Luke 16:26-29 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Besides all this As to the favour thou desirest from the hand of Lazarus, it is a thing impossible to be granted; for between us and you there is a great gulf fixed Χασμα μεγα εστηρικται, a great chasm, or void, is established. Dr. Campbell renders the clause, There lieth a huge gulf betwixt us and you, so that they who would pass hence to you cannot. If any should be so compassionate as to desire to help you, they are not able: neither can they pass to us who would come thence But we must still continue in an unapproachable distance from each other: the passage is for ever closed: the great gulf is for ever fixed: and whether a person be happy or miserable in a future state, each is unchangeable! Each, O solemn thought! each is eternal! Then he said, I pray that thou wouldest send him to my father's house The rich man, finding that nothing could be done for himself, and that his own case was irretrievable, began to be in pain about his relations. He had five brethren alive, who, it seems, were living in pride and luxury, and either entertaining the Sadducean opinion concerning a future state, or living in forgetfulness and neglect of it; therefore, that he might prevent their ruin, and, if possible, ease himself of the painful reflections which he felt for having been instrumental in corrupting them, he entreated Abraham to send Lazarus unto them, in hopes it would reclaim them: for he supposed, if those in paradise could not pass to those in torment, there might be a passage from paradise to the earth, as it was evident there was from the earth thither. By making this request, the man acknowledged both his own wickedness and the principle from which it proceeded: he had either disbelieved the doctrine of a future state, or had disregarded it, had set his affections on the present world, and chosen it for his portion; and by his example, at least, had seduced his brethren into the same destructive courses. That he may testify unto them The certain truth of the immortality of the soul, and of a future state of rewards and punishments, and the infinite importance thereof; lest they also come into this place of torment He might justly fear lest their reproaches should add to his own misery. Abraham saith, They have Moses, &c. Abraham replied, that they had the books of Moses and the prophets, from which they might learn the certainty and importance of these things, if they would be at the pains to read and consider them: let them hear them Let them hearken to the warnings and instructions given them in those divine records, and they will have means sufficient to prevent their damnation.