but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.
We have here the parable of the prodigal son, the scope of which is the same with those before, to show how pleasing to God the conversion of sinners is, of great sinners, and how ready he is to receive and entertain such, upon their repentance; but the circumstances of the parable do much more largely and fully set forth the riches of gospel grace...
Commenting on Luke 15:11-32
And he answering, said to his father,.... Commending himself, and reflecting on his father: lo, these many years do I serve thee; for though he was called a son, yet differed little from a servant; he was of a servile disposition, and under a spirit of bondage; he served his father, not in the Gospel, but in the law, moral and ceremonial; in the letter...
Verse 29. A kid. A young goat. This was of less value than the calf; and he complains that while his father had never given him a thing of so little value as a kid, he had now given his other son the fatted calf. Make merry with. Entertain them--give them a feast.