Luke 16:23 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And in hell Εν τω αδη, in hades; that is, in the unseen, or invisible world. It must be observed, that both the rich man and Lazarus were in hades, though in different regions of it: he lifted up his eyes, being in torments Our Saviour adapts this circumstance of the parable, says Lightfoot, to the popular opinion of the Jews. The rabbins say, that the place of torment and paradise are so situated, that what is done in the one may be seen from the other. “Because the opinions, as well as the language, of the Greeks,” says Dr. Macknight, “had by this time made their way into Judea, some imagine that our Lord had their fictions about the abodes of departed souls in his eye when he formed this parable: but the argument is not conclusive. At the same time it must be acknowledged, that his descriptions of those things are not drawn from the writings of the Old Testament; but have a remarkable affinity to the descriptions which the Grecian poets have given of them. They, as well as our Lord, represent the abodes of the blessed as lying contiguous to the regions of the damned, and separated only by a great impassable river, or deep gulf, in such a sort that the ghosts could talk with one another from its opposite banks. In the parable, souls, whose bodies were buried, know each other, and converse together, as if they had been imbodied. In like manner, the Pagans introduce departed souls talking together, and represent them as having pains and pleasures analogous to what we feel in this life. It seems, they thought the shades [spirits] of the dead had an exact resemblance to their bodies. The parable says, the souls of wicked men are tormented in flames; the Grecian mythologists tell us they lie in a river of fire, where they suffer the same torments they would have suffered while alive had their bodies been burned.” It will not, however, at all follow from these resemblances, that the parable is formed on the Grecian mythology, or that our Lord approved of what the common people thought or spake concerning those matters, agreeably to the notions and language of the Greeks. “In parabolical discourses provided the doctrines inculcated are strictly true, the terms in which they are inculcated may be such as are most familiar to the ears of mankind, and the images made use of such as they are best acquainted with.” What we are here taught with certainty is, that as the souls of the faithful, immediately after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity; so, unholy and unsanctified souls, immediately after they are forced from the pleasures of the flesh by death, are in misery and torment, ceaseless, remediless, and endless torment, to be much increased and completed at the general resurrection. And seeth Abraham afar off And yet knew him at that distance; and shall not Abraham's children, when they are together in paradise, know each other? and Lazarus in his bosom Having a view of the seats of the blessed at a distance, the first object that he beheld was Lazarus, the beggar, (who had so often been laid naked, and hungry, and covered with sores, at his gate,) sitting next to Abraham, in the chief place of felicity. In consequence of which, doubtless, the stings of his conscience were greatly multiplied, and he was racked with envy and self-accusing reproaches.