Both aorists, and pointing back to a definite time in the past; doubtless the moment when he "came to himself." Wyc., hath lived.

The Prodigal Son is a favorite subject in Christian art. The return of the penitent is the point most frequently chosen, but the dissipation in the far country and the degradation among the swine are also treated. The dissipation is the subject of an interesting picture by the younger Teniers in the gallery of the Louvre. The prodigal is feasting at a table with two courte-sans, in front of an inn, on the open shutter of which a tavern-score is chalked. An old woman leaning on a stick begs alms, possibly foreshadowing the fate of the females at the table. The youth holds out his glass, which a servant fills with wine. In the right-hand corner appears a pigsty where a stable-boy is feeding the swine, but with his face turned toward the table, as if in envy of the gay revellers there. All the costumes and other details of the picture are Dutch. Holbein also represents him feasting with his mistress, and gambling with a sharper who is sweeping the money off the table. The other points of the story are introduced into the background. Jan Steen paints him at table in a garden before an inn. A man plays the guitar, and two children are blowing bubbles - "an allegory of the transient pleasures of the spendthrift." Mrs. Jameson remarks that the riotous living is treated principally by the Dutch painters. The life among the swine is treated by Jordaens in the Dresden Gallery. The youth, with only a cloth about his loins, approaches the trough where the swine are feeding, extends his hand, and seems to ask food of a surly swineherd, who points him to the trough. In the left-hand corner a young boor is playing on a pipe, a sorrowful contrast to the delicious music of the halls of pleasure. Salvator Rosa pictures him in a landscape, kneeling with clasped hands amid a herd of sheep, oxen, goats, and swine. Rubens, in a farm-stable, on his knees near a trough, where a woman is feeding some swine. He looks imploringly at the woman. One of the finest examples of the treatment of the return is by Murillo, in the splendid picture in the gallery of the Duke of Sutherland. It is thus described by Stirling ("Annals of the Artists of Spain"): "The repentant youth, locked in the embrace of his father, is, of course, the principal figure; his pale, emaciated countenance bespeaks the hardships of his husk-coveting time, and the embroidery on his tattered robe the splendor of his riotous living. A little white dog, leaping up to caress him, aids in telling the story. On one side of this group a man and a boy lead in the farted calf; on the other appear three servants bearing a light-blue silk dress of Spanish fashion, and the gold ring; and one of them seems to be murmuring at the honors in preparation for the lost one."

A symphony: concerted music.

Imperfect.: Began to inquire.

Compare is alive - is found. "How nice is the observance of all the lesser proprieties of the narration. The father, in the midst of all his natural affection, is yet full of the moral significance of his son's return - that he has come back another person from what he was when he went, or while he tarried in that far land; he sees into the deep of his joy, that he is receiving him now indeed a son, once dead but now alive; once lost to him and to God, but now found alike by both. But the servant confines himself to the more external features of the ease, to the fact that, after all he has gone through of excess and hardship, his father has yet received him safe and sound" (Trench).

Not with a mere temporary fit of passion, but, as the word imports, with a deep-seated wrath.

Some read the diminutive, ἐρίφιον, "a little kid." In any event a contrast is intended between the kid and the farted calf.

Not my brother, but with the bitterest sarcasm.

Was come (ἦλθεν)

He says came, as of a stranger. Not returned.

Devoured (καταφαγών)

We say "eat up;" the Greek said "eat down" (κατά). The word is suggested, no doubt, by the mention of the calf, the kid, and the feasting.

From οἶκος, a house, and νέμω, to distribute or dispense. Hence, one who assigns to the members of the household their several duties, and pays to each his wages. The paymaster. He kept the household stores under lock and seal, giving out what was required; and for this purpose received a signet-ring from his master. Wyc., fermour, or farmer. Here probably the land-steward.

Was accused (διεβλήθη)

Only here in New Testament. From διά, over, across, and βάλλω, to throw. To carry across, and hence to carry reports, etc., from one to another; to carry false reports, and so to calumniate or slander. See on devil, Matthew 4:1. The word implies malice, but not necessarily falsehood. Compare Latin traducere (trans, over, ducere, to ad), whence traduce.

Had wasted (ὡς διασκορπίζων)

Lit., as wasting. Rev., was wasting; not merely a past offence, but something going on at the time of the accusation. See Luke 15:13.

Better as Rev., What is this that Ihear?

Give an account (ἀπόδος τὸν λόγον)

Lit., "give back" (ἀπό). Rev., render. The (τὸν) account which is due. Aristophanes has a striking parallel: "And now give back my signet; for thou shalt no longer be my steward" ("Knights," 947).

Thou mayest (δυνήσῃ)

More strictly, as Rev., thou canst.

Or is taking away. He was not yet dispossessed, as is shown by what follows.

I cannot (οὐκ ἰσχύω)

See on Luke 14:30. "I have not strength." His luxurious life had unfitted him for hard labor. In Aristophanes ("Birds," 1431), a sycophant is asked: "Tell me, being a young man, do you lodge informations against strangers?" He replies: "Yes; why should I suffer, for I know not how to dig ?"

To beg (ἐπαιτεῖν)

See on besought, Matthew 15:23.

The debtors of his master (Luke 16:5).

Alford and Trench think that the debtors were together; but the words seem to me to indicate that he dealt with them separately. He called to him each one, and said unto the first; after that (ἔπειτα) another.

Lit., baths. The bath was a Hebrew measure, but the amount is uncertain, since, according to Edersheim, there were three kinds of measurement in use in Palestine: the original Mosaic, corresponding with the Roman; that of Jerusalem, which was a fifth larger; and the common Galilaean measurement, which was more than a fifth larger than the Jerusalem. Assuming the first standard, the bath would be about fifty-six pints, and the debt, therefore, a large one.

Take thy bill (δέξαι σου τὰ γράμματα)

Lit., take back thy writings. Rev., bond. Wyc., obligation; and in Luke 16:7, letters. The plural is used for a single document. The bill is the bond which the buyer has given, and which is in the steward's keeping. He gives it back to the debtor for him to alter the figures.

Sit down quickly

It was a secret transaction, to be hurried through.

A different one with a different debt, and his circumstances demanding a different rate of discount.

Measures (κόρους)

Cors. A cor was ten baths; the dry and the fluid measures being the same.

Of the steward. Rev., properly, "his lord."

Commended

Admiring his shrewdness, though he himself was defrauded.

Unjust steward

Lit., steward of injustice. See on forgetful hearer, James 1:25; and compare words of grace, Luke 4:22; unjust judge, Luke 18:6; son of his love, Colossians 1:13; lust of uncleanness, 2 Peter 2:10. The idiom is a Hebrew one. The phrase expresses Jesus' judgment on what the steward's master praised.

Wisely (φρονίμως)

See on Matthew 10:16. Wyc., prudently. I would suggest shrewdly, though in the modern sense of sagaciously, since the earlier sense of shrewd was malicious, or wicked. Plato says: "All knowledge separated from righteousness and other virtue appears to be cunning and not wisdom." In Matthew 7:24-26, it is applied to the sagacious man who built his house on the rock, opposed to the foolish (μωρός) man who built on the sand. "It is a middle term, not bringing out prominently the moral characteristics, either good or evil, of the action to which it is applied, but recognizing in it a skilful adaptation of the means to the end - affirming nothing in the way of moral approbation or disapprobation, either of means or end, but leaving their worth to be determined by other considerations" (Trench, "Parables").

In their generation (εἰς τὴν γενεὰν τὴν ἑαυτῶν)

The A. V. misses the point, following Wyc. Lit., in reference to their own generation; i.e., the body of the children of this world to which they belong, and are kindred. They are shrewd in dealing with their own kind; since, as is shown in the parable, where the debtors were accomplices of the steward they are all alike unscrupulous. Tynd., in their kind.

Than the children of light

Lit., sons of the light. The men of the world make their intercourse with one another more profitable than the sons of light do their intercourse with their own kind. The latter "forget to use God's goods to form bonds of love to the contemporaries who share their character" (Godet); forget to "make friends of the mammon," etc.

Compare Virgil, "Aeneid," vi., 664:. Among the tenants of Elysium he sees "those who, by good desert, made others mindful of them."

Of the mammon of unrighteousness (ἐκ τοῦ μαμωνᾶ τῆς ἀδικίας)

The same idiom as in Luke 16:8, steward of injustice. Compare unrighteous mammon, Luke 16:11. Mammon should be spelt with one m. It is a Chaldee word, meaning riches. It occurs only in this chapter and at Matthew 6:24. "Of the mammon" is, literally, by means of. In the phrase of unrighteousness, there is implied no condemnation of property as such; but it is styled unrighteous, or belonging to unrighteousness, because it is the characteristic and representative object and delight and desire of the selfish and unrighteous world: their love of it being a root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10). Wyc., the riches of wickedness.

Ye fail (ἐκλίπητε)

But all the best texts read ἐκλίπῃ, "when it (the mammon) fails."

They may receive

The friends.

Habitations (σκηνάς)

Lit., tents or tabernacles.

A general proposition, yet with a reference to mammon as the least of things. See Luke 16:11.

Fidelity is, therefore, possible toward the unrighteous mammon.

God's. Riches are not ours, but given us in trust.

Your own

Equivalent to the true riches. That which forms part of our eternal being - the redeemed self. Compare the parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:20), where the life or soul is distinguished from the possessions. "Thy soul shall be required; whose shall the wealth be?" Compare, also, rich toward God (Luke 12:21). Chrysostom, cited by Trench, says of Abraham and Job, "They did not serve mammon, but possessed and ruled themselves, and were masters, and not servants."

Properly, household servant.

Serve

See on minister, Matthew 20:26.

The other

See on Matthew 6:24.

Hold to

See on Matthew 6:24.

Rev. renders literally, according to the composition of the word, lover, of money. Only here and 2 Timothy 3:2. Compare the kindred noun, 1 Timothy 6:10. The usual word for covetous is πλεονέκτης (1 Corinthians 5:10, 1 Corinthians 5:11; 1 Corinthians 6:10).

Derided (ἐξεμυκτήριζον)

Only here and Luke 23:35. Lit., to turn up the nose at. The Romans had a corresponding phrase, naso adunco suspendere, to hang on the hooked nose: i.e., to turn up the nose and make a hook of it, on which (figuratively) to hang the subject of ridicule. Thus Horace, in one of his satires, giving an account of a pretentious banquet at the house of a rich miser, describes one of the guests as hanging everything to his nose; i.e., making a joke of everything that occurred. The simple verb occurs at Galatians 6:7, of mocking God.

See on Matthew 24:15.

Rev., entereth violently. See on Matthew 11:12. Wyc., maketh violence into it. Tynd., striveth to go in.

See on Matthew 5:18.

Imperfect, and frequentative; denoting his habitual attire.

Purple (πορφύραν)

Originally the purple fish from which the color was obtained, and thence applied to the color itself. Several kinds of these were found in the Mediterranean. The color was contained in a vein about the neck. Under the term purple the ancients included three distinct colors: 1. A deep violet, with a black or dusky tinge; the color meant by Homer in describing an ocean wave: "As when the great sea grows purple with dumb swell" ("Iliad," xiv., 16). 2. Deep scarlet or crimson - the Tyrian purple. 3. The deep blue of the Mediterranean. The dye was permanent. Alexander is said by Plutarch to have found in the royal palace at Susa garments which preserved their freshness of color though they had been laid up for nearly two hundred years; and Mr. St. John ("Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece") relates that a small pot of the dye was discovered at Pompeii which had preserved the tone and richness attributed to the Tyrian purple. This fixedness of color is alluded to in Isaiah 1:18 - though your sins were as scarlet, the term being rendered in the Septuagint φοινικοῦν, which, with its kindred words, denoted darker shades of red. A full and interesting description of the purple may be found in J. A. St. John's "Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece," iii., 224: sq.

Fine linen (βύσσον)

Byssus. A yellowish flax, and the linen made from it. Herodotus says it was used for enveloping mummies (ii., 86), a statement confirmed by microscopic examinations. He also speaks of it as a bandage for a wound (vii., 181). It is the word used by the Septuagint for linen (Exodus 25:4; Exodus 28:5; Exodus 35:6, etc.). Some of the Egyptian linen was so fine that it was called woven air. Sir Gardner Wilkinson says that some in his possession was, to the touch, comparable to silk, and not inferior in texture to the finest cambric. It was often as transparent as lawn, a fact illustrated by the painted sculptures, where the entire form is often made distinctly visible through the outer garment. Later Greek writers used the word for cotton and for silk. See Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," first series, iii., 114 sq., and Rawlinson's "History of Ancient Egypt," i., 4:87, 512. A yellow byssus was used by the Greeks, the material for which grew around Elis, and which was enormously costly. See Aeschylus, "Persae," 127.

Fared sumptuously (εὐφραινόμενος λαμπρῶς)

Lit., making merry in splendor. Compare Luke 15:23, Luke 15:24, Luke 15:29, Luke 15:32. Wyc., he ate, each day, shiningly.

See on poor, Matthew 5:3.

Lazarus

Abbreviated from Ἐλεάζαρος, Eleazar, and meaning God a help. "It is a striking evidence of the deep impression which this parable has made on the mind of Christendom, that the term azar should have passed into so many languages as it has, losing altogether its signification as a proper name" (Trench).

Was laid (ἐβέβλητο)

Lit., was thrown: east carelessly down by his bearers and left there.

Gate (πυλῶνα)

The gateway, often separated from the house or temple. In Matthew 26:71, it is rendered porch.

Full of sores (εἱλκωμένος)

Only here in New Testament. The regular medical term for to be ulcerated. John uses the kindred noun ἕλκος, an ulcer (Revelation 16:2). See next verse.

Eagerly, and not receiving what he desired. The same thing is implied in the story of the prodigal, where the same word is used, "he would fain have been filled" (Luke 15:16), but the pods did not satisfy his hunger.

The crumbs that fell (τῶν πιπτόντων)

Lit., the things falling. The best texts omit ψιχίων, crumbs.

Moreover (ἀλλὰ καὶ)

Lit., but even. "But (instead of finding compassion), even the dogs," etc.

Licked (ἐπέλειχον)

Only here in New Testament. Cyril, cited by Hobart, says: "The only attention, and, so to speak, medical dressing, which his sores received, was from the dogs who came and licked them."

A Rabbinical phrase, equivalent to being with Abraham in Paradise. "To the Israelite Abraham seems the personal centre and meeting-point of Paradise" (Goebel).

Rev., Hades. Where Lazarus also was, but in a different region. See on Matthew 16:18.

Only here in New Testament. Common in medical language. See on Luke 21:26. Compare the exquisite passage in Dante, where Messer Adamo, the false coiner, horribly mutilated, and in the lowest circle of Malebolge, says:

"I had, while living, much of what Iwished;

And now, alas! a drop of water crave.

The rivulets that from the verdant hills

Of Cassentin descend down into Arno,

Making their channels to be soft and cold,

Ever before me stand, and not in vain:

For far more doth their image dry me up

Than the disease which strips my face of flesh."

Inferno, xxx., 65 sq.

Tormented (ὀδυνῶμαι)

Used by Luke only. Tormented is too strong. The word is used of the sorrow of Joseph and Mary when the child Jesus was missing (Luke 2:48); and of the grief of the Ephesian elders on parting with Paul (Acts 20:38) Rev., I am in anguish.

Lit., child.

Receivedst (ἀπέλαβες)

Received back (ἀπό) as a reward or quittance. Compare Luke 6:34; Luke 18:30; Luke 23:41.

Gulf (χάσμα)

From χάσκω, to yawn. Transcribed into the English chasm. In medical language, of the cavities in a wound or ulcer.

Is fixed (ἐστήρικται)

Compare Luke 22:32; and see on 1 Peter 5:10.

Compare Dante, where Ciacco, the glutton, says to Dante:

"But when thou art again in the sweet world,

I pray thee to the mind of others bring me."

Inferno, vi., 88.

Dives had said, "they will repent." Abraham replies, "they will not be even persuaded."

Though one rose

Dives had said, "if one went."

From the dead (ἐν νεκρῶν)

Dives had said from the dead, but using a different preposition (ἀπό). It is wellnigh impossible to give the English reader this nice play of prepositions. The general distinction is ἀπό, from the outside; ἐκ, from within. Thus Luke 2:4, Joseph went up from (ἀπό) Galilee, the province, out of (ἐκ) the city of Nazareth. Abraham's preposition (ἐκ, out of) implies a more complete identification with the dead than Dives' ἀπό, from. A rising from among the dead was more than a messenger going from the dead. "We can hardly pass over the identity of the name Lazarus with that of him who actually was recalled from the dead; but whose return, far from persuading the Pharisees, was the immediate exciting cause of their crowning act of unbelief" (Alford).

Inadmissible. Only here in New Testament. See on it cannot be, Luke 13:33.

Offences

See on offend, Matthew 5:29; and compare on Matthew 16:23.

Only here in New Testament. The verb means to pay what is due, and is equivalent to our phrase, it pays.

Millstone

Compare Matthew 18:6. The correct reading here is λίθος μυλικός, a millstone; not a great millstone as Matthew

Thrown (ἔῤῥιπται)

Hurled: with an underlying sense of violence, called out by so great an outrage.

See on straitly charged, Luke 9:21.

Or mulberry. Luke distinguishes between this and συκομορέα, the fig-mulberry (Luke 19:4). The names were sometimes confused, but a physician would readily make the distinction, as both were used medicinally.

Omitted by the best texts.

From χρεία, requirement; something which the master must pay. Not useless, but having rendered no service beyond what was due. "The profit does not begin until the servant goes beyond his obligation" (Meyer). "A servant owes all things" (Bengel).

It may also mean between or on the borders of. The Am. Rev. insists on the latter.

See on Luke 5:12.