Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 15:16

"And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him." — Luke 15:16 (ASV)

He would fain have filled his belly.—It is remarkable that very many of the best manuscripts give the simpler reading, “desired to be filled or satisfied.” It is reasonable to suppose either that they shrank from the reading in the text as too coarse, or that the later manuscripts 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 manuscripts of Saint 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 Saint 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 correspond to the sensual pleasures in which men who are like the swine, characterized by brute appetites, find adequate sustenance. The soul that was born to a higher inheritance cannot satisfy itself in that way. It seeks to be “like a beast with lower pleasures,” but it is part of the Father’s discipline that this baser satisfaction is beyond its reach.