κεράτιον

From the study of Luke 15:16

Range of meaning

A diminutive of keras, 'horn', so literally 'little horn'. (1) The curved, horn-shaped pod of the carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua), common across the Mediterranean and the Levant. (2) Because carob seeds are very uniform in size, the word also became a small unit of weight and coin value, which gives us the English 'carat'. In the New Testament it occurs only here.

Against the English

KJV and YLT have 'husks', which to a modern reader means dry, empty shells or chaff. BSB, WEB, ESV and NIV have 'pods', which is accurate. NLT and some editions of the NASB say 'carob pods', which is most precise. The pods are sugary when ripe but tough, fibrous and low in nutrition. People fed them to animals, and the poor ate them when they had nothing else.

How it drifted

In 1611 'husk' could mean a pod or shell more broadly. Since then it has narrowed to the empty outer covering of grain or corn, so the picture has shifted from 'cheap fodder' to 'worthless chaff'.

Used elsewhere in the period

Horace (Epistles 2.1.123) describes a poor poet who 'lives on pods (siliquis) and coarse bread', so carob was a byword for poverty food. Rabbinic tradition says Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa, famous for his poverty, lived on a measure of carob from one Sabbath to the next (b. Berakhot 17b). Leviticus Rabbah 35:6 has the saying 'When Israel is reduced to carob pods, they repent', a striking parallel to this very turning point in the parable. The Vulgate renders it siliquae, the standard Latin word for carob pods.