Exegesis:

kai epethumei ‘and he desired, or, longed,’ here, ‘he would gladly have…’ with infinitive. Durative imperfect.

chortasthēnai ek tōn keratiōn hōn ēsthion hoi choiroi ‘to be satisfied,’ i.e. ‘to fill himself with the carob pods the pigs were eating.’ ek after verbs meaning ‘to fill’ means ‘with.’

keration ‘carob pod,’ i.e. fruit of the carob tree, or locust tree.

kai oudeis edidou autō ‘and nobody gave him (anything),’ scil. from the carob pods, a durative imperfect.

Translation:

The first clause expresses the degree of his hunger, cf. “he got to the point of longing to…” (Phillips), ‘his hunger (was) such (that) very-much he wanted to…’ (cf. Tae’ 1933), or, ‘he would not have hesitated to….’

To feed on, i.e. ‘to appease one’s hunger with’ rather than merely ‘to eat.’

For pods the translator may use any local term for what pigs commonly eat, e.g. ‘residue-of-coco-nut (after the oil has been pressed out)’ (Sranan Tongo), ‘bran (of the rice)’ (Tae’ 1933), or a generic rendering, as in “the food the pigs were eating” (Phillips, similarly Balinese).

And no one gave him anything, or, ‘but no one gave him any, or it’ (cf. Good News Translation, Bahasa Indonesia RC).

Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.