Luke Chapter 15 verse 16 Holy Bible
And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
read chapter 15 in ASV
And so great was his need that he would have been glad to take the pigs' food, and no one gave him anything.
read chapter 15 in BBE
And he longed to fill his belly with the husks which the swine were eating; and no one gave to him.
read chapter 15 in DARBY
And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
read chapter 15 in KJV
read chapter 15 in WBT
He wanted to fill his belly with the husks that the pigs ate, but no one gave him any.
read chapter 15 in WEB
and he was desirous to fill his belly from the husks that the swine were eating, and no one was giving to him.
read chapter 15 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 16. - And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. So low was this poor lost man reduced, that in his bitter hunger he even came to long for the coarse but nutritious bean with which the herd was fed. These swine were of some value when fattened for the market; but he, the swineherd, was valueless - he might starve. The husks in question were the long bean-shaped pods of the carob tree (Caratonia siliqua), commonly used for fattening swine in Syria and Egypt. They contain a proportion of sugar. The very poorest of the population occasionally use them as food.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(16) He would fain have filled his belly.--It is singular that very many of the best MSS. give the simpler reading, "desired to be filled or satisfied." It is open to suppose either that they shrank from the reading in the text as too coarse, or that the later MSS. introduced "filled his belly" as more vivid and colloquial; or, as seems probable, that there may have been a variation of phrase even in the original autograph MSS. of St. Luke.The husks that the swine did eat.--The word is generic, but it is commonly identified with the long bean-like pods of the carob-tree, or Ceratonia siliqua, or St. John's bread, in which some have seen the "locusts" of Matthew 3:4. They contain a good deal of saccharine matter, and are commonly used as food for swine in Syria and Egypt. Spiritually, they answer to the sensual pleasures in which men who are as the swine, identified with brute appetites, find adequate sustenance. The soul that was born to a higher inheritance cannot so satisfy itself. It seeks to be "like a beast with lower pleasures," but it is part of the Father's discipline that that baser satisfaction is beyond its reach.
