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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 15:15 - 15:15
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15. ἐκολλήθη ἑνὶ τῶν πολιτῶν τῆς χώρας ἐκείνης. ‘He attached himself to one of the citizens.’ There is, however, a touch of intended degradation in the word ἐκολλήθη. (Comp. Aesch. Agam. 1566.) It means that he became absolutely dependent on his employer—a veritable astrictus glebae. In the N.T. this verb is chiefly used by St Luke and St Paul. Even in its worst and most willing exile the soul cannot cease to be by right a citizen of God’s kingdom—a fellow-citizen with the saints, Eph 2:19. Its true citizenship (πολίτευμα) is still in heaven (Php 3:20). By the ‘citizen of the far country’ is indicated either men hopelessly corrupt and worldly; or perhaps the powers of evil. We observe that in this far-off land, the Prodigal, with all his banquets and his lavishness, has not gained a single friend. Sin never forms a real bond of pity and sympathy. The cry of tempters and accomplices ever is, “What is that to us? see thou to that.”
ἔπεμψεν αὐτόν. ‘Freedom’ from righteousness is slavery to sin.
βόσκειν χοίρους. The intensity of this climax could only be duly felt by Jews, who had such a loathing and abhorrence for swine that they would not even name them, but spoke of a pig as dabhar acheer, ‘the other thing.’