Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 16:3

"And the steward said within himself, What shall I do, seeing that my lord taketh away the stewardship from me? I have not strength to dig; to beg I am ashamed." — Luke 16:3 (ASV)

I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.—In the outer framework of the parable, there is something eminently characteristic in this utterance of the steward’s thoughts. He has lost the manliness and strength that would have fitted him for actual labor. He retains the false shame that makes him prefer fraud to poverty.

He shudders at the thought that it might be his lot to sit, like Lazarus, and ask for alms at the rich man’s door.

Spiritually, we may see what happens to a religious caste or order, like the Pharisees, when it forfeits its true calling by misuse. It has lost the power to prepare the ground for future fruitfulness by the digging, which corresponds, as in Luke 13:8, to the preliminary work of education and other influences that lie outside direct religious activity. It is religious and ecclesiastical, or it is nothing. It is ashamed to confess its spiritual poverty and to acknowledge that it is poor, and blind, and naked (Revelation 3:17). Anything seems better than either of those alternatives.