What Does Luke 15:17 Mean in the King James?
And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Before the son moves toward home, he comes into himself and sees that his hunger is not the only reality.
THE MEANING
You are not reduced to the condition you can name: the hunger is real, and the father’s house still has bread enough to spare. Coming to yourself means both truths can be seen at once.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that present deprivation proves there is no abundance left to return to; the verse holds hunger and remembered plenty together.
THE ROOT
ἀπόλλυμαι
apollymai
GROWS FROM
ἀπόλλυμι
apollymi
To perish, lose the way, or be destroyed.
The verb translated “perish” belongs to the same word family Luke uses for “lost” throughout this chapter. The hunger is bodily, and the wording also holds the son’s lostness in view, the condition the father later says can be found.
ALSO GROWS
apolōlōs: Lost
ἀπολωλὼς
The father later uses this form for the son, connecting the son’s “I perish” with the chapter’s language of being lost and found.
apōleia: Loss, ruin, destruction
ἀπώλεια
This related word carries the same family’s sense of loss, showing that “perish” reaches beyond hunger alone.
THE PATTERN
Clear awareness of need opens the sight of provision that need alone cannot show.
The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.THE THREAD
For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.The son calls himself “perishing” here; later, his father describes him with the same word family as lost and found. The repeated root links the son’s recognition of his condition to the father’s recognition of his return.
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