As James Jordan likes to observe, the Holy Spirit does not waste his breath. We should pay attention to the details of Holy Scripture, especially the surprising and unexpected ones, as they can often be the stepping stones to hidden insights.
We should remember this principle when hearing the parables of Jesus, which often contain details and expressions that seem unnecessarily specific or allusive, introducing seemingly extraneous elements or evoking other seemingly unrelated texts. I have posted thoughts on the Parable of the Good Samaritan along such lines, observing the way in which many of the details of that narrative—such as the Samaritan, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and the specific form of the act of mercy—are integral to the deeper meaning of the parable.
To those inclined to (mis)read the parables as illustrative stories or fables, their meaning might be presumed to be almost exhausted with a simple key, such as the interpretation Jesus gives to the Parable of the Sower in Luke 8:9–15. However, parables are not mere illustrative stories and, even when Jesus gives us the key to the parable, a great deal remains to be explored within them, especially when you consider the Old Testament Scriptures upon which Jesus was drawing. The “key” is more of an initial boost that equips hearers to ascend higher in their understanding than they might do otherwise.
For instance, in the Parable of the Sower, we could consider the image of God as a sower, sowing the land with his restored people in Jeremiah 31:27–28. Earlier in the book of Jeremiah, God had charged the people to “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns” (4:3), referring to their hearts, as is apparent from the verse that follows. In Ezekiel 11:19, the people are described as having a stony heart. In Jeremiah 31:31–34, directly after the image of God sowing, we read of God placing his law within his people’s hearts, where Ezekiel 11:19 speaks of God giving them a heart of flesh in place of their heart of stone.
Putting these images together with Jesus’ key to the Parable of the Sower, we have a much richer picture than a simple illustrative story about different responses to Jesus’s message. The image of sowing the word in receptive hearts is one that evokes new covenant themes (see also Isaiah 55:10–13, another new covenant image of God as sower). As N. T. Wright has recognized, the Parable of the Sower evokes Israel’s larger story, along with its climax, in ways that exceed the sorts of readings of the Parable one might consider as a child in Sunday School. It is a parable of the kingdom, describing God’s bringing of his promised restoration in the fullness of the times, not merely an illustrative story about perennial differences in people’s responses to God’s word.
One parable that has always somewhat perplexed me is the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19–31:
There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.” But Abraham said, “Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.” And he said, “Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.” But Abraham said, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.” And he said, “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” He said to him, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”
Reading this parable, several details have nagged me over the years. Among them, the named character of Lazarus, the focus upon the figure of Abraham, the portrayal of the postmortem state, and the five brothers. Besides these details, one might also wonder about the rich man’s clothes, the dogs, and the rich man’s request that Lazarus be sent to his brothers. While some of these more specific details might be brushed off, the combination of them all suggests that more is going on in the parable than we might at first suspect.
In particular, the named character of Lazarus sticks out. Few parables have named characters within them, and none that could really be compared with Lazarus here. There is no other Lazarus in Luke’s gospel. Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, is, of course, an important figure in John’s gospel, where Jesus raises him back to life. We might speculate upon the possibility of a relationship between these two Lazaruses. However, although it may add some level of irony, there really does not seem to be much to fill out what might initially seem like a promising association (we should bear in mind that Lazarus was one of the most common names in first-century Palestine and that he is not mentioned in Luke’s Gospel).
An important breakthrough is recognizing that Lazarus is a form of the Old Testament name Eliezer/Eleazar. Eleazar was a son of Aaron, who replaced him as high priest. However, the more important figure for our purposes is Eliezer, the chief servant of Abraham, to whom we are introduced in Genesis 15:2–3. There, prior to the births of Ishmael and Isaac, Eliezer of Damascus was Abraham’s heir. Later, Abraham entrusted his chief servant—“the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he had”—with the task of finding a bride for his son Isaac (24:2). While the servant of Genesis 24 is not explicitly identified as Eliezer, it seems reasonable to do so, and the interpretive tradition routinely makes this identification.
The identification of Lazarus with Abraham’s chief servant makes sense of the association between the two figures. Lazarus going to Abraham’s side suggests a uniquely close relationship between them, something beyond the postmortem state common to all the old covenant righteous. Further, when we consider it, it starts to make more sense why the rich man would treat Lazarus as Abraham’s servant, twice requesting that Abraham send Lazarus to do something on his behalf (Lk 16:24, 27–28).
The rich man is also described with a bit more specificity than we might expect for a figure in a parable. He was “clothed in purple and fine linen” (verse 19) and had five brothers (verse 28). Clothes of purple and fine linen are royal raiment, or they might suggest the garments of the high priest (Exodus 28). Mordecai was dressed in purple and fine linen in Esther 8:15, indicating the royal authority with which King Ahasuerus had entrusted him. The rich man seems to be a king, ruler, dignitary, or high official of some kind.
The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus occurs in the context of a sequence of parables directed against the scribes, Pharisees, and religious leaders—the Parable of the Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, and Lost Son, and the Parable of the Unjust Steward. In this context, an identification of the rich man with the high priest makes a lot of sense. It also helps us to understand the five brothers mentioned in the Parable: Caiaphas, the son-in-law of Annas, was high priest and had five brothers-in-law, who would be high priests themselves in the decades leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem.
The veiled description of the high priest Caiaphas as the rich man would make sense of what we know of him. In John’s Gospel, Caiaphas appears after the raising of Lazarus, disbelieving Jesus, resisting the sign of the raising of Lazarus, and leading the plot to put Jesus to death (Jn 11:45–53). Jesus was later tried before Caiaphas. Caiaphas also persecuted the early Church (Ac 5:17) and, as a Sadducee, opposed the message of the resurrection. The gate of the temple, as the “house” of the high priest, was also a place where poor men and beggars were found, as we see in Acts 3:2.
I had gone this far in 2020, when I produced my biblical reflections on the passage. Yet, although these identifications made a lot of sense, the dimensions of how they served the larger picture were yet unclear to me. There were several dots that had not yet been joined up for me.
There are other Old Testament resonances we might hear in this passage. The story of the rich man and the man at the gate might recall the story of Haman and Mordecai in Esther. Mordecai’s refusal to bow to Haman with the rest of the king’s servants at the gate (see my discussion of that story here) provokes Haman to plot the destruction of the Jews. Peter Williams comments on these allusions in his superb little book The Surprising Genius of Jesus. Noting the presence of the fine linen and purple in that narrative (8:15), we might remember that Haman desired to dress himself up in kingly garments and receive royal honours (6:6–9). The story of Haman and Mordecai, as I have argued, alludes to the story of Joseph in the house of Potiphar and is a story of an unfaithful steward. This is a piece of the picture to be kept in mind—I will return to it later.
As Peter Williams also suggests, we might further hear echoes of the story of Job in the depiction of Lazarus as the man covered with sores and sitting in the ashes (Job 2:7–8). Job, formerly the wealthiest in his society, was reduced to the state of Lazarus, before being vindicated by God and raised up. The radical reversal and divine vindication in the elevation of the sore-covered sufferer to great riches recalls that earlier story. Connections with the stories of Abraham and Job are strengthened with the verbal associations among Luke 16:23, Genesis 22:4, and Job 2:12.
We should also consider the broader themes that the parable shares with the neighbouring parables and teaching, and some of the interplays between them. Peter Williams observes the interplay between the depiction of Lazarus and the younger son in the Parable of the Lost Son:
“And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything” (Lk 15:16).
“…who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores” (Lk 16:21).
Pigs and dogs are associated with unclean animals (cf. Matt 7:6), and the scraps from the table are dogs’ food (Mk 7:27–28). Both Lazarus and the lost son are connected with the unclean animals, and both wish to eat the food of the unclean animals. These are powerful and related images of persons who are despised, destitute, and excluded. Williams further observes the continued presence of themes of fatherhood and failed recognition of brotherhood (the rich man addresses Abraham as “father,” yet treats even the exalted Lazarus—the favored heir of the one he claims as his father—merely as a servant and messenger boy), themes that are important in the Parable of the Lost Son.
There is another theme that surfaces in surprising ways. The immediately preceding parable is the Parable of the Unjust Steward, of an unfaithful steward about to be removed from his position, with a short window of time in which to take emergency action to cushion his fall. That parable relates to the religious leaders who would be removed from their positions of authority within a few decades. If the rich man is the high priest, then he is the principal steward. The unjust steward knew about the shortness of the time remaining to him. However, the rich man was oblivious to the radical reversal of his fortunes which was about to occur.
Jesus’ teaching at this point resonates with earlier passages in Luke, such as 12:35–48. There, Jesus gives three related illustrations, the first concerning servants who need to be prepared for their master’s unannounced return, the second concerning a master of a house who needs to be prepared for the thief’s coming (the “master of the house” here may perhaps be another description for the chief steward, rather than the owner), and the third of a manager set over the household who will need to give an account of himself upon his master’s return. In the third of these illustrations, Jesus depicts an unfaithful manager starting to act as if he were a master, mistreating the servants under him and eating and drinking and getting drunk (12:45).
If we consider that the high priest is the appointed manager of the Lord’s house, to which the Lord has yet to return (listen to my discussion of this theme in the recent Theopolis podcast on Malachi), then the identification of the high priest with the “rich man” of the parable adds extra levels of irony, suggesting that the rich man’s supposed wealth is not really his own, but belongs to a master that he does not acknowledge. The allusions to the garments of purple and fine linen in the book of Esther connect him with Haman, another unfaithful steward, who liked to act as if he were the king, lording it over the other servants, before he received his comeuppance.
Having identified Lazarus with Abraham’s servant, things open up even more. Lazarus was the faithful steward of Abraham’s house—“the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he had” (Gen 24:2). The “rich man” turns out to be an unfaithful steward, a chief steward of the Lord’s house acting as if he were a king, while Lazarus is the original and archetypal faithful steward of Abraham’s house: they are each other’s opposite number! And while the man who fancies himself the owner of his father’s house is cast out, the rejected and suffering faithful servant becomes heir of all. The foreign-born servant inheriting, while the supposed sons are cast out, is very much in keeping with Jesus’s teaching about the reversals of the kingdom of God (e.g., Lk 13:28–30).
The rich man’s request to Abraham is that he send Lazarus to cool his tongue with a drop of water (16:24). In Genesis 24, Eliezer (Lazarus) was sent by his master Abraham on a mission to find a wife for Isaac, Abraham’s son. He devised a test, through which he would find the appointed woman:
And he said, “O Lord, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Let the young woman to whom I shall say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master” (Gen 24:12–14).
This was a test of hospitality. Notably, Eliezer did not lead with a declaration of his master’s immense wealth (as he would later do with the mercenary Laban in verse 35) or by disclosing the many valuable gifts he had with him. The test was whether, before she knew any of these things, there was a woman who would show kindness significantly over and above what was requested.
The rich man’s request to Abraham ironically recalls the test of Eliezer (Lazarus) in Genesis 24, alerting the reader to the fact that, with Lazarus in need at his gate, the rich man faced the same test of hospitality that Rebekah had received in Genesis 24. It was through the test of hospitality presented by Abraham’s servant that Rebekah was included in Abraham’s family and became the mistress of all his house: “I was thirsty and you gave me drink” (Matt 25:35). Having failed to give a “cup of cold water” (Matt 10:40–42), the rich man is now left with no one to quench his own thirst.
The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, then, involves a series of subtle intertextual allusions, both within its immediate context and in the wider Scripture. These allusions disclose the surprising identities of its characters, and manifest some devastating reversals. As in the Parable of the Lost Son, those presumed to be insiders find themselves outside, while those who might consider themselves excluded and mere servants are welcomed and given the privileges of beloved sons.
What is the larger message of the parable? How do the pieces fit together? Lazarus, it seems to me, is not merely a generic poor person but especially represents the suffering and impoverished messengers of the kingdom, rejected and despised by the religious leaders of the day. Jesus and his disciples are coming in the spirit of faithful Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, presenting people with a test of hospitality, much as Eliezer once did for Rebekah. Jesus and his disciples went from town to town and village to village, in each place testing what sort of reception they would receive (Lk 9:1–6; 10:1–16). This test would ultimately be faced by the high priest and the leaders in Jerusalem, and they would crucify him. The time would then come when the tables would be turned: Lazarus would be vindicated, while those who had failed to show him hospitality would be excluded. Like the rich man of the parable, they would be caught unawares: they did not know the hour of their visitation.[1]
[1] After I developed this reading, I came across this article by Keith Yoder, which independently makes several similar points. Many people have a sense of Theopolitan interpretative maximalism as purely fanciful and without controls. It is certainly the case that many attempting to use such exegesis for the first time can come up with some wild readings. However, experienced readers frequently independently arrive at remarkably similar interpretative maximalist readings. This implies, at the very least, that there is much more consistency to the approach than its critics suppose. It is also noteworthy that there is often convergence in reading between people engaging in Jewish, Christian, literary, and more technical exegetical readings. Different exegetical traditions, yet all practiced in varying forms of close attention to the text, can all see similar things in many passages. All this suggests that interpretative maximalists are not merely seeing things that aren’t there and that such readings correspond to realities in the Scriptures themselves.