Luke Chapter 12 verse 20 Holy Bible
But God said unto him, Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?
read chapter 12 in ASV
But God said to him, You foolish one, tonight I will take your soul from you, and who then will be the owner of all the things which you have got together?
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But God said to him, Fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; and whose shall be what thou hast prepared?
read chapter 12 in DARBY
But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
read chapter 12 in KJV
read chapter 12 in WBT
"But God said to him, 'You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared--whose will they be?'
read chapter 12 in WEB
`And God said to him, Unthinking one! this night thy soul they shall require from thee, and what things thou didst prepare -- to whom shall they be?
read chapter 12 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 20. - But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. The literal rendering of the Greek here is more solemn and impressive in its awful vagueness: This night they require thy soul of thee. Who are meant by they? Most likely the angels: not necessarily "avenging," as Trench would suggest; simply those angels whose special function it was to conduct the souls of the departed to their own place. So we read in the parable of Lazarus and Dives how angels carried the soul of Lazarus into Abraham's bosom. On the words, "they require," Theophylact writes, "For, like pitiless exactors of tribute, terrible angels shall require thy soul from thee unwilling, and through love of life resisting. For from the righteous his soul is not required, but he commits it to God and the Father of spirits, pleased and rejoicing; nor finds it hard to lay it down, for the body lies upon it as a light burden. But the sinner who has enfleshed his soul, and embodied it, and made it earthy, has so prepared it to render its divulsion from the body most hard; wherefore it is said to be required of him, as a disobedient debtor that is delivered to exactors." Then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? Our Lord here reproduced the thought contained in passages with which no doubt he had been familiar from his boyhood. "Yea, I hated all my labor which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool?" (Ecclesiastes 2:18, 19). "He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them" (Psalm 39:6). The parallel in the apocryphal book, Ecclus. 11:18, 19, is very close.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(20) But God said unto him.--The bold anthropomorphic language seems intended to suggest the thought not only that death came suddenly, but that the man felt that it came from God as the chastisement of his folly.Thy soul shall be required.--Literally, they require thy soul of thee. The idiom, as in Luke 12:48, and Luke 14:35, is impersonal, and does not require us to supply any definite nominative. We may compare "that when ye fail, they may receive you . . ." (Luke 16:9) as a possibly analogous instance; but see Note there.Then whose shall those things be?--The words indicate one of the disturbing thoughts that vex the souls of the wealthy, "He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them" (Psalm 39:6).
