Luk 16:19-31 | JFB | STEP | 19. purple and fine linen, &c.-- (Compare ; ); wanting nothing which taste and appetite craved and money could procure.

‏ Luke 16:19-31

19. purple and fine linen, &c.--(Compare Es 8:15; Re 18:12); wanting nothing which taste and appetite craved and money could procure.

20-21. laid--having to be carried and put down.

full of sores--open, running, "not closed, nor bound up, nor mollified with ointment" (Is 1:6).

22. 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 (Mt 8:11).

23. in hell--not the final place of the lost (for which another word is used), but as we say "the unseen world." But as the object here is certainly to depict the whole torment of the one and the perfect bliss of the other, it comes in this case to much the same.

seeth Abraham--not God, to whom therefore he cannot cry [Bengel].

24. Father Abraham--a well-founded, but unavailing, claim of natural descent (Lu 3:8; Joh 8:37).

mercy on me--who never showed any (Jas 2:3).

send Lazarus--the pining victim of his merciless neglect.

that he may--take me hence? No; that he dares not to ask.

dip ... tongue--that is the least conceivable and the most momentary abatement of his torment; that is all. But even this he is told is (1) unreasonable.

25-26. Son--stinging acknowledgment of the claimed relationship.

thou ... Lazarus, &c.--As it is a great law of God's kingdom, that the nature of our present desires shall rule that of our future bliss, so by that law, he whose "good things," craved and enjoyed, were all bounded by time, could look for none after his connection with time had come to an end (Lu 6:24). But by this law, he whose "evil things," all crowded into the present life, drove him to seek, and find, consolation in a life beyond the grave, is by death released from all evil and ushered into unmixed and uninterrupted good (Lu 6:21). (2) It is impossible.

27-31. Then he said--now abandoning all hope for himself.

send him to my father's house, &c.--no waking up of good in the heart of the lost, but bitter reproach against God and the old economy, as not warning him sufficiently [Trench]. The answer of Abraham is, They are sufficiently warned.