pods

The Greek in Luke 15:16 that is translated as “pods” in English is translated in Elhomwe as makattha, a term given to all kind of peelings, which are given to pigs. (Source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

In the German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) with Johannisbrotbaum-Schoten or “carob pods,” the kind of pods that likely would have been fed to pigs in Palestine.

The Carob Ceratonia siliqua is a very common tree found throughout the Mediterranean area and also in Arabia, Somalia, and Oman. It is native to Israel, where it was called charuv, according to Jewish religious writings of the first few centuries after Christ. Arabs call it kharrub.

In Bible times, as now, carob trees were found in the coastal plain and in the foothills (Shephelah) and on the eastern slopes of Galilee and Samaria. The carob seed pods are filled with a sweet moist pulp that was popular with poor people. The pods were also used to feed animals. That is probably the basis for Jesus’ statement that the prodigal boy in the parable looked hungrily at the carob keration (“pods”) that he had to feed to the pigs (Luke 15:16).

The carob tree is an evergreen with dark green leaves and many low leafy branches that hide a short trunk. The crown of the tree is round and may reach as high as 12 meters (40 feet). As is the case of the acacia, the date palm and the fig, the carob tree is a lonely representative of a large tropical family (in this case the pea sub-family Caesalpinioideae) that found its way into parts of Israel many millennia ago. The trees in this family are legumes, that is, they put nitrogen into the soil by way of little nodules on the roots. As the tree ages, the trunk be-comes twisted. In contrast to many other trees of the Bible lands, this one bears flowers in autumn, and the seed pods form the following summer. The mature pod is dark brown and about 15-25 centimeters (6-10 inches) in length and 2.5-3.5 centimeters (1-1.5 inches) broad.

If indeed the “pods” of Luke 15.16 were carob pods, it would certainly indicate that they were not considered high-class food. The tree is also called “St. John’s bread” on the belief that John the Baptist must have eaten these fruits when he lived in the desert of Judea. It is quite likely that John did eat carob pods. However, the suggestion that the “locusts” in Mark 1:6 were locust bean pods is not correct, since John probably did eat locusts, as some people in the world still do today. Ironically, carob pod pulp, which was once the “food of the poor” has become, in the last few years, an expensive “health food” in England and America! The word “carat” used in weighing diamonds comes from the Greek name of this tree, since the seeds were used as a standard for measurement. They typically weigh about two hundred milligrams.

Since the Greek word for carob does not actually occur in Luke 15:16, and keration could possibly refer to some other sort of pods, we cannot actually name a species here. If translators have a word for the edible seed pods of trees, they should use it. Otherwise they will have to use something like “fruit of wild trees.” In study notes translators may wish to refer to major language terms, for example, French caroube, Spanish algarrobo, Portuguese alfarroba, and Arabic kharrub.

Carob pods, photo by Gloria Suess

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

pig

The word chazir is used for domestic and wild pigs. The domesticated pig was known in Egypt around 2500 B.C. and was probably domesticated in Canaan about that time too. Domestication of wild pigs seems to have coincided everywhere with the development of agriculture. Wild pigs were probably penned in large enclosures and fed scraps, thus keeping them away from planted fields. Later on, when full domestication had taken place, it was more usual for pigs to be herded rather than kept in pens. Pigs eat almost anything and herding did away with the necessity to feed them. It soon was noticed that the rooting activity of the pigs rid areas of tree roots and shrubs and promoted the growth of grass for grazing. So early swineherds herded the pigs into areas where future grazing was wanted, away from planted fields. Jews who kept pigs may not have done so with the idea of eating their meat, which was unclean, but to promote grazing grass and to sell the pigs to neighboring tribes.

Wild pigs, in the form of the European Boar Sus scrofus, were once abundant in Israel, especially in the Jordan Valley. Even now since neither Jews nor Moslems eat the meat of wild pigs, and thus do not hunt them, they can still be found in the Jordan Valley and in many other areas where there is both water and thick undergrowth.

The Greek words choiros and hueios mean “pig” or “pig meat”. The word hus means a female pig or sow.

The domesticated pigs of biblical times looked much more like wild pigs than the modern breeds of pig. They would have been brown or gray in color and fairly hairy. The young pigs probably had horizontal stripes.

Of all animals the pig was considered the most unclean.

In languages that differentiate between wild and domestic pigs, in Psalms 80:13 the word for a wild pig should be used. In 2 Peter 2:22, although the Greek specifies a female pig, the gender of the pig is not really important in the proverb. Many translations have simply “pig”.

Source: All Creatures Great and Small: Living things in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

parable of the prodigal son (image)

Click here to see the image in higher resolution.

Image taken from the Wiedmann Bible. For more information about the images and ways to adopt them, see here .

For other images of Willy Wiedmann paintings in TIPs, see here.

feeding the pigs (image)

The story of feeding the pigs is illustrated for use in Bible translations in West Africa by Wycliffe Cameroon like this:

Illustration 1999 Mbaji Bawe Ernest, © Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc. Used with permission.

complete verse (Luke 15:16)

Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 15:16:

  • Noongar: “He wanted to eat the bad food which he gave the pigs, but no person gave him food to eat.” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Uma: “Because of his hunger, he desired wanting to eat the pig food. But no-one gave him food.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Because of his hunger/starving he wanted to eat even the food of the pigs, but nobody gave him anything (lit. even what).” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “He would like to have satisfied his hunger with even the husks of that which they were feeding the pigs, but there was no one who gave him anything.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Because of his hunger, he wanted to eat koma some of the fruit of the tree that the pigs were eating, but they (understood as people, not pigs) didn’t give him any.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “He really wished that no matter what, there would be something he could eat, even the tree fruit/seed-pods which was only fed to the pigs. But well, no one was giving to him.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Scriptures Plain & Simple (Luke 15:11-32)

Barclay Newman, a translator on the teams for both the Good News Bible and the Contemporary English Version, translated passages of the New Testament into English and published them in 2014, “in a publication brief enough to be non-threatening, yet long enough to be taken seriously, and interesting enough to appeal to believers and un-believers alike.” The following is the translation of Luke 15:11-32:

Finally, Jesus told them this story:

       A man’s younger son once said,
              “Dad, give me my share of the family fortune!”
       So his father divided everything
              between him and his older brother.

       Soon the younger son packed up everything
       and left for a foreign country,
              where he wasted every cent of his inheritance.

       Then a terrible famine struck the land,
              leaving him famished and without food.

       So hungry was the young man that he took a job
              feeding bean pods to nasty pigs,
       and he would have eaten some of the pods himself,
              if only the owner had turned his back.

       At last, in desperation, he said to himself,
       “My dad’s workers have more than enough to eat,
              while I sit here with these pigs, starving to death.
       Best thing I can do is to go home and make up with my dad.
       I’ll say, “Dad, I’ve been a really lousy son,
              worthless and useless to both you and God.
       Fact is, I don’t deserve to be called your son —
              just treat me like one of your servants.”

       Before he even reached the road to the farmhouse,
       his father saw him and felt so sorry that he ran over
              and greeted the young man with hugs and kisses.

       “Dad, I’ve been a really lousy son,” said the boy.
       “I’m worthless and useless to both you and God.
              Fact is, I don’t deserve to be called your son.”

       But his father instructed the servants,
              “Hurry! Bring him the best clothes.
              Put a gold ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
              And prepare our choice beef, so we can celebrate!
       My son was dead, and now he’s alive!
              My son was lost, and now he’s found.”

       Then the festivities began.
       Meanwhile, the older brother was coming in from the fields,
       when he heard the sound of music and dancing.
              “What’s going on?” he asked one of the servants.

       “Your younger brother has come home,” answered the servant,
       “and your father ordered us
              to prepare the choice beef for a feast.”
       This made the older brother so angry
              that he refused to go anywhere near the house.

       His father went out and begged him to join the celebration,
       but his son answered, “All my life I’ve obeyed you,
              and I’ve worked like a slave.
       Yet you’ve never even given me a small goat,
              so I could throw a party for my friends.
       This other son of yours blew all his money on hookers,
              and now that he’s back home,
       you’ve ordered our choice beef
              to be killed for a feast in his honor.”

       “My dear son,” replied his father, “You’re always here,
              and everything I have is yours as well.
       But don’t you think we should celebrate?
       Your brother was dead, and now he’s alive.
              He was lost, and now he’s found.”

Translation commentary on Luke 15:16

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.