A mighty famine – Famines were common in Eastern nations. They were caused by the failure of the crops – by a want of timely rains, a genial sun, or sometimes by the prevalence of the plague or of the pestilence, which swept off numbers of the inhabitants. In this case it is very naturally connected with the luxury, the indolence, and the dissipation of the people in that land,

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 14. A mighty famine in that land] As he was of a profligate turn of mind himself, it is likely he sought out a place where riot and excess were the ruling characteristics of the inhabitants; and, as poverty is the sure consequence of prodigality, it is no wonder that famine preyed on the whole country.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

14. when he had spent all . . . amighty faminea mysterious providence holding back the faminetill he was in circumstances to feel it in all its rigor. Thus, likeJonah, whom the storm did not overtake till on the mighty deep at themercy of the waves, does the sinner feel as if “the stars intheir courses were fighting against” him (Jud5:20).

in wantthe first stageof his bitter experience, and preparation for a change.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And when he had spent all,…. Sin strips a man of all that is good and valuable; of the image of God, of the knowledge of divine things, of natural holiness, of moral righteousness, and of strength to perform moral good; hence man is in a wretched and miserable condition, he is poor, and blind, and naked: and if man has spent all, and sin has stripped him of all, where is his free will? there is no good thing in man, but what comes from the grace of God; nor has he any thing to recommend him to God, or to offer to his creditor, to compound his debts with; nor can he prepare himself for conversion, or any good work:

there arose a mighty famine in that land; sin brings men into a starving and famishing condition; for in the far country, the land of sin, there is a famine of the word: though the Gospel is preached, it is only food to spiritual persons; unregenerate men have no desire to it, but neglect and despise it; and if they attend it, it has no place in them: they that are in this land, are aliens from the ordinances of God, the breasts of consolation, the goodness and fatness of his house; they are in a pit, wherein is no water; their taste is vitiated to every thing that is spiritually good; they live on bread of deceit, and labour after that which satisfies not; wherefore they look like skeletons, and are as the dry bones in Ezekiel’s vision:

and he began to be in want; or was in want: when the above is the case, the sinner may be truly said to be in want; an unregenerate man is in want of every thing that is good; of wisdom and knowledge, of grace and holiness, of righteousness or clothing, of food, and of all the necessaries of life: and he may be said to “begin” to be in want, because man was not originally so, but was possessed of a natural fulness; and because sin is the beginning of want, as soon as one takes place, the other does: moreover, this man now began to see and feel himself to be in want, though as yet he was not rightly and truly sensible of his wants, at least of the way to redress them.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

When he had spent ( ). Genitive absolute. The verb is here used in a bad sense as in Jas 4:3. See on Lu 14:28.

He (). Emphasis.

To be in want (). The verb is from , behind or later (comparative). We use “fall behind” (Vincent) of one in straitened circumstances. Plummer notes the coincidences of Providence. The very land was in a famine when the boy had spent all.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Spent. See on cost, ch. 14 28.

In that land. Want is characteristic of the “far country.” The prodigal feels the evil of his environment. “He (with a shade of emphasis) began to be in want.”

To be in want [] . From usterov, behind. Compare our phrase of one in straitened circumstances, to fall behind.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “And when he had spent all,” (dapanesantos de autou panta) “Then when he had spent all things,” without finding satisfaction in it, which he had inherited, with his wasteful, riotous conduct, spent all and gained nothing, Isa 55:2; Amo 8:11-12. This was a crisis in his life.

2) “There arose a mighty famine in that land,” (egeneto limos eschura kata ten choran ekeinen) “There came to be a severe famine throughout that country,” a famine for food, and a greater famine of the soul, a famine that sin causes, an hunger of soul, that grows worse and worse, Jer 2:13-19.

3) “and he began to be in want.” (kai autos erksato hustereisthai) “And he began to be in a state of want,” for food, clothing, and shelter, the very necessities of physical life, and a want of the soul that was more probing, tormenting; His soul felt empty, abandoned, helpless, the fruit of a chosen sinful course, yet the calf of God came to repentance, 2Co 7:10; Rom 2:4-5.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

(14) There arose a mighty famine in that land.This again was no unwonted incident. The famine which came to pass in the days of Claudius Csar (Act. 11:28) was more extensive and memorable than others, but it was far from standing alone. And now the pinch came. His treasure was gone, and for the fulness of bread there was hunger and cleanness of teeth (Amo. 4:6). In the individual interpretation of the parable, the mighty famine is the yearning of the souls unsatisfied desire, the absence of its true food, of the bread that cometh down from heaven. (See Notes on Joh. 6:32.) In its wider range it is the craving of humanity for what it cannot find when appetites are not satisfied, and their wonted supply ceasesthe famine, not of bread and of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord (Amo. 8:11); the want of a message from the Eternal Father to sustain the life of His children.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

14. Spent all In the original squandered all, just as he had previously (Luk 15:13)

gathered all. A mighty famine The apostacy of man from God, of which this course of the son is an emblem, is the source of the evils which afflict human life, and the purpose of these evils is to bring the wanderer home first to himself and then to his father God.

Want Happy for him that he was in want of what his father’s house could alone supply.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

“And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that country, and he began to be in want, and he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine, and he would willingly have filled his belly with the husks (carob pods) that the swine did eat, and no man gave to him.”

Like many a foolish person who receives a fortune he felt that he could ‘spend, spend, spend’. And that was fine until the money ran out. But unless the fortune is huge the money does eventually run out. And the problem in this case was that it happened at a time of famine. Thus he found himself in great need. The result was that he had to hire himself out to a foreigner to look after his pigs. To a Jew nothing could have been more degrading. Pigs were ritually ‘unclean’, and to associate with them was heavily frowned on and despised by all Jews (Lev 11:7; Deu 14:8; Isa 65:4; Isa 66:17; 1Ma 1:47 ; 2Pe 2:22). And yet this young Jew not only had to live among the pigs, he had to eat the food that they ate. It was the opposite of all that he had ever known. He was homeless and friendless and lacking in even the basic amenities. He had reached rock bottom. We do not have to assume dishonesty. Eating the pig food may well, in a time of famine, have been part of the agreement. And he may well also have received a small wage. But there was no charity for him. He was an outcast. His ‘good time’ friends had forgotten him. No one wanted to know him. The pig food was probably carob pods, of which the Rabbis would say, ‘when the Israelites are reduced to carob pods, then they repent’. For carob pods were the worst possible type of food.

We must remember that Jesus is here describing the ‘public servants and sinners’, people who had wandered away from God and had lived for themselves. They had lived their lives as though God did not exist and by it they had lost everything that was truly worthwhile. Even the wealthy ones were spiritually ‘living among the pigs’.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Folly and repentance:

v. 14. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.

v. 15. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

v. 16. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat; and no man gave unto him.

v. 17. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my fathers have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

v. 18. I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee,

v. 19. and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants.

The young fellow, after the manner of his kind, undoubtedly had friends in droves while his money lasted and he was willing to spend it recklessly. His indulgence may at first have whetted the edge of appetite, but overindulgence wears out the power of enjoyment. When his money was gone, his so-called friends, after the immemorial manner of their kind, evaporated into thin air, leaving him severely alone. And the poor fellow, no longer a good fellow, having literally destroyed all that he had, found himself face to face with direst extremity and most distressing poverty, since a great famine came into that same land. The result of wastefulness and lack of food combined is dire want. He was at the point of starvation. And so he attached himself to a citizen of that country which he had thought to bless with his presence. The man did not want him, could not use him, in fact; to feed another mouth in the time of dearth is no easy matter. He now had work, that of a swineherd, despised above all other occupations by the Jews, and he could sleep out in the stable; but the amount of food he received from his master was inadequate for keeping body and soul together. He was soon reduced to such straits that he would have been glad to fill his spoiled stomach with husks, the pods of a wild fruit, that of the carob-tree. That was the food of the pigs entrusted to him; but he was denied even the roughage of the beasts. That is the result of sin. It is not only a reproach to the sinner, but it leads to the destruction of both body and soul. The sinner must find out what misery and anguish he brings upon himself if he leaves the Lord, his God. In his misfortune he is forsaken by God and man, he has no comfort nor support, the abyss of despair yawns before him. Or if fortune seems to smile upon him and good days fall to his lot, he still lacks peace of mind and a satisfied conscience: there is no peace in his soul. Happiness is possible only in communion with God; to leave that means to give up true happiness.

At last the heaping up of miseries and griefs had some effect upon the young man. He realized the situation; he came to his true, sane self; he awoke as from a deep, unpleasant dream; he saw himself and his whole life in the true light; he began once more to judge things according to the standards of a well instructed conscience. He called to mind the laborers of his father that were now, in comparison with his own miserable situation, living in affluence, having more bread than they needed, while he was actually starving to death by degrees. His pride was broken, his unruliness a matter of the past. He decided to go at once to his father and make a full, an unequivocal confession of his sin, that he had transgressed against God in heaven, whom every sin strikes, in the first place, and against his father. He feels his utter unworthiness to be called a son of such a father any longer, he has forfeited all filial claims; the best he can hope for, if his father would be so merciful, is to be given a position as hired workman on the farm. That is true contrition and repentance, when the sinner searches his own heart and being, fully acknowledges his transgressions, admits the justice of the divine punishment without restriction, and is fully persuaded as to his own unworthiness. There must be no palliation, no equivocation. He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy, Pro 28:13.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Luk 15:14-17 . The divine ordinance of external misery, however, in connection with the consequences of sin, reawakens consideration and self-knowledge and the craving after God !

] (see the critical remarks) comp. on Luk 4:25 .

] of extension, throughout , as Luk 8:39 . Winer, p. 356 [E. T. 499].

] and he , on his part.

] The commencement of his new state is regarded as important.

Luk 15:15 . ] he clave to, attached himself to , makes the obtrusiveness of his action palpable.

] The previous object becomes the subject. See Stallbaum, ad Protag . p. 320 A, B; Khner, ad Xen. Anab . i. 4. 5; Bernhardy, p. 468.

] to keep swine ; what an ignominous occupation for the ruined Jew !

Luk 15:16 . . ] to fill his belly (comp. Themist. Or . xxiii. p. 293 D); a choice expression for the impetuous craving of the hungry man .

] from, i.e. by means of a portion, as with verbs of eating, Winer, p. 179 [E. T. 248].

] Cornicle , the sweetish fruit of the locust-tree ( ceratonia siliqua of Linnaeus), used as food for swine, and by the poor as a means of nourishment, Galen. VI. p. 355. See Bochart, Hieroz . I. p. 708; Rosenmller, Morgenl . V. p. 198 f.; Robinson, Pal . III. p. 272.

. ] not food (Wolf, Rosenmller, Paulus), but, according to the context, . When the swine driven home were fed therewith, which was the occupation of others, he was hungry even for that brutish provender, and no one gave it to him. No man troubled himself concerning the hungry one, to satisfy him even in this manner. That he should eat with the swine is appropriately not regarded as a possibility. Moreover, it is not presupposed that he received still worse food than (Kuinoel, de Wette), but only that he received his maintenance on account of the famine in excessively small quantity , by reason whereof his hunger was so great that he, etc.

Luk 15:17 . ] preceding, in contrast to the external misery, but having come to himself ( i.e. having recovered his senses). See examples in Kypke. Comp. , Xen. Anab . i. 5. 17; Act 12:11 . It is the moral self-understanding , which had become strange and remote to him, in respect of his condition and his need.

. and are correlative; is not contrasted with (Olshausen), but . . is the contrast to the little bread , which did not appease his hunger. (see the critical remarks) is passive. They are provided with more than enough , receive superfluity of bread, Mat 13:12 ; Mat 25:29 . Comp. , 1Th 3:12 ; Athen. ii. p. 42 B.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.

Ver. 14. And when he had spent all ] And left himself nothing at all, praeter coelum et coenum, but air to breathe in and earth to tread on, as that Roman prodigal boasted; who had made his own hands his executors, and his own eyes his overseers, drawing much of his patrimony through his throat, and spending the rest upon harlots, who left him as bare as crows do a dead carcase. Ruin follows riot at the heels.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

14 16. ] His misery is set forth in these verses. He soon spends all: there is a fine irony, as Stier remarks, in , as compared with before he spent his money for that which was no bread.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

14. . ] On fem., see note on ref. Acts.

This famine is the shepherd seeking his stray sheep the woman sweeping to find the lost. The famine, in the interpretation, is to be subjectively taken; he begins to be in want (no stress on , which is inserted on account of the change of subject from the last clause), to feel the emptiness of soul which precedes either utter abandonment or true penitence.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Luk 15:14-19 . The crisis : recklessness leads to misery and misery prompts reflection.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Luk 15:14 . , a famine, an accident fitting into the moral history of the prodigal; not a violent supposition; such correspondences between the physical and moral worlds do occur, and there is a Providence in them. : the most probable reading if only because is feminine only in Doric and late Greek usage. : the result of wastefulness and prevalent dearth combined is dire want. What is to be done? Return home? Not yet; that the last shift.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

when he had spent = having spent. Greek. dapanao. Elsewhere only Mar 5:26. Act 21:24. 2Co 12:15. Jam 4:3.

in = throughout. Greek. kata. App-104. Not the same word as in verses: Luk 15:4, Luk 15:7, Luk 15:25.

began to be in want. Contrast “began to be merry” (Luk 15:24).

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

14-16.] His misery is set forth in these verses. He soon spends all:-there is a fine irony, as Stier remarks, in , as compared with before-he spent his money for that which was no bread.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Luk 15:14. , himself began) He was not among the last [as one might have expected from the ample means which he had taken with him to the far country] to feel the pressure of the famine.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

arose: 2Ch 33:11, Eze 16:27, Hos 2:9-14, Amo 8:9-12

Reciprocal: Psa 107:12 – he brought Pro 18:9 – is brother Pro 21:20 – but Isa 57:17 – and he Hos 2:6 – I will

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

4

The famine came just after he had spent all his money.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Luk 15:14. And when he had spent all. Probably very soon; the enjoyment of sin is brief. But it is not necessarily implied that all Gods gifts are wasted before repentance. The picture of misery begins here; and the sense of destitution is emphasized.

A mighty famine. External circumstances hasten the consequences of sin, and are used by God to lead to repentance. Thus the Father seeks His son, by so ordering events that he shall feel his real condition: He began to be in want. This is the main point: conscious emptiness of soul must lead one way or the other; to despair or to repentance.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Vers. 14-16.

The liberty of self-enjoyment is not unlimited, as the sinner would fain think; it has limits of two kinds: the one pertaining to the individual himself, such as satiety, remorse, the feeling of destitution and abjectness resulting from vice (when he had spent all); the other arising from certain unfavourable outward circumstances, here represented by the famine which occurs at this crisis, that is, domestic or public calamities which complete the subduing of the heart which has been already overwhelmed, and further, the absence of all divine consolation. Let those two causes of misery coincide, and wretchedness is at its height. Then happens what Jesus calls , to be in want, the absolute void of a heart which has sacrificed everything for pleasure, and which has nothing left but suffering. We can hardly avoid seeing, in the ignoble dependence into which this young Jew falls under a heathen master, an allusion to the position of the publicans who were engaged in the service of the Roman power. But the general idea which corresponds to this touch is that of the degrading dependence, in respect of the world, to which the vicious man always finds himself reduced in the end. He sought pleasure, he finds pain; he wished freedom, he gets bondage. The word has in it something abject; the unhappy wretch is a sort of appendage to a strange personality. To feed swine, the last business for a Jew. denotes a species of coarse bean, used in the East for fattening those animals. At Luk 15:16, the Alex. Mjj. are caught in the very act of purism; men of delicate taste could not bear the gross expression, to fill the belly with…There was therefore substituted in the public reading the more genteel term, to satisfy himself with…; and this correction has passed into the Alex. text. The act expressed by the received reading is that, not of relishing food, but merely of filling a void. The smallest details are to the life in this portraiture.

During this time of famine, when the poor herdsman’s allowance did not suffice to appease his hunger, he was reduced to covet the coarse bean with which the herd was carefully fattened, when he drove it home: the swine were in reality more precious than he. They sold high, an image of the contempt and neglect which the profligate experiences from that very world to which he has sacrificed the most sacred feelings.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)