Luke 16:23

In hell] RV 'in Hades.' Hades is here used in a wide sense for the intermediate state of all souls, just and unjust, between death and judgment. In this sense both Dives and Lazarus were in 'Hades,' though the one was comforted and the other tormented. This usage of the word is quite common. 'Hades, in which the souls both of just and unjust are detained' (Hippolytus). 'In the lower world are both torment and refreshment. There a soul is either punished or tenderly cherished, as a foretaste or rehearsal of the final judgment' (Tertullian). The rich man was not in 'hell' (Gehenna), because no one is sent there until after the Last Judgment.

In torments] Spiritual torment or punishment must be meant, for Dives was now a disembodied spirit. Seeth Abraham] The rabbis placed Paradise in sight of the place of torment, and were familiar with the idea of conversations among the dead: see on Luke 16:26. There is a rabbinical story not unlike this parable: 'There were two partners in crime in this world, one of whom repented before his death, but the other did not. After death the one was carried away and placed in the company of the just; the other in the company of the wicked. The latter saw the former, and said, “Woe is me, for there is respect of persons in this matter. He and I robbed together and murdered together, and now he stands in the congregation of the just, and I in the congregation of the wicked.” They answered him, “Thou fool, it was in thy power also to have repented, but thou didst not.” He said to them, “Let me go now, and become a penitent.” But they said, “Thou most foolish of men, dost thou not know that this world in which thou art is like the sabbath, and the world from which thou earnest, like the eve of the sabbath? If thou providest nothing on the sabbath-eve, what wilt thou eat on the sabbath?” And he gnashed his teeth and gnawed his own flesh.'

In his bosom] The figure is not taken from reclining at a banquet (John 13:23), because the great banquet would not take place, according to Jewish ideas, till the coming of the Messiah (Matthew 8:11), but from children quietly resting in their parents' lap or bosom.