin, may be said not to need that μετάνοια, that change which here is spoken of, and is required to the bringing home of a lost sheep, a prodigal to his father’s house. So he that was washed already had no need, saith Christ, save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit, John xiii. 10.

Luke 15:10

After the same proportion it is that God expresseth joy in the sight of his angels upon the reducing of one indulgent sinner to good life.

Luke 15:11

To which purpose he made use of this other parable by way of story: A certain man— † estate, vby filer.

Luke 15:15

And being in that distress, he pinned himself upon one of the inhabitants of that region, being content to be entertained by him upon any conditions, never so hard; and he hired him, and set him to feed his swine in the fields, allowing him little food but what was allowed the swine.

Luke 15:16

And he would have been glad to have filled his belly with Egyptian figs, a coarse unwholesome fruit that swine fed on among them; and he could not get enough of them.

[bŋ husks] The κεράτια which are here set down as the food of swine, are the fruit of the carobe, or arbor ceratonia, (which the Syriac translation reads accordingly חֲרוּבָא,) mentioned by Dioscorides, l. 1. and Galen, l. 7. de Simpl. Med. fac., who calls the tree itself κερατωνία; and that, saith Hesychius, is an Egyptian fig, Κερατωνία, συκη Αἰγύπτον. This fruit Gorrhæus thus describes, that it is of the length of a man’s finger, forked, about the breadth of a thumb, very sweet, but hard of concoction, and of an ill juice, which is agreeable to what is affirmed of it by Pliny, l. 15. c. 24, who adds, that the rind of it is the part that is eaten; and thereupon, c. 28, In siliquis quod manditur, quid nisi lig-

Luke 15:17

And meditating with himself, he remembered the plenty that his father’s servants had, (or, being reduced to some sense and consideration by this distress, he thus said within himself,) The meanest of a multitude of my father’s servants feed very plentifully, and I am ready to starve for want of the meanest food.

³ spent, scattered, διακόρπια. ⁴ was, ἐγένετο. ⁵ fastened himself, ἀκολλήθη. ⁶ fruit of the Carobe tree. ⁷ Or, he came and said to himself: see note [a] on Mark ii.

Luke 15:24

For this return of a prodigal so desperately lost, I look upon as if he were risen from the dead, because he was lost—

Luke 15:25

Now that son of his that had always continued with him, and followed his business, and observed him diligently, (parallel to whom is the just person that never run the prodigal’s course, and so needs no repentance,) was in the field—

to celebrate his safe return with a time of feasting.

Luke 15:33

So he that undertakes to be a Christian must resolve to renounce all that is most precious to him in this world, or else he will not be able to hold out, and so had better never pretend to that profession.

Luke 15:34

A Christian is the salt of the earth, (Matt. v. 13,) of infinite use and benefit to all with whom he converseth, being an example of purity and other virtues, whereof Christianity is made up; but if he shall fail in the exercise of these, prove earthy, heavy, and insipid, without any active stirring quality, like to those bodies whose salt is drawn from them, he is utterly destroyed and perished.

Luke 15:35

The unhappy remainder is useless beyond the most noisome excrement or putrid carcass. It is not fit or useful (as some things are) to enrich the ground, no nor to mix with other things, which, being corrupted from their primary use, are yet good for that (and so are kept, though in a mean place, for that use); it is neither at present, nor for the future, by long digestion or farther putrefaction, capable of being good manure or compost for the earth, but is utterly unprofitable, and generally dealt with as such, cast out without any respect into those places where men would have nothing grow, apt only to convert a good soil into a desert. Let every disciple, every Christian designed by Christ to be the salt of the earth, lay this to heart, for he is nearly concerned in it. ### CHAP. XV. THEN drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him.