THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE - Chapter 16 - Verse 23

Verse 23. In hell. The word here translated hell (Hades) means literally a dark, obscure place; the place where departed spirits go, but especially the place where wicked spirits go. See Barnes "Job 10:21"

also Job 10:22; Isa 14:9".

The following circumstances are related of it in this parable:

1st. It is far off from the abodes of the righteous. Lazarus was seen afar off.

2nd. It is a place of torment.

3rd. There is a great gulf fixed between that and heaven, Lu 16:26.

4th. The suffering is great. It is represented by torment in a flame, Lu 16:24.

5th. There will be no escape from it, Lu 16:26. The word hell here means, therefore, that dark, obscure, and miserable place, far from heaven, where the wicked shall be punished for ever.

He lifted up his eyes. A phrase in common use among the Hebrews, meaning he looked, Ge 13:10; 18:2; 31:10; Da 8:3; Lu 6:20.

Being in torment. The word torment means pain, anguish (Mt 4:24); particularly the pain inflicted by the ancients in order to induce men to make confession of their crimes. These torments or tortures were the keenest that they could inflict, such as the rack, or scourging, or burning; and the use of the word here denotes that the sufferings of the wicked can be represented only by the extremest forms of human suffering.

And seeth Abraham, &c. This was an aggravation of his misery. One of the first things that occurred in hell was to look up, and see the poor man that lay at his gate completely happy. What a contrast! Just now he was rolling in wealth, and the poor man was at his gate. He had no expectation of these sufferings' now they have come upon him, and Lazarus is happy and for ever fixed in the paradise of God. It is more, perhaps, than we are authorized to infer, that the wicked will see those who are in paradise. That they will know that they are there is certain; but we are not to suppose that they will be so near together as to be seen, or as to make conversation possible. These circumstances mean that there will be a separation, and that the wicked in hell will be conscious that the righteous, though on earth they were poor or despised, will be in heaven. Heaven and hell will be far from each other, and it will be no small part of the misery of the one that it is far and for ever removed from the other.

{r} "tormented" Re 14:10,11.