““¢ Where, then ?’
“¢At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, ‘and what converse she seeks, in virtue of her near kindred a the immortal and eternal and divine; also, how different she would become, if wholly following this superior principle, and borne by a divine impulse out of the ocean in which she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells and things of earth and
388 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. XV.
rock, which, in wild variety, grow around her, because she feeds upon earth, and is crusted over by the good things of this life as they are termed. Then would you see her as she is’? (* Republic, 611).
Have bread enough and to spare (sepuccevovtar dptwr). Lit., abound in loaves. Wye., plenty of loaves.
Perish. Better, Zam perishing. The best texts insert ode, here, in contrast with the father’s house, suggested by the fa- ther’s servants.
20. His father. An affecting touch in the Greek: his own father.
Ran. Trench cites an Eastern proverb: “ Who draws near to me (God) an énch, I will draw near to him an ell; and whoso walks to meet me, I will leap to meet him.”
Kissed. See on Matt. xxvi. 49.
21. To be called thy son. He omits make me a servant. The slavish spirit vanishes in the clasp of the father’s arms. Bengel suggests that the father would not suffer him to utter the news. I once heard Norman McLeod say in a sermon, “Before the prodigal son reached his home he thought over what he should do to merit restoration. He would be a hired servant. But when his father came out and met him, and put his arms round him, and the poor boy was beginning to say this and that, he just shut his mouth, and said, ‘I take you to my heart, and that’s enough.’”
22. To his servants. Bond-servants. There is a fine touch in throwing in the bond-servants immediately after thy son (ver. 21).
Bring forth. Some texts add quickly (rayv). So Rev.
Cu. XV.] LUKE. 389
The best robe (ctodny tiv mpatnv). Lit., a robe, the first. Properly of a long, flowing robe, a festwe garment. See on Mark xvi. 5; Luke xx. 46.
Ring. See on Jas. ii. 2. Compare Gen. xli. 42.
Shoes. Both the ring and the shoes are marks of a free man. Slaves went barefoot.
23. The fatted calf. The article denoting one set apart for a festive occasion. Tynd., “ that fatted calf.”
24. Is alive—is found (avéfyocev—etbpédn). 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, ap-