The beggar died, and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried. In Hades, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus at his bosom. He cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue! For I am in anguish in this flame.’
“But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in the same way, bad things. But here he is now comforted, and you are in anguish. Besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that those who want to pass from here to you are not able, and that no one may cross over from there to us.’
“He said, ‘I ask you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house; for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, so they won’t also come into this place of torment.’
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv23, 27 Heavenly and spiritual things are expressed, and set forth…
Heavenly and spiritual things are expressed, and set forth under colors and resemblances fit for our senses.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv22–28 22 And it came to pass, that the beggar…
22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
Ver. 22. Into Abraham’s bosom] A metaphor from feasts, say some; from fathers, say others, who imbosom and hug their children when wearied with long running about, or have met with a knock, and come crying unto them.
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And was carried by the angels] Through the air, the devil’s region, do the angels conduct the saints at death; who may therefore call death, as Jacob did the place where he met the angels, Mahanaim, Gen 32:2. For like as the palsyman was let down with his bed through the tiling before Jesus, Luk 5:18, so is every good soul taken up in a heavenly couch through the roof of his house, and carried into Christ’s presence by these heavenly courtiers; who as in life they are our supporters, Psa 91:10-11, so after death our porters, as here, by the angels; as if they had striven which should have a part.
And was buried] Possibly with as much noisome stench and hurry in the air, as at Cardinal Wolsey’s burial. A terrible example there is in the Book of Martyrs of one Christopher Landsdale, an unmerciful courtier, who suffering a poor lazar {a} to die in a ditch by him, did afterwards perish himseff in a ditch.
The rich man also died] Perhaps he was choked, as Hardicanutus (noted for epicurism, A.D. 1041) was at a marriage at Lambeth, most men rejoicing to be rid of him; in memory whereof Hocktide (a feast of scorning) was a long time after continued in this kingdom, saith our chronicler.
{a} A poor and diseased person, usually one afflicted with a loathsome disease; esp. a leper. ŒD
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv23, 25, 27 καὶ ἐν τῷ ᾅδῃ, And in hell. The world…
καὶ ἐν τῷ ᾅδῃ, And in hell. The world hath been filled with disputes about the true signification of the word αδης, which is here translated hell. The most probably true notion of it is, that it signifies, the state of the dead, both of the dead body, and so it often signifieth the grave, and of the departed soul. A very learned man saith, that if he mistakes not, this is the only text in Scripture in which by it is to be understood the place of torments. The Hebrew word which is translated by this, far more often signifying the place of the blessed, whither the saints and patriarchs went when they died, than the place whither sinners went; but Luk 16:24 makes it appear, that here it signifies hell, properly so called, as it imports the place of the damned. We must understand our Saviour in this whole διατυπωσις to speak to us figuratively, that by things which we understand we might comprehend spiritual things. Heaven and hell are at too great a distance for souls in each to discourse one with another: neither have souls any eyes to lift up. We are by this taught:
1. That as the souls of good men, when they leave their bodies, go into a state of eternal bliss, where are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and enjoy a felicity which we are not able to express, but is set out to us under the notion of Abraham’s bosom, to let us know that it is a place of rest, and communion with saints, and the same felicity which Abraham the friend of God doth enjoy: so the souls of wicked men, when they leave their bodies, shall go into a place of torments, the greatness of which being such as we are not able to conceive, they are expressed to us under the notion of being tormented by fire.
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2. That it will be a great part of the misery of damned souls, to understand those to be in a state of happiness whom they in this life have scorned, despised, and abused, and, it may be, have been instruments to hasten them to those blessed mansions.
3. That there will come a time when the proudest sinners will be glad of the help of the meanest saints, if they could obtain it. Father Abraham, ( saith the rich man), send Lazarus, that Lazarus whom when alive I suffered to lie at my gate full of sores, and would not relieve.
4. That the state of the damned will be void of the least degrees of comfort and satisfaction. The rich man desireth but a cooling of his tongue with so much water as could be brought upon the tip of Lazarus’s finger.
5. That the tongue is a member, the abuse of which will in another life lie very heavy upon lost souls.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv22, 24, 25, 26, 27 Observe here, 1. That our Saviour represents all men,…
Observe here, 1. That our Saviour represents all men, both good and bad, passing immediately out of this life into a state of happiness or misery; Lazarus died, and was carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom.
Thence note,
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1. That the souls of men survive in sensibility and activity, after the dissolution of their bodies, and do not sleep with the body until the day of the resurrection.
2. That all holy souls, and amongst the rest the godly poor, are instantly, after death, conveyed by angels to their place of rest and blessedness. The rich man also died: this is added to let us know that riches, for all men’s confidence in them, will not deliver from death; the rich man might be surfeited by faring deliciously every day, while Lazarus was famished.
And was buried: here is no mention of Lazarus’s burial, probably he had none, but was flung out of the way into some hole or pit; or if he had a burial, a very mean one, which is past over in silence: all the advantage which a rich man has by a great estate after he is dead, is only to have a pompous funeral, which yet signifies nothing to him, because he is not sensible of it. And in hell he lifted up his eyes, etc. He feels at once both his own misery, and sensibly perceives Lazarus’s happiness.
Thence note, that the souls of wicked men, while their bodies lie in the grave, are in the state of the greatest misery, which is aggravated by the sense they have at the same time of the saints’ happiness. For probably the blessed shall see the torments of the damned, and the damned probably shall see the glory of the blessed.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv22–28 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being…
And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments,.... Which may design the place of torment, and the miserable state the Scribes and Pharisees, as all wicked men, enter immediately into upon death, Psa 9:17 who in their lifetime were blind, and are called blind guides, blind watchmen, blind leaders of the blind, and who were given up to judicial blindness and hardness of heart; but in hell their eyes are opened, and they see their mistakes about the Messiah, and find themselves in torments, under dreadful gnawings, and remorse of conscience; and having a terrible sensation of divine wrath, their worm dies not, and their fire is not quenched: or this may regard the vengeance of God on the Jews, at the destruction of Jerusalem; when a fire was kindled against their land, and burned to the lowest hell; and consumed the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains; and the whole land became brimstone, salt, and burning; and they were rooted out of it in anger, wrath, and great indignation; see Deu 29:23 or rather, the dreadful calamities which came upon them in the times of Adrian at Bither; when their false Messiah Bar Cochab was taken and slain, and such multitudes of them were destroyed in the most miserable manner (z), when that people, who before had their eyes darkened, and a spirit of slumber and stupidity fallen upon them, in those calamities began to be under some convictions:
and seeth Abraham afar off: the covenant of circumcision given to him, and to them his natural seed, now of no use to them; their descent from him, of which they boasted, and in which they trusted, now of no avail; and him in the kingdom of heaven, and themselves thrust out; see Luk 13:28.
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And Lazarus in his bosom; they now found the Messiah was come, and was gone to heaven, whither they could not come, Joh 7:33. The Jews are convinced that the Messiah is born, though not revealed; and they sometimes confess, that he was born the same day Jerusalem was destroyed; and sometimes they say, he sits at the gates of Rome among the lepers, and at other times, that he is in the walks of paradise (a). This is said in agreement with the notions of the Jews, that wicked men will see the righteous in happiness, and themselves in torment; by which the latter will be aggravated, to which the allusion is; for they say (b),
"the gates of paradise are fixed over against the gates of hell, so that they can see the righteous in rest, and themselves in distress.''
(z) Vid. Buxtorf. Lex. Talmud. col. 372. (a) Synagog. Jud. c. 50. T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 98. 1. Aben Ezra in Cant. vii. 5. T. Hieros Beracot, fol. 5. 1. (b) Tzeror Hammor, fol. 125. 3.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28 And the beggar - Worn out with hunger, and…
And the beggar - Worn out with hunger, and pain, and want of all things, died: and was carried by angels (amazing change of the scene!) into Abraham's bosom - So the Jews styled paradise; the place where the souls of good men remain from death to the resurrection. The rich man also died, and was buried - Doubtless with pomp enough, though we do not read of his lying in state; that stupid, senseless pageantry, that shocking insult on a poor, putrefying carcass, was reserved for our enlightened age!
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On v22 Verse 22. The rich man also died, and was…
Verse 22. The rich man also died, and was buried] There is no mention of this latter circumstance in the case of Lazarus; he was buried, no doubt-necessity required this; but he had the burial of a pauper, while the pomp and pride of the other followed him to the tomb. But what a difference in these burials, if we take in the reading of my old MS. BIBLE, which is supported by several versions: forsothe the riche man is deed: and is buried in helle. And this is also the reading of the Anglo-saxon,: [A.S.], and was in hell buried. In some MSS. the point has been wanting after εταφη, he was buried; and the following και, and, removed and set before επαρας he lifted up: so that the passage reads thus: The rich man died also, and was buried in hell; and lifting up his eyes, being in torment, he saw, c. But let us view the circumstances of this man's punishment.
Scarcely had he entered the place of his punishment, when he lifted up his eyes on high and what must his surprise be, to see himself separated from God, and to feel himself tormented in that flame! Neither himself, nor friends, ever suspected that the way in which he walked could have led to such a perdition.
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1. And seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom, Lu 16:23. He sees Lazarus clothed with glory and immortality - this is the first circumstance in his punishment. What a contrast! What a desire does he feel to resemble him, and what rage and despair because he is not like him? We may safely conclude that the view which damned souls have, in the gulf of perdition, of the happiness of the blessed, and the conviction that they themselves might have eternally enjoyed this felicity, from which, through their own fault, they are eternally excluded, will form no mean part of the punishment of the lost.
2. The presence of a good to which they never had any right, and of which they are now deprived, affects the miserable less than the presence of that to which they had a right, and of which they are now deprived. Even in hell, a damned spirit must abhor the evil by which he is tormented, and desire that good that would free him from his torment. If a lost soul could be reconciled to its torment, and to its situation, then, of course, its punishment must cease to be such. An eternal desire to escape from evil, and an eternal desire to be united with the supreme good, the gratification of which is for ever impossible, must make a second circumstance in the misery of the lost.
3. Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, Lu 16:25. The remembrance of the good things possessed in life, and now to be enjoyed no more for ever, together with the remembrance of grace offered or abused, will form a third circumstance in the perdition of the ungodly. Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime, c.
4. The torments which a soul endures in the hell of fire will form, through all eternity, a continual present source of indescribable wo. Actual torment in the flames of the bottomless pit forms a fourth circumstance in the punishment of the lost. I am tormented in this flame, Lu 16:24.
5. The known impossibility of ever escaping from this place of torment, or to have any alleviation of one's misery in it, forms a fifth circumstance in the punishment of ungodly men. Besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf, Lu 16:26. The eternal purpose of God, formed on the principles of eternal reason, separates the persons, and the places of abode, of the righteous and the wicked, so that there can be no intercourse: They who wish to pass over hence to you, cannot neither can they pass over, who would come from you hither. A happy spirit cannot go from heaven to alleviate their miseries; nor can any of them escape from the place of their confinement, to enter among the blessed. There may be a discovery from hell of the paradise of the blessed; but there can be no intercourse nor connection.
6. The iniquitous conduct of relatives and friends, who have been perverted by the bad example of those who are lost, is a source of present punishment to them; and if they come also to the same place of torment, must be, to those who mere the instruments of bringing them thither, an eternal source of anguish. Send Lazarus to my father's family, for I have five brothers, that he may earnestly testify (διαμαρτυρηται) to them, that they come not to this place of torment. These brothers had probably been influenced by his example to content themselves with an earthly portion, and to neglect their immortal souls. Those who have been instruments of bringing others into hell shall suffer the deeper perdition on that account.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv22, 23, 24, 26 Luk 16:22. And it came to pass — In…
Luk 16:22. And it came to pass — In a little time; that the beggar died — Worn out with hunger, and pain, and want of all things; and was carried by angels (amazing change of the scene!) into Abraham’s bosom — So the Jews styled paradise; the place or state where the souls of good men remain from death to the resurrection. The expression alludes to the way of representing the felicities of heaven, by sharing a magnificent banquet with Abraham and the other patriarchs; (see Mat 8:11; Luk 22:30;) and nothing could better describe the honour and happiness of Lazarus, who had lain in so wretched a condition before the rich man’s gate, than telling us that he was placed next to Abraham, and so, as the Jews expressed themselves, lay in his bosom, Joh 13:23. The rich man also died — For death knocks with equal boldness at the sumptuous mansion of the rich, or even at the palace of the prince, and at the cottage of the peasant. This rich man’s purple and fine linen, and his faring sumptuously every day, could not keep death from him: nay, probably these things served to hasten its approach: for various diseases, and even those of a very dreadful and tormenting kind, are frequently the certain consequences of luxury and high living. And was buried — Doubtless with pomp enough, though we do not read of his lying in state: that stupid, senseless pageantry, that shocking insult on a poor putrifying carcass, was reserved for our enlightened age! We read nothing of poor Lazarus’s funeral: and indeed, this is one advantage which the rich have over the poor, their wealth will provide for them a costly funeral! Their clay-cold corpse shall be enclosed in a coffin covered with velvet, many mourners shall be hired to put on a melancholy aspect, a cloak for a glad heart, and horses decked with nodding plumes, shall bear their wretched remains to the cold, senseless tomb! But alas! what is all this pomp to the soul, which, the moment it leaves the body, enters on an eternal scene of bliss or wo! Nay, and even before it leaves it, has views and feelings very different, according to the difference of the state it finds itself to be in, and the apprehensions of coming misery, or expectations of approaching happiness which it entertains. How great was the difference in these respects between the feelings of the rich man and those of Lazarus, when on the verge of eternity! the approach of death being very terrible to the former, while the latter descried the goal with inexpressible joy. And from the moment of their departure, how utterly were all things respecting them reversed! the beggar, being a pious man, finds himself, after being wafted by guardian angels through the unknown regions, laid in Abraham’s bosom; whereas the man that was in high life, having probably always pleased himself with the thought that there would be no future state, is amazed beyond what can be expressed, when he finds himself plunged in the torments of hell.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv22–27 Was carried by the angels - The Jews held…
Was carried by the angels - The Jews held the opinion that the spirits of the righteous were conveyed by angels to heaven at their death. Our Saviour speaks in accordance with this opinion; and as he expressly affirms the fact, it seems as proper that it should be taken literally, as when it is said the rich man died and was buried. Angels are ministering spirits sent forth to minister to those who are heirs of salvation Heb 1:14, and there is no more improbability in the supposition that they attend departing spirits to heaven, than that they attend them while on earth.
Abraham’s bosom - This is a phrase taken from the practice of reclining at meals, where the head of one lay on the bosom of another, and the phrase, therefore, denotes intimacy and friendship. See the notes at Mat 23:6. Also Joh 13:23; Joh 21:20. The Jews had no doubt that Abraham was in paradise. To say that Lazarus was in his bosom was, therefore, the same as to say that he was admitted to heaven and made happy there. The Jews, moreover, boasted very much of being the friends of Abraham and of being his descendants, Mat 3:9. To be his friend was, in their view, the highest honor and happiness. Our Saviour, therefore, showed them that this poor and afflicted man might be raised to the highest happiness, while the rich, who prided themselves on their being descended from Abraham, might be cast away and lost forever.
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Was buried - This is not said of the poor man. Burial was thought to be an honor, and funerals were, as they are now, often expensive, splendid, and ostentatious. This is said of the rich man to show that he had “every” earthly honor, and all that the world calls happy and desirable.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv22, 25, 26, 27 Abraham’s bosom.[3] The place of rest, where the souls…
Abraham’s bosom.[3] The place of rest, where the souls of the saints resided, till Christ had opened heaven by his death. (Challoner) --- It was an ancient tradition of the Jews, that the souls of the just were conducted by angels into paradise. The bosom of Abraham (the common Father of all the faithful) was the place where the souls of the saints, and departed patriarchs, waited the arrival of their Deliverer. It was thither the Jesus went after his death; as it is said in the Creed, "he descended into hell," to deliver those who were detained there, and who might at Christ’s ascension enter into heaven. (Calmet) See 1 Peter iii. 19. --- "Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham." (Matthew viii. 11.)
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
In sinum Abrahæ, Greek: eis ton kolpon tou Abraam. --- Ver. 22. In inferno, Greek: en to ade. See Pearson on the Creed, (p. 236) and our Catholic controvertists.
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George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv22–27 died--His burial was too unimportant to mention; while "the…
died--His burial was too unimportant to mention; while "the rich man died and was buried"--his carcass carried in pomp to its earthly resting-place.
in to Abraham's bosom--as if seen reclining next to Him at the heavenly feast (Mat 8:11).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv22–26 22. The beggar died—It is not said that the…
22. The beggar died—It is not said that the beggar was, like the rich man, buried. His carcass may have been thrown into the valley of Hinnom; so that while his soul may have been in Paradise, his body may have been in the earthly symbol of hell.
He was carried—That is, his true self, his soul. Phaedon asked the dying Socrates: “How shall we bury you, Socrates?” “Just as you please,” said Socrates, “if you can catch me.” And smiling, he continued: “I cannot convince Phaedon that the mind conversing with him is myself; but he thinks me to be the corpse he will soon see laid out, and asks how he shall bury ME.”
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Lazarus’s dogs gave place to the angels. Thus heavenly beings minister to them which shall be heirs of salvation. Abraham’s bosom—The abode of the blessed spirits was symbolized by the Jewish Church as a great banquet at whose head was the great father of the faithful, Abraham. Happy he who, as John reclined on the Saviour’s breast at the last supper, reclines at the paradisaic table in Abraham’s bosom. But this, the chief point of happiness, was then not only conceived as belonging to all, but the very term Abraham’s bosom became the name for the blessed abode. So it is said by the Jewish doctors, “We, dying, shall be received by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob into their bosoms.”
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv22–28 22. into Abraham’s bosom] Comp. Luk_13:28. This expression is…
22. into Abraham’s bosom] Comp. Luk_13:28. This expression is used as a picture for the banquet of Paradise (comp. Num_11:12; Joh_1:18; Joh_13:23, and Josephus, De Maccab. 13).
the rich man also died] “They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave,” Job_21:13.
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and was buried] Nothing is said of the pauper-funeral of Lazarus. In one touch our Lord shews how little splendid obsequies can avail to alter the judgment of heaven.
“One second, and the angels alter that.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv22–28 (22) Was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom.—Of…
(22) Was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom.—Of the three terms in common use among the Jews to express the future state of blessedness—(1) the Garden of Eden, or Paradise; (2) the Throne of Glory; (3) the bosom of Abraham—this was the most widely popular. It rested on the idea of a great feast, in which Abraham was the host. To lie in his bosom, as St. John in that of our Lord’s (Joh_13:23), was to be there as the most favoured guest. And this was the position which was assigned to the beggar, obviously not merely as a compensation for the “evil things” he had endured on earth, but as the crown of the faith and patience with which he had borne them. The being “carried by angels” was literally in accord with the popular Jewish belief. Either good angels in general, or the special guardian angels of the righteous, took on them this office.
The rich man also died, and was buried.—As no mention is made of the burial of the beggar, it is obvious that there is something specially distinctive in the word. It had been, we may imagine, a stately burial, with hired mourners and all the pageantry of woe. such as within a few weeks, or even days, was to be the portion of the historic Lazarus of Bethany.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv22–27 And it came to pass, that the beggar died,…
And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham"s bosom. At last kind death came, and relieved Lazarus of his sufferings. His dismissal, as might have been expected, preceded that of the rich man; for he was enfeebled by a deadly disease. We must not, of course, press too much the details we find in parables; still, from our Lord"s way of speaking of the great change in the cases of both Lazarus and Dives, it would seem as though there was absolutely no pause between the two lives of this world and the world to come. The rich man evidently is pictured as closing his eyes upon his gorgeous surroundings here, and opening them directly again upon his cheerless surroundings there. Lazarus is described as being borne at once into Abraham"s bosom. Indeed, some interpret the words as signifying that the body as well as the soul was carried by angels into Paradise. It is, however, better, with Calvin, to understand the expression as alluding only to Lazarus"s soul; of the body of the pauper nothing was said, as men probably contemptuously, if not carelessly, buried it with the burial rites which such homeless, friendless ones too often receive. The place whither the blest Lazarus went is termed "Abraham"s bosom." This term was used by the Jews indifferently, with "the garden of Eden," or "under the throne of glory," for the home of happy but waiting souls. The rich man also died, and was buried. There is a terrible irony here in this mention of burial. This human pageantry of woe was for the rich man what the carrying by the angels into Abraham"s bosom was for Lazarus it was his equivalent; but while these empty honours were being paid to his senseless, deserted body, the rich man was already gazing on the surroundings of his new and cheerless home. After the moment"s sleep of death, what an awakening!
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv22–27 22. The beggar died. What became of his body…
22. The beggar died. What became of his body is not stated. It may have been cast into the potter's field. Was carried by the angels. Here is one who in his life had not a single friend, and now, suddenly, not one, but many angels wait upon him.—Luther. His body may have had no pall-bearers, but angels carried his soul. Into Abraham's bosom. The place of rest where Abraham welcomed his children; heavenly bliss. The Jews spoke of those who went to Abraham's heavenly abode as in Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried. We are to infer that he had a splendid burial; his body was placed in a costly tomb, but where was he?
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv25–26
Luke
DIVES AND LAZARUS
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MEMORY IN ANOTHER WORLD
Luk 16:25.
It is a very striking thought that Christ, if He be what we suppose Him to be, knew all about the unseen present which we call the future, and yet was all but silent in reference to it. Seldom is it on His lips at all. Of arguments drawn from another world He has very few. Sometimes He speaks about it, but rather by allusion than in anything like an explicit revelation. This parable out of which my text is taken, is perhaps the most definite and continuous of His words about the invisible world; and yet all the while it lay there before Him; and standing on the very verge of it, with it spread out clear before His gaze, He reads off but a word or two of what He sees, and then shuts it in in darkness, and says to us, in the spirit of a part of this parable, ‘You have Moses and the prophets-hear them: if these are not enough, it will not be enough for you if all the glories of heaven and all the ghastliness of hell are flashed and flamed before you.’ We, too, if we are to ‘prophesy according to the proportion of faith,’ must not leave out altogether references to a future life in its two departments, and such motives as may be based upon them; only, I think, we ought always to keep them in the same relative amount to the whole of our teaching in which Christ kept them.
This parable, seeing that it is a parable, of course cannot be trusted as if it were a piece of simple dogmatic revelation, to give us information, facts, so as to construct out of it a theory of the other world. We are always in the double danger in parables, of taking that for drapery which was meant to be essence, and taking that for essence which was meant to be drapery. And so I do not profess to read from this narrative any very definite and clear knowledge of the future; but I think that in the two words which I have ventured to take as a text, we get the basis of very impressive thoughts with regard to the functions of memory in another world.
‘Son, remember!’ It is the voice, the first voice, the perpetual voice, which meets every man when he steps across the threshold of earth into the presence chamber of eternity. All the future is so built upon and interwoven with the past, that for the saved and for the lost alike this word might almost be taken as the motto of their whole situation, as the explanation of their whole condition. Memory in another world is indispensable to the gladness of the glad, and strikes the deepest note in the sadness of the lost. There can be no need to dwell at any length on the simple introductory thought, that there must be memory in a future state. Unless there were remembrance, there could be no sense of individuality. A man cannot have any conviction that he is himself, but by constant, though often unconscious, operation of this subtle act of remembrance. There can be no sense of personal identity except in proportion as there is clearness of recollection. Then again, if that future state be a state of retribution, there must be memory. Otherwise, there might be joy, and there might be sorrow, but the why and the wherefore of either would be entirely struck out of a man’s consciousness, and the one could not be felt as reward, nor the other as punishment. If, then, we are to rise from the grave the same men that we are laid in it, and if the future life has this for its characteristic, that it is a state either of recompense and reward, or of retribution and suffering, then, for both, the clearness and constant action, of memory are certainly needed. But it is not to the simple fact of its existence that I desire to direct your attention now. I wish, rather, to suggest to you one or two modifications under which it must apparently work in another world. When men remember there, they will remember very differently from the way in which they remember here. Let us look at these changes-constituting it, on the one hand, an instrument of torture; and, on the other, a foundation of all our gladness.
I. First, in another state, memory will be so widened as to take in the whole life.
We believe that what a man is in this life, he is more in another, that tendencies here become results yonder, that his sin, that his falsehood, that his whole moral nature, be it good or bad, becomes there what it is only striving to be here. We believe that in this present life our capacities of all sorts are hedged in, thwarted, damped down, diluted, by the necessity which there is for their working through this material body of ours. We believe that death is the heightening of a man’s stature-if he be bad, the intensifying of his badness; if he be good, the strengthening of his goodness. We believe that the contents of the intellectual nature, the capacities of that nature also, are all increased by the fact of having done with earth and having left the body behind. It is, I think, the teaching of common-sense, and it is the teaching of the Bible. True, that for some, that growth will only be a growth into greater power of feeling greater sorrow. Such an one grows up into a Hercules; but it is only that the Nessus shirt may wrap round him more tightly, and may gnaw him with a fiercer agony. But whether saved or lost-he that dies is greater than when yet living; and all his powers are intensified and strengthened by that awful experience of death and by what it brings with it.
Memory partakes in the common quickening. There are not wanting analogies and experiences in our present life to let us see that, in fact, when we talk about forgetting we ought to mean nothing more than the temporary cessation of conscious remembrance. Everything which you do leaves its effect with you for ever, just as long-forgotten meals are in your blood and bones to-day. Every act that a man performs is there. It has printed itself upon his soul, it has become a part of himself: and though, like a newly painted picture, after a little while the colours sink in, why is that? Only because they have entered into the very fibre of the canvas, and have left the surface because they are incorporated with the substance, and they want but a touch of varnish to flash out again! We forget nothing, in the sense of not being able, some time or another, to recall it; we forget much in the sense of ceasing for a time to have it in our thoughts.
For we know, in our own case, how strangely there come swimming up before us, out of the depths of the dim waters of oblivion-as one has seen some bright shell drawn from the sunless sea-caves, and gleaming white and shapeless far down before we had it on the surface-past thoughts, we know not whence or how. Some one of the million of hooks, with which all our life is furnished, has laid hold of some subtle suggestion which has been enough to bring them up into consciousness. We said we had forgotten them. What does it mean? Only that they had sunk into the deep, beneath our consciousness, and lay there to be brought up when needful. There is nothing more strange than the way in which some period of my life, that I supposed to be an entire blank-if I will think about it for a little while, begins to glimmer into form. As the developing solution brings out the image on the photographic plate, so the mind has the strange power, by fixing the attention, as we say {a short word which means a long, mysterious thing} upon that past that is half-remembered and half-forgotten, of bringing it into clear consciousness and perfect recollection. And, there are instances, too, of a still more striking kind, familiar to some of us how in what people call morbid states, men remember their childhood, which they had forgotten for long years. You may remember that old story of the dying woman beginning to speak in a tongue unknown to all that stood around her bed. When a child she had learned some northern language, in a far-off land. Long before she had learned to shape any definite remembrances of the place, she had been taken away, and not having used, had forgotten the speech. But at last there rushed up again all the old memories, and the tongue of the dumb was loosed, and she spake! People would say, ‘the action of disease.’ It may be, but that explains nothing. Perhaps in such states the spirit is working in a manner less limited by the body than in health, and so showing some slight prelude of its powers when it has shuffled off this mortal coil. But be that as it may, these morbid phenomena, and the other more familiar facts already referred to, unite to show us that the sphere of recollection is much wider than that occupied at any given moment by memory. Recollection is the servant of Memory, as our great poet tells us in his wise allegory, and
‘does on him still attend,
To reach whenever he for ought does send.’
We cannot lay aside anything that we have ever done or been so utterly but that that servant can find it and bring it to his lord. We forget nothing so completely but that we shall be able to recall it. Of that awful power we may say, without irreverence, ‘Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.’
The fragmentary remembrances which we have now, lift themselves above the ocean of forgetfulness like islands in some Archipelago, the summits of sister hills, though separated by the estranging sea that covers their converging sides and the valleys where their roots unite. The solid land is there, though hidden. Drain off the sea, and there will be no more isolated peaks, but continuous land. In this life we have but the island memories heaving themselves into sight, but in the next the Lord shall ‘cause the sea to go back by the breath of His mouth,’ and the channels of the great deep of a human heart’s experiences and actions shall be laid bare. ‘There shall be no more sea’; but the solid land of a whole life will appear when God says, ‘Son, remember!’ So much, then, for my first consideration-namely, that memory in a future state will comprehend the whole of life. Another thing is, that memory in a future state will probably be so rapid as to embrace all the past life at once. We do not know, we have no conception of, the extent to which our thinking, and feeling, and remembrance, are made tardy by the slow vehicle of this bodily organisation in which the soul rides. But we have in our own lives instances enough to make us feel that there lie in us dormant, mysterious powers by which the rapidity of all our operations of thought and feeling will be enhanced marvellously, like the difference between a broad-wheeled waggon and an express train! At some turning point of your life, when some great joy flashed, or some great shadow darkened upon you all at once; when some crisis that wanted an instantaneous decision appeared-why, what regions of thought, purpose, plan, resolution; what wilderness of desolate sorrow, and what paradises of blooming gladness, your soul has gone through in a moment. Well, then, take another illustration: A sleeper, feeling a light finger laid upon his shoulder, does not know what it is; in an instant he awakes and says, ‘Is it you?’ but between that touch and that word there may be a whole life run through, a whole series of long events dreamt and felt. As on the little retina of an eye there can be painted on a scale inconceivably minute, every tree and mountain-top in the whole wide panorama-so, in an instant, one may run through almost a whole lifetime of mental acts. Then, again, you remember that illustration, often used on this subject, about the experience of those who have been brought face to face with sudden death, and escaped it. The drowning man, when he comes to himself, tells us, that in the interval betwixt the instant when he felt he was going and the passing away of consciousness, all his life stood before him; as if some flash in a dark midnight had lighted up a whole mountain country-there it all was! Ah, brethren! we know nothing yet about the rapidity with which we may gather before us a whole series of events; so that although we have to pass from one to another, the succession may be so swift, as to produce in our own minds the effect of all being co-existent and simultaneous. As the child flashing about him a bit of burning stick, may seem to make a circle of flame, because the flame-point moves so quickly-so memory, though it does go from point to point, and dwells for some inconceivably minute instant on each part of the remembrance, may yet be gifted with such lightning speed, with such rapidity and awful quickness of glance, as that to the man himself the effect shall be that his whole life is spread out there before him in one instant, and that he, Godlike, sees the end and the beginning side by side. Yes; from the mountain of eternity we shall look down, and behold the whole plain spread before us. Down here we get lost and confused in the devious valleys that run off from the roots of the hills everywhere, and we cannot make out which way the streams are going, and what there is behind that low shoulder of hill yonder: but when we get to the summit peak, and look down, it will all shape itself into one consistent whole, and we shall see it all at once. The memory shall be perfect-perfect in the range of its grasp, and perfect in the rapidity with which it brings up all its objects before us at every instant.
Once more: it seems as if, in another world, memory would not only contain the whole life, and the whole life simultaneously; but would perpetually attend or haunt us. A constant remembrance! It does not lie in our power even in this world, to decide very much whether we shall remember or forget. It does not come within a man’s will to forget or to remember. He cannot say, ‘I will remember’; for if he could, he would have remembered already. He cannot say, ‘I will forget’; for the very effort fixes his attention on the obnoxious thing. All that we can do, when we seek to remember, is to wander back to somewhere about that point in our life where the shy thing lurks, and hope to catch some sight of it in the leafy coverts: and all we can do, when we want to forget, is to try and fill our mind with other subjects, and in the distractions of them to lose the oppressive and burdensome thoughts. But we know that that is but a partial remedy, that we cannot succeed in doing it. There are presences that will not be put by. There are memories that will start up before us, whether we are willing or not. Like the leprosy in the Israelite’s house, the foul spot works its way out through all the plaster and the paint; and the house is foul because it is there. Oh, my friend! you are a happy and a singular man if there is nothing in your life that you have tried to bury, and the obstinate thing will not be buried, but meets you again when you come away from its fancied grave. I remember an old castle where they tell us of a foul murder committed in a vaulted chamber with a narrow window, by torchlight one night; and there, they say, there are the streaks and stains of blood on the black oak floor; and they have planed, and scrubbed, and planed again, and thought they were gone-but there they always are, and continually up comes the dull reddish-black stain, as if oozing itself out through the boards to witness to the bloody crime again! The superstitious fable is a type of the way in which a foul thing, a sinful and bitter memory-gets ingrained into a man’s heart. He tries to banish it, and gets rid of it for a while. He goes back again, and the spots are there, and will be there for ever; and the only way to get rid of them is to destroy the soul in which they are.
Memory is not all within the power of the will on earth: and probably, memory in another world is still more involuntary and still more constant. Why? Because I read in the Bible that there is work in another world for God’s servants to do; but I do not read that there is work for anybody else but God’s servants to do. The work of an unforgiven sinner is done when he dies, and that not only because he is going into the state of retribution, but because no rebel’s work is going to be suffered in that world. The time for that is past. And so, if you will look, all the teachings of the Bible about the future state of those who are not in blessedness, give us this idea-a monotonous continuance of idleness, shutting them up to their own contemplations, the memories of the past and the agonies of the future. There are no distractions for such a man in another world. He has thought, he has conscience, he has remembrance. He has a sense of pain, of sin, of wrong, of loss. He has one ‘passive fixed endurance, all eternal and the same’; but I do not read that his pain is anodyned and his sorrow soothed by any activity that his hand finds to do. And, in a most tragic sense, we may say, ‘there is neither work, nor labour, nor device,’ in that dark world where the fruits of sin are reaped in monotonous suffering and ever-present pain. A memory, brethren, that will have its own way-what a field for sorrow and lamentation that is, when God says at last, ‘Now go-go apart; take thy life with thee; read it over; see what thou hast done with it!’ One old Roman tyrant had a punishment in which he bound the dead body of the murdered to the living body of the murderer, and left them there scaffolded. And when that voice comes, ‘Son, remember!’ to the living soul of the godless, unbelieving, impenitent man, there is bound to him the murdered past, the dead past, his own life; and, in Milton’s awful and profound words,
‘Which way I fly is hell-myself am hell!’
There is only one other modification of this awful faculty that I would remind you of; and that is, that in a future life memory will be associated with a perfectly accurate knowledge of the consequences and a perfectly sensitive conscience as to the criminality of the past. You will have cause and consequence put down before you, meeting each other at last. There will be no room then to say, ‘I wonder how such and such a thing will work out,’ ‘I wonder how such a thing can have come upon me’; but every one will have his whole life to look back upon, and will see the childish sin that was the parent of the full-grown vice, and the everlasting sorrow that came out of that little and apparently transitory root. The conscience, which here becomes hardened by contact with sin, and enfeebled because unheeded, will then be restored to its early sensitiveness and power, as if the labourer’s horny palm were to be endowed again with the softness of the infant’s little hand. If you will take and think about that, brother, there is enough-without any more talk, without any more ghastly, sensual external figures-there is enough to make the boldest tremble; a memory embracing all the past, a memory rapidly grasping and constantly bringing its burden, a judgment which admits of no mistakes, and a conscience which has done with palliations and excuses!
It is not difficult to see how that is an instrument of torture. It is more difficult to see how such a memory can be a source of gladness; and yet it can. The old Greeks were pressed with that difficulty: they said to themselves, If a man remembers, there can be no Elysium for him. And so they put the river of forgetfulness, the waters of Lethe, betwixt life and the happy plains. Ah, we do not want any river of oblivion betwixt us and everlasting blessedness. Calvary is on this side, and that is enough! Certainly it is one of the most blessed things about ‘the faith that is in Christ Jesus,’ that it makes a man remember his own sinfulness with penitence, not with pain-that it makes the memory of past transgressions full of solemn joy, because the memory of past transgressions but brings to mind the depth and rushing fullness of that river of love which has swept them all away as far as the east is from the west. Oh, brother, brother! you cannot forget your sins; but it lies within your own decision whether the remembrance shall be thankfulness and blessedness, or whether it shall be pain and loss for ever. Like some black rock that heaves itself above the surface of a sunlit sea, and the wave runs dashing over it, and the spray, as it falls down its sides, is all rainbowed and lightened, and there comes beauty into the mighty grimness of the black thing;-so a man’s transgressions rear themselves up, and God’s great love, coming sweeping itself against them and over them, makes out of the sin an occasion for the flashing more brightly of the beauty of His mercy, and turns the life of the pardoned penitent into a life of which even the sin is not pain to remember. So, then, lay your hand upon Christ Jesus. Put your heart into His keeping. Go to Him with your transgressions, He will forget them, and make it possible for you to remember them in such a way that the memory will become to you the very foundation of all your joy, and will make heaven’s anthem deeper and more harmonious when you say, ‘Now unto Him that hath washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God, unto Him be glory for ever and ever!’ And, on the other hand, if not, then, ‘Son, remember!’ will be the word that begins the future retribution, and shuts you up with a wasted past, with a gnawing conscience, and an upbraiding heart: to say,
‘I backward cast my ee
On prospects drear!
And forward, though I canna see,
I guess and fear!’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv22–23 (See Scofield "Heb 1:4")
angels
(See Scofield "Heb 1:4")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv22, 27 Another contrast:
Another contrast:
v. 22. And it came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried, by the angels into Abraham’s bosom; the rich man also died, and was buried;
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v. 23. and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
v. 24. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
v. 25. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
v. 26. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us that would come from thence.
Here the fortunes are reversed with a vengeance: the servant of God in bliss, the servant of mammon in misery. The beggar died, he finally succumbed to the combination of sickness and starvation. But his death provoked an embassy from heaven: he was carried up by the angels into the bosom of Abraham. Note: So inexpressibly wonderful is the bliss of heaven that human language cannot, even remotely, describe its glories; and therefore this circumscription is used, the bosom of Abraham, as the father of all the faithful. He that had not had a friend in the wide world, whom people refused so much as to touch, now was joyfully received into the eternal home and found a place of honor by the side of Abraham, leaning against his bosom, as the beloved disciple leaned against the bosom of Jesus. But the account of the death and funeral of the rich man is extremely bare and meager: he died and was buried. Such is the valuation which God places upon the life of him that wasted his substance in service of self; that was God’s obituary. But the sequel? In hell, where his soul found itself, the former rich man found himself in tortures, in inexpressible agony, as great, by contrast, as was the bliss of Lazarus whom he could see. In his pain and misery he called out for relief, asking Abraham to have pity upon him and dispatch Lazarus with only so much as a single drop of water on the tip of his finger, to quench the burning, feverish thirst which was consuming the pampered soul. Just a little cooling he longed, he pleaded for, on account of the flame which was affecting him with the severest pains. Note: Now the rich man could and did notice Lazarus, now he could plead for a favor from the hands of him whom his dainty fingers refused to touch in life. But the pathetic request is refused. Son, indeed, Abraham calls him, for such he is after the flesh, and upon that carnal relationship he had depended; but there is no relationship of spirit between them. He should remember that he had received that which he had wanted, the good things of life, while he was still alive and in the world. He had served mammon, and mammon had rewarded him after his own manner. Now the position of Lazarus and the rich man were reversed: the former received comfort, the latter torture. There was absolute justice in the situation. And even if Abraham had been willing to listen to the pleading of the poor wretch in hell, there was no possibility of fulfilling his request, since there was a deep chasm, an unbridgeable abyss, between the place of the blessed and that of the damned, firmly fixed, excluding all possibility of intercourse. So, though he that never showed pity now asks pity; though he that never practiced humility now humbly pleads, there is no chance, his last hope is gone.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv22, 24, 25, 27 It came about that
It came about that
This phrase is used here to mark an event in the story. If your language has a way for doing this, you could consider using it here. (See: Introduction of a New Event)
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was carried away by the angels
This can be stated in active form. AT: "the angels carried him away" (See: Active or Passive)
to Abraham's side ... at his side
This implies that Abraham and Lazarus were reclining next to each other at a feast, in the Greek style of feasting. The joy in heaven is often represented in the scriptures by the idea of a feast. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
was buried
This can be stated in active form. AT: "people buried him" (See: Active or Passive)
in Hades, being in torment
"he went to Hades, where, suffering in terrible pain"
he lifted up his eyes
This idiom means "he looked up" (See: Idiom)
translationWords
angel
Abraham
bury
Hades
torment
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv22, 23, 24, 26 16:22 carried by the angels to sit beside Abraham…
16:22 carried by the angels to sit beside Abraham (literally into Abraham’s bosom): The Greek suggests a banquet at which guests reclined around a low table (see John 13:23). Lazarus was taken to the messianic banquet in the Kingdom of God (see Luke 14:1-24).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.