The Parable of the Prodigal Son

A young man abandons the family farm and goes looking for happiness in the pleasures of the city.

30

Roman Empire 27 BC - AD 1453

Introduction

Many Jews in first-century Judaea compromised with Roman ways, and even collaborated with the invading power. Those who came to regret their choices found in Jesus a firm yet gentle mentor, but others grumbled at the welcome he gave. “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God” Jesus reminded them “over one sinner that repenteth”, and he told them this tale.

A CERTAIN man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.* And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, “How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.”

* Pigs were unclean animals for Jews, according to Leviticus 11:7-8 and Deuteronomy 14:8: “And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcase”. It would not have been necessary to go very far to find swine, as they were farmed in the neighbourhood of the town of Gadara, in the Decapolis on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee. See Luke 8:26-33.

Précis
In Jesus’s Parable of the Prodigal Son, a young man demands his inheritance early, so he can go abroad and see life. In no time he is bankrupt, and reduced to keeping pigs; and as the pigs eat better than he does, he resolves to humble himself and go home for a job on his father’s estates.