§42 The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31)
Although perhaps not quite as popular as the Parable of the Lost Son (15:11–32), Luke’s Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is another favorite. This parable, like so many others, drives its point home with crystal clarity. This parable brings the theme of wealth in Luke 16 to a fitting conclusion: wealth or poverty in this life is no measure of God’s blessing. The parable may be divided into two parts: (1) the reversal of the conditions of this life in the next (vv. 19–26) and (2) the lesson that nothing can persuade the wealthy to take heed (vv. 27–31).
Jesus portrays the different circumstances of the rich man and Lazarus in the most graphic terms. The rich man was dressed in purple (see note below) and lived in luxury (i.e., feasted and partied) every day. From a worldly point of view the rich man had every creature-comfort that life had to offer. In stark contrast was the beggar named Lazarus, who was covered with sores (see note below) and who longed to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. The picture of Lazarus is pitiful. What is not stated but probably implied is the insensitivity of the rich man toward his poor neighbor. He who enjoyed feasts and every comfort had no concern for one nearby who suffered and finally died from starvation and ill heath. But at death the picture changes dramatically. The beggar is carried by angels to Abraham’s side. When the rich man dies, however, there is no angelic escort. The rich man enters hell, the world of the dead (see note below). There he agonizes in pain and in desperation begs for a drop of moisture to cool his parched tongue. The agony that the rich man now experiences by far exceeds the misery that poor Lazarus had ever experienced in life, while the bliss Lazarus now enjoys far exceeds the pleasure that the rich man had ever experienced. Their roles are not only reversed; their new conditions are intensified. The hearer of the parable now learns the lesson that the rich man unfortunately had not learned in his lifetime. After death there is no longer any opportunity to change one’s condition. Although Lazarus may not have borne the rich man any grudge and would have been willing to aid his former neighbor, there is no opportunity (in contrast to the rich man who had had every opportunity to aid the poor Lazarus).
Once again Jesus’ teaching strikes at the heart of theological assumptions held by many of his contemporaries. Surely the rich man, they would reason, exemplified a man who was blessed of God while the poor man has only suffered what he deserved. But it is the poor man who is received by Father Abraham, and it is the rich man who enters hell. The “religious” assumed that health and wealth evidenced God’s blessing, while sickness and poverty evidenced God’s cursing. As the parable indicates, such assumptions can be hazardous.
16:27–31 / The parable continues by developing a second idea. The rich man has learned his lesson, albeit too late. Now he hopes to warn his five brothers so that they will not suffer the same eternal fate. But he is told that his brothers—as he had also—have every opportunity to hear and obey Moses and the Prophets. If they will not listen to the commandments of Scripture, then they will not listen to one who had been raised from the dead.
This last part of the parable, in which reference to being raised from the dead is made, has given rise to a number of interpretations. Assuming that Jesus’ parable originally contained this part (and there is no convincing reason why it did not), we may inquire as to what special significance, if any, the reference would have had for Jesus and his hearers. Almost certainly Jesus did not originally refer to his own resurrection. As it stands in the context of the parable the reference seems to mean no more than the idea that if one is not convinced by Scripture (i.e., “Moses and the Prophets”), then a warning from the next world will have no greater effect. The implication is that Scripture is the greatest authority and carries (or should carry) the greatest conviction. If one’s heart is too insensitive to hear and obey its warnings, then no testimony, no matter how authoritative or dramatic it may be, will be persuasive. If one is deaf to God’s words, one will scarcely be able to hear the words of another.
In the later period of Luke and his readers, however, the reference to being raised from the dead was understood as an allusion to Jesus’ resurrection. Just as his opponents had refused to hear and obey the words of Moses and the Prophets, so too would they reject the message of the risen Christ (as the Book of Acts gives eloquent testimony). (On the relation of the name Lazarus to the raising of Lazarus in John 11 see note on v. 20 below.)
Evans (p. 49) suggests that the injunctions regarding the treatment of the poor and the needy found in Deut. 24:6–7, 10–15 parallel Luke’s Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. The rich man’s lack of concern for his poor neighbor would surely violate the spirit of the laws of Deuteronomy.
16:19 / In most of the oldest manuscripts there is no name given to the rich man. However, in the very oldest manuscript (P75) the phrase, “by the name of Neues,” is found. Fitzmyer (p. 1130) suspects that it is intended as a shortened form of “Nineveh.” That a name would be assigned to the rich man is understandable, since a name is assigned to the poor man. But why “Neues” (or “Nineveh”) is anybody’s guess. The name “Dives” comes from the Vulgate, but there it is not intended to be a name.
dressed in purple and fine linen: This is the clothing of royalty. The inference, as Fitzmyer (p 1130) has pointed out, is that the rich man lived like a king (see Prov. 31:22). Consequently Leaney (p. 225–226) wonders if the rich man was supposed to have been Herod Antipas. According to v. 28 the rich man had five brothers, as had Herod when the parable was originally told.
16:20 / There are at least two issues related to the name of the beggar. (1) It is sometimes wondered why a figure in a parable would be assigned a proper name. In no other parable of Jesus is this the case. It has been suggested that there was understood, or intended, a connection with the Lazarus of the Fourth Gospel, the one raised up in John 11. This possibility leads to the next issue and that is, (2) if there is a connection between the Lazarus of the Lucan parable and the Lazarus of John 11, what is the nature of this relationship? There are at least two possible explanations. First, it has been argued that the Johannine account of the raising of Lazarus is in fact a fictional illustration based upon the Lucan parable: Lazarus was indeed raised from the dead (as the rich man had requested) as a witness, yet even then Jesus’ opponents did not believe (as Abraham had predicted). A second explanation, and one that is preferred to the first, is that because of the rough similarity between the point of the Lucan parable and the experience of Lazarus in John 11, early in the manuscript tradition a certain Christian scribe (or scribes) inserted the name Lazarus. Although this suggestion must remain speculative since there is no early manuscript evidence of the parable without the name, it provides a reasonable explanation to the two questions raised above, for it explains why a proper name has appeared in the parable and why this name was Lazarus of all names.
covered with sores: Lit. “ulcerated.” The condition of the poor man is not only serious but quite painful.
16:21 / longing to eat: This phrase is identical to the lost son’s wish to fill himself with the bean pods that the swine ate (15:16).
16:22 / Although the rich man is honored by burial (and with his burial ends his honor), the beggar is apparently not buried and honored (by people), but the angels carried him to Paradise.
Abraham’s side: Lit. “Abraham’s bosom,” that is, the place of intimacy with Abraham, the father of the Jewish people. Such a place was considered the place of greatest honor and security (see Fitzmyer’s references, p. 1132).
16:23 / hell: Lit. “Hades”; see note on 10:15 above.
16:24 / By calling Abraham Father Abraham (similarly, see vv. 27, 30), the rich man is appealing to his kinship with the father of his race. Such physical kinship, however, especially in Lucan theology (see 3:8), means nothing. According to Jewish legends, Abraham will sit at the entrance to hell to make sure that no circumcised Israelite is cast in (cf. Genesis Rabbah 48.8). However, even for those Israelites who are sentenced to spend some time in hell, Abraham has the authority to take them out and receive them into heaven (b. Erubin 19a). It is probably against the background of traditions like these that the rich man believed that Abraham could give him comfort.
dip the tip of his finger in water: Whereas Paradise has an abundance of water, hell is dry and hot: “… so the thirst and torment which are prepared await them” (2 Esdras 8:59).
fire: The idea of fire in Hades probably goes back to Isa. 66:24 (see note on 10:15 above), which is quoted in Mark 9:48 (see also Rev. 20:14–15). The anguish now experienced by the rich man is similar to (but more severe than) the burning pain the poor man had experienced because of his ulcerous condition.
16:26 / great chasm: This chasm is “an unbridgeable gulf between the locale of bliss and that of torment” (Fitzmyer, p. 1133).
16:27 / Recall that the dead Samuel was raised up to warn King Saul (1 Sam. 28:11–19).
16:28 / Let him warn them: Lit., “Let him witness to them.” This is the same word that is used in Acts 2:40: “With many other words he warned them [or witnessed to them], ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.’ ”
16:29 / Moses and the Prophets: The resurrected Jesus will later tell his disciples that “Moses and all the Prophets” spoke of him (Luke 24:27, 44).
16:31 / they will not be convinced: For the evangelist Luke this word implied conversion and salvation, as seen in Acts 17:4: “Some of the Jews were persuaded [or convinced] and joined Paul”; and in Acts 28:24: “Some were convinced by what he said.”