Luke 15:16 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

He would fain have filled his belly with the husks— The version of 1729 renders the word κερατιων, by Carruways, or the fruit of the Carub tree, which bore a mean, though sweetish kind of fruit, in long crooked pods, which by some is called St. John's bread. But if the account which Saubert (who is a great favourer of this interpretation) gives of this plant be true, swine would hardly have been fed with any thing but the husky part of this in a time of extreme famine: possibly these were the husks of a fruit, something of the wild chesnut kind. The last clause signifies For no man gave him meat, the word φαγειν, or εσθιειν, being understood; as is plain from hence, that the clause contains a reason for his desiringto fill his belly with the husks, and not for his abstaining from them. His abstaining from the husks was owing to their being the food of beasts, and not tohis wanting permission to eat them; for this debauched youth cannot be supposed to have possessed such a principle of honesty, that he would rather die with famine, than without his masters leave take so small a matter as a few husks, which the swine seem to have had in great plent