The only instance of the use of this word in the Bible occurs in the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Lu 16:26; cf. Nu 16:30 where the word 'pit' is the translation of Hades or Sheol). Some commentators have discovered in Jesus' employment of this term ('chasm'), as well as in His assertion of the possibility of conversation, an approval in general terms of a current Rabbinical belief that the souls of the righteous and of the wicked exist after death in different compartments of the same under world (see J. Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. iii. p. 175). It is not possible, however, to construct a theory of Jesus' belief as to the intermediate state from evidence so scanty. Indeed, signs are not lacking that on this occasion He employs the language of metaphor in order to guard against placing His imprimatur on useless and materialistic speculations. The expressions 'from afar' (Lu 16:23) and 'a great gulf' (Lu 16:26) do not harmonize with the idea of holding a conversation; and it seems plain that they form but subsidiary portions of a parable by which He means to teach a lesson of purely ethical import. There is, moreover, an evident implication in the context that the gulf is not confined to the world beyond the grave. Having reminded the Rich Man of the contrast between his condition and that of Lazarus in their earthly lives, and of its reversal in their respective conditions at present, Abraham is made to say, 'In all these things (see Revised Version margin) there has been and remains fixed a great chasm' (cf. Plummer 'St. Luke' in CC International Critical Commentary, ad loc.). The chasm is not only between the conditions of the two men's lives; it has its foundation in their characters, modified, no doubt, and influenced by the circumstances in which each lived. The impassable nature of the chasm can be explained only on the ground that it is the great moral division separating two fundamentally different classes of men.

J. R. Willis.