NOTES for Luk 16:19-31
Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus touches upon a very important question: the question of testimony and of proofs. That it came from the lips of the Savior is not surprising: for many of the people listening to Him demanded of Him not so much testimonies about the Kingdom (there were more than enough of those), as proofs of His messiahship, and furthermore, such proofs that would be sufficiently convincing, first and foremost, in their own eyes.
In response, Jesus, as can be seen, resorts to a parable based on the ideas of the posthumous fate of the righteous and the sinner that were traditional for the Gospel era. It should be noted that the initial ideas about the world of shadows, about the realm of the dead, which in Hebrew is called Sheol in the biblical books, and in Greek (as in the Evangelist's account) Hades (from which the word "hell" is derived in Russian), did not presuppose any difference in the afterlife of the righteous and sinners, just as they did not presuppose any posthumous rewards or punishments. Such ideas were characteristic of all peoples without exception, including, of course, the Middle Eastern ones: Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Jews. And only later, among different peoples at different times (and among the Jews later than among all the rest), do ideas begin to develop about a good and bad afterlife as a consequence of observing or violating spiritual and moral laws during earthly life. The juxtaposition of the impious rich man to the pious poor man was traditional for Yahwism, and later for Judaism, and it is not surprising that the rich man ends up in a "place of torment", while Lazarus — "in Abraham's bosom". This refers to the understanding of "Abraham's bosom", traditional for the Gospel era, as a place of rest where the righteous remain right up until the Judgment in a state resembling either a deep, serene sleep or the peaceful contemplation of God, and of Sheol, which for the impious person becomes a place of torment.
The meaning of the parable, however, lies in the rich man's request for testimony, that Abraham would send Lazarus to his brothers and that he would tell them about what awaits them after death. Abraham in response points him to "Moses and the prophets", i.e. to the Holy Scripture in the extent to which it existed in that era, including the Pentateuch, the Former Prophets and the Latter Prophets (another common name is "the Torah and the prophets", or, as this expression is rendered in the Synodal translation, "the Law and the prophets"). The meaning of the answer is transparent enough: the one who observes the Torah and listens to the voice of the prophets will understand everything, they are sufficient to step onto the path of righteousness and, having walked it to the end, to find Christ and the Kingdom. And if the Torah and the prophets are not enough, no testimonies will help: for they are usually not enough for those who need not a testimony, but a proof, not an indication of the path, but a means for self-justification. And here, truly, even those risen from the dead will not be able to convince anyone of anything.