Bible Dictionary
GULF
The great gulf in Jesus’ account of the rich man and Lazarus represents the fixed separation after death between the righteous and the wicked. It pictures an impassable moral divide that cannot be crossed by a change of circumstances.
Definition
The gulf is a great chasm or fixed interval separating two places. In the relevant biblical passage it represents an impassable separation after death.
Biblical Usage
In Jesus’ account of the rich man and Lazarus, a great gulf separates the righteous from the wicked. The image is ethical: the difference lies in their characters, and the separation cannot be crossed merely by a change of condition.
Historical Background
The image resembles rabbinical descriptions of separation between compartments of Hades, but the passage gives the gulf a figurative and ethical significance.
Related Figures
Historical Bible Dictionaries
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>(chasma, "a chasm," "vent," "a gaping opening"--a great interval; from chaino, "to gape" or "yawn"): Occurs only in Lu 16:26, "Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed" (compare "afar off" in 16:23). This is very different from, though it probably reflects, the rabbinical conception of the separation between the two compartments of Hades (Sheol) by "a hand's breadth," "a wall," or even, later, "a chasm," as the parable can be given here only a figurative significance, and is of purely ethical import. The fundamental difference between the Rich Man and Lazarus lies not in their conditions but in their characters. For "besides all this" (16:26) the Revised Version, margin gives "in all these things," thus implying that the moral distinctions which exist in this life (16:25) become more pronounced ("fixed") in the next world, and the "gulf" is impassable in the sense that a change of condition will not necessarily produce a change of soul.</p><p>See also ABRAHAM'S BOSOM; HADES.</p><p>M. O. Evans</p>