11Then Jesus said, "There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them.
Many commentators have suggested that there is nothing particularly noteworthy in this passage. The request of the younger, while maybe a bit uncommon, appears to be a legitimate request. Kenneth Bailey shows that nothing could be further from the truth.
There are recorded instances of a father dividing his estate among heirs while he is still living. Abraham did this to avoid conflict within his own tribe. However, the idea that a son would request the division of the estate by his living father was unthinkable. Bailey claims to have searched countless ancient records and inquired of other scholars on this matter. There is no evidence of this ever happening in the written record!
The younger son's request is equivalent to wishing his father's death. The father is in the way of the son's plans and the son wants to get on with it. So offensive is the idea that the father probably would not have been blamed for killing his impudent son on the spot.
But there is a third character participating in this transaction as well. Because we are of another culture, we miss a crucial assumption about the older son. The older son's role in such a case should be the role of mediator. He should be confronting his younger brother and telling him to beg forgiveness. He should be interceding with the father begging him to have mercy on his brother. What do we get from the older son? Silence. We also apparently get an uncontested division of the estate. Something is amiss with the older son in this story.
Of course, the most scandalous thing is that the father grants his son's request without protest.
13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.
Here we have more insults to the father. In cases where a father divided his estate with his sons while living, the father and son were prohibited from independently selling off parts of the estate. Furthermore, while technically belonging to the son, the father had a claim to the estate for his own survival and care. Here the son sells the estate and leaves, depriving his father of the livelihood he was entitled to.
If you have ever been involved with probate proceedings, you know it can take months to resolve the issues of dividing an estate. It was not much different in Jesus' time. Verse 13 says, "A few days later" the son took his inheritance and ran. He undoubtedly found someone in the village on the sly and did the transaction. He probably did it at below-market cost to facilitate a speedy exchange. Why was he in such a hurry? Because he knew that if the village found out what he had done, they would have been furious. He was racing the clock to avoid having his deeds discovered before he could leave town.
Later in this story, the older brother will accuse the younger brother of living like a heathen, spending his money on prostitutes. Bailey points out that the words "squandered" and "dissolute" in Greek don't mean immortality. They suggest he was reckless with his money and didn't watch his finances. This will become important later in the story.
Verse 14 points out the younger son is now in a dilemma. The Jews were prohibited from selling their land to gentiles. If a Jew did such a thing, the community would perform a ceremony that cut that person off from the life of the community. The only way to return to the community was to repurchase the land. Not only has the son disrespected his father, but he cannot return to the village because of his offense of squandering his inheritance with gentiles. Now he has no resources and cannot regain his estate.
15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.
It was considered inappropriate in Middle Eastern culture to deny someone's request for assistance, but one way to get rid of a person was to make their life so miserable they moved on. According to the Torah, Jews could not eat pigs or touch pig carcasses. Technically, feeding pigs was not prohibited. Yet, in Jesus' day, the Pharisees would have considered such work unacceptable. This gentile citizen was clearly trying to rid himself of the younger son. Carobs (pods) were of little nutritional value to human beings, and his desire to eat them was, in essence, a way of saying he wished he were a pig!
17 But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!
Many commentators have argued that the phrase "came to himself" was a euphemism for he repented. As we will see shortly, this is not so. It merely means he has taken full stock of his situation and realized better alternatives must exist. He has disrespected his father, his older brother now controls the remaining estate, and the community may be ready to stone him as soon as he shows his face. Still, facing these obstacles now appears preferable to his present dilemma. What will he do?
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