Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 16:28

"for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment." — Luke 16:28 (ASV)

For I have five brethren.—Here again we are left to choose between opposite views of the motive that prompted the request. Was it simply a selfish fear of reproaches that might aggravate his sufferings? Was it the stirring in him of an unselfish anxiety for others, content to bear his own anguish if only his brothers might escape? Either view is tenable enough, but the latter harmonizes more with the humility of the tone in which the request is uttered.

The question why “five” are named is again one that we cannot answer with certainty. The allusions that some have found to the five senses, in the indulgence of which the man had passed his life, or to the five books of Moses (!), are simply fantastic.

It may have been merely the use of a specific number for an indefinite one, as with the five wise and the five foolish virgins (Matthew 25:2), or the five talents (Matthew 25:15), or the five cities in the land of Egypt (Isaiah 19:18). It may have been an individualizing feature, pointing to some conspicuously self-indulgent rich man among the hearers of the parable, and so coming home to him as a warning. Or, possibly (following up the hint in the Note on Luke 16:19), it might refer to the number of the Tetrarch's surviving brothers. Of these, he had had eight, but Aristobulus and Archelaus were already dead, and possibly, of course, another.

Here, returning to the structure of the parable, there is a special motive for the rich man's wishing Lazarus to be sent. The brothers had seen the beggar lying at his gate. If they were to see him now, risen from the dead, they would learn how far more blessed his state had been than the luxurious ease in which they had passed and were still passing their lives.