I beseech thee, father. To bring the narrative into more full accordance with our modes of thinking, he describes the rich man as wishing that his brothers, who were still alive, should be warned by Lazarus. Here the Papists exercise their ingenuity very foolishly, by attempting to prove that the dead feel solicitude about the living. Any thing more ridiculous than this sophistry cannot be conceived; for with equal plausibility I might undertake to prove, that believing souls are not satisfied with the place assigned to them, and are actuated by a desire of removing from it to hell, were it not that they are prevented by a vast gulf. If no man holds such extravagant views, the Papists are not entitled to congratulate themselves on the other supposition. It is not my intention, however, to debate the point, or to defend either one side or another; but I thought it right to advert, in passing, to the futility of the arguments on which they rest their belief that the dead intercede with God on our behalf. I now return to the plain and natural meaning of this passage.

Five brethren - The number "five" is mentioned merely to preserve the appearance of verisimilitude in the story. It is not to be spiritualized, nor are we to suppose that it has any hidden or inscrutable meaning.
May testify unto them - May bear "witness" to them, or may inform them of what is my situation, and the dreadful consequences of the life that I have led. It is remarkable that he did not ask to go himself. He knew that he could not be released, even for so short a time. His condition was fixed. Yet he had no wish that his friends should suffer, and he supposed that if one went from the dead they would hear him.

(7) Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:
(7) Seeing that we have a most sure rule to live by, laid forth for us in the word of God, men seek rashly and vainly for other revelations.

Then he said, I pray thee therefore father,.... The Cambridge, copy of Beza's, and the Ethiopic version read, "father Abraham"; finding he could have no redress of his misery, nor any relief for himself, he applies for others:
that thou wouldst send him to my father's house; the house of Israel and Jacob, the surviving Jews: and this agrees also with a notion of theirs, that the dead seek for mercy for them (l). The Persic and Ethiopic versions read, "that thou wouldst send Lazarus", &c. whom the one calls Gazarus, and the other Eleazar.
(l) T. Bab. Taanith, fol. 16. 1.

Then he said--now abandoning all hope for himself.
send him to my father's house, &c.--no waking up of good in the heart of the lost, but bitter reproach against God and the old economy, as not warning him sufficiently [TRENCH]. The answer of Abraham is, They are sufficiently warned.

Send him to my father's house. This is introduced. not to show an interest in his brethren, but to call out the reply: They have Moses and the prophets. If they would refuse to hear the word of God, they would refuse to repent at the bidding of a ghost.
Neither will they be persuaded, etc. This was demonstrated in the case of Jesus himself. The Jews refused to accept Christ, though Moses and the prophets testified of him. They asked for a sign, and "the sign of the prophet Jonah," his resurrection from the dead, was given. Still they refused to repent. Unbelief is due, not to a lack of evidence, but to a rebellious heart. The seat of skepticism is in the moral nature.