Luke 12:16-20 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

To illustrate his admonition, and give it the greater weight, our Lord here delivers an important parable. The ground of a rich man brought forth plentifully This man, it appears, became rich, not by unjust gains, but by the produce of his own land, the most innocent method possible of making or increasing an estate. Nor did his covetousness consist in heaping up wealth without end, even by a method so innocent as that of agriculture: no; the extraordinary fruitfulness of one year's crop contented him, for it was so great that he had no further care, but to contrive how to bestow his fruits. And the result of his deliberation was, to pull down his barns and build greater. Nor did his covetousness consist in hoarding up the fruits of that one bountiful year; for he laid them up with no other intention, but to take the full use of them in every sensual enjoyment which they could afford; saying to his soul, that is, to himself, with complacency and confidence, Thou hast much goods laid up for many future years, take thine ease Cease from the fatigue of business, and even from the labour of thought. Enjoy thyself; eat and drink without any fear of exhausting thy stores, and be as merry as corn, and wine, and oil, shared with thy most jovial companions, can make thee. This man's covetousness, therefore, consisted in the satisfaction which he took in his goods and fruits, in his putting a high value on the pleasures of luxury which they afforded, and in proposing to derive his happiness from them alone, without taking God and religion into his scheme at all. But God said unto him God, who in this man's scheme of happiness was overlooked, thought fit to show him the folly he was guilty of in contemning his Maker, on whom he depended for every thing, and by whose providence alone he lived to enjoy any blessing: God, with just displeasure, said to him, by the awful dispensation of his providence, amidst all his gayety of heart, and in the variety of his schemes and hopes, Thou fool Who dost thus stupidly forget both the dignity and the mortality of thy nature, and thy continual dependance upon thy supreme Lord! Know, to thy terror, that this very night While thou art talking of a long succession of pleasurable years; thy soul shall be required of thee And hurried away to its own place; that soul, which thou just now saidst had much goods laid up for many years, and which thou badest take its ease and be merry. Greek, την ψυχην απαιτουσιν απο σου, They shall demand thy soul of thee; that is, “Either thy soul shall be required of thee by God that gave it, and whose deposite it is, as the Jews speak, or else it shall be required by evil angels, according to that other opinion of the Jews, that the souls of the just, when they die, are carried into the garden of Eden by the ministry of holy angels, and the souls of the wicked to the place appointed them, by evil spirits.” Whitby. Then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided Will they be thine any longer? When thou appearest at my bar to answer for thy actions, will they buy thee off from punishment? And when thou goest to thy own place, will they procure thee one moment's respite from thy torment, or any comfort under it?