Isaiah 57
The blessed death of the righteous; Leaders Rebuked; Comfort for the Contrite
God's Everlasting Kingdom is Revealed1
The righteous perish,and no one lays it to heart.Merciful men are taken away,and no one considers that the righteous is taken away from the evil.
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He enters into peace.They rest in their beds,each one who walks in his uprightness.
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"But draw near here, you sons of a sorceress,you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes.
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Whom do you mock?Against whom do you make a wide mouth,and stick out your tongue?Aren't you children of disobedience,and offspring of falsehood,
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you who inflame yourselves among the oaks,under every green tree;who kill the children in the valleys,under the clefts of the rocks?
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On a high and lofty mountain you have set your bed.You also went up there to offer sacrifice.
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You went to the king with oil,and increased your perfumes,and sent your ambassadors far off,and degraded yourself even to Sheol.
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You were wearied with the length of your ways;yet you didn't say, 'It is in vain.'You found a reviving of your strength;therefore you weren't faint.
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"Whom have you dreaded and feared,so that you lie,and have not remembered me, nor laid it to your heart?Haven't I held my peace for a long time,and you don't fear me?
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I will declare your righteousness;and as for your works, they will not benefit you.
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When you cry,let those whom you have gathered deliver you;but the wind will take them.a breath will carry them all away:but he who takes refuge in me will possess the land,and will inherit my holy mountain."
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He will say, "Build up, build up, prepare the way!Remove the stumbling-block out of the way of my people."
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For I will not contend forever, neither will I be always angry;for the spirit would faint before me,and the souls whom I have made.
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I was angry because of the iniquity of his covetousness, and struck him;I hid myself and was angry;and he went on backsliding in the way of his heart.
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I have seen his ways, and will heal him:I will lead him also,and restore comforts to him and to his mourners.
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I create the fruit of the lips:Peace, peace, to him who is far off and to him who is near,"says The LORD; "and I will heal them."
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But the wicked are like the troubled sea;for it can't rest, and its waters cast up mire and mud.
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"There is no peace", says my God,"for the wicked."
Isa 57:1-21. THE PEACEFUL DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS FEW: THE UNGODLINESS OF THE MANY: A BELIEVING REMNANT SHALL SURVIVE THE GENERAL JUDGMENTS OF THE NATION, AND BE RESTORED BY HIM WHO CREATES PEACE.
In the midst of the excesses of the unfaithful watchmen (Isa 56:10, 11, 12), most of the few that are godly perish: partly by vexation at the prevailing ungodliness; partly by violent death in persecution: prophetical of the persecuting times of Manasseh, before God's judgments in causing the captivity in Babylon; and again those in the last age of the Church, before the final judgments on the apostasy (2Ki 21:16; Mt 23:29-35, 37; Re 11:17). The Hebrew for "perisheth," and "is taken away," expresses a violent death (Mic 7:2).
1. no man layeth it to heart--as a public calamity.
merciful men--rather, godly men; the subjects of mercy.
none considering--namely, what was the design of Providence in removing the godly.
from the evil--Hebrew, from the face of the evil, that is, both from the moral evil on every side (Isa 56:10-12), and from the evils about to come in punishment of the national sins, foreign invasions, &c. (Isa 56:9; 57:13). So Ahijah's death is represented as a blessing conferred on him by God for his piety (1Ki 14:10-13; see also 2Ki 22:20).