Gulf

Gulf - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

GULF, n.

1. A recess in the ocean from the general line of the shore into the land, or a tract of water extending from the ocean or a sea into the land, between two points or promontories; a large bay; as the gulf of Mexico; the gulf of Venice; the gulf of Finland. A gulf and a bay differ only in extent. We apply bay to a large or small recess of the sea, as the bay of Biscay, the bay of Fundy; but gulf is applied only to a large extent of water.

2. An abyss; a deep place in the earth; as the gulf of Avernus.

3. A whirlpool; an absorbing eddy.

4. Any thing insatiable.

(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.

See also ABRAHAM'S BOSOM; HADES.

M. O. Evans