Parable of the Prodigal Son: Jesus’s Sequel to Jacob & Esau

The story in Luke 15:11–32 is universally recognized as the parable of the prodigal son. This designation is a much later addition, a fact that pastors and commentators rightly call out regularly. However, their correction typically swings in the opposite direction, focusing on the elder brother. The problem is that, either way, the focus is on one brother. But the text itself starts out with a different emphasis. Jesus begins, “There was a man who had two sons” (Luke 15:11). This is key to understanding the parable. I venture it ought to be called the parable of the two sons. The very next lines establish the story’s context: The younger of the two sons wants his portion of the inheritance. Wait. A story about two sons, told to a Jewish audience, in which the central conflict is the younger brother trying to get his inheritance early? Beyond being a moving picture of grace, Jesus’s first-century Jewish audience would have recognized in the parable a master class in Torah subversion—one that echoes and transforms the patriarchal sibling drama of Jacob and Esau. It is easy to see how readers miss this, because the stories don’t line up perfectly. But they aren’t meant to. What Jesus...