Scripture · Luke 18:3
Luke 16:20-21
The Rich Man and Lazarus
And a beggar named Lazarus lay at his gate, covered with sores and longing to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
Lazarus sits on the paving below a crowded banquet, with a dog at his exposed foot while wine is poured above.
About the artwork
The print stacks abundance over need. Diners and service fill the upper band, while the ragged man sits below a curved stone barrier with his legs stretched into the foreground. A dog reaches his foot; the people at the table remain absorbed above him. The distance between food and hunger is short enough to cross, but the composition makes it feel like two separate worlds.
Millais and the Dalziel engravers show the opening contrast of the parable, not its later scene after death. The named beggar is the Lazarus of Luke’s story, distinct from the man Jesus raises in John 11. The architecture gives the rich household’s failure of attention a visible boundary.
Featured in: John Everett Millais’s Bible Paintings: The Holy Family That Made Dickens Furious
What does Luke 16:20-21 mean?
Luke 16:20–21 places Lazarus at the rich man’s gate, longing for food and afflicted with sores. The passage follows the description of the other man’s fine clothes and daily feasting. The need is close enough to be seen from the place of abundance.
The later reversal after death makes this earlier neglect consequential. The parable ends by insisting on the sufficiency of Moses and the Prophets as a call to respond. The engraving keeps attention on the opportunity before that reversal: the hungry person is already within reach of the feast.
Luke 16:20–21 explains the vertical contrast between the feast and Lazarus on the steps below it.
Sources
John Everett Millais’s Bible Paintings: The Holy Family That Made Dickens Furious. Artwork reading adapted from this guide.
Luke 16 — Berean Standard Bible. Context for Luke 16:20-21.
Also from Luke:The Angel Appearing to ZachariasAnnunciation
Continue looking:Lazarus at the Rich Man’s GateThe Resurrection of Lazarus