The Daily Office · Luke 15:20–24
While he was still far off
Luke 15:20–24
20And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
21And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.
23And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.
24For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.
What's happening here
The parable of the prodigal son is told to Pharisees muttering that Jesus eats with sinners. The three parables of Luke 15 — lost sheep, lost coin, lost son — are one long answer to that grumble. The father's actions in verse 20 violate every norm of ancient Near Eastern patriarchal dignity: he sees the son while he is still far off, and he runs. In that culture, elderly men did not run in public. But the verb before the running is the one the whole parable turns on.
The word that matters
Greek · to be moved in the gut, to feel compassion physically
The noun behind this verb is splagchna — entrails, intestines, the gut. Greek thought of the gut, not the heart, as the seat of deep emotion. To splagchnizomai is not a polite "he felt bad for him"; it is a visceral churning, a physical response that takes hold of the body. Luke uses the verb exactly three times in his Gospel, and each time it is attached to someone who has no one else — a widow burying her only son, the Samaritan seeing the traveler left for dead, and here, the father in the parable who stands in for God himself.
Where else this shows up
Luke 7:13
Jesus sees the widow of Nain at her son's funeral procession and splagchnizomai — and then he touches the coffin.
Matthew 9:36
Jesus sees the crowds "harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd," and splagchnizomai. The next sentence sends out the disciples.
Exodus 34:6
The Hebrew anticipation: "the LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious" — racham, from the word for womb, the same organ logic.