Isaiah 57:1

The righteous perisheth,.... Not eternally; he may fear he shall, by reason of sin and temptation; he may say his strength and hope are perished; and his peace and comfort may perish for a time; but

The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.

ISAIAH CHAPTER 57 The blessed death of the righteous not duly lamented by the Jews; who also commit idolatry, and trusted in man: they are threatened, ; Evangelical promises to the penitent, . No peace to the wicked, ,21. The righteous; just and holy men, who are the pillars of the place and state in which they live; yea, as the Jews call them, the pillars of the world. No man; few or none of the people. So he showeth that the corruption was general, in the people no less than in the priests. Layeth it to heart; is duly affected with this severe stroke and sad sign of God’ s displeasure. Merciful; or, godly; the same whom he now called righteous, whose duty and practice it is to exercise both mercy or kindness, and justice. From the evil to come; from those dreadful calamities which are coming upon the nation.

Isaiah 57:1 The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth [it] to heart: and merciful men [are] taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil [to come].Ver. 1. The righteous perisheth.] So the world deemeth, but not rightly, for "the righteous hath hope in his death," when "the wicked dying is driven away in his wickedness" - by "him that had the power of death, even the devil" - having been "through fear of death all their lifetime subject to bondage." The Lacedaemonians all the time of their life adored death. The righteous can defy death, with Paul, and sing, Death, where is thy sting? hell, where is thy victory? He is not "killed with death," as Jezebel’ s children were; but dieth in peace, though he die in battle, as Josiah did, of whom some interpret this text. And no man layeth it to heart.] Heb., Upon his heart, that it may sink and soak into it, so as to be soundly sensible of God’ s holy hand and end in such a providence. See Isaiah 5:12. There is a woe to oscitancy and stupidity of this kind. And merciful men.] Heb, Men of piety or pity, such as all righteous persons are. They have received mercy, and they can show it; they have steeped their thoughts in the mercies of God, which have dyed theirs as the dye fat doth the cloth. Are taken away.] Heb., Gathered, as grain is into the garner, or fruit into the storehouse; so they into Abraham’ s bosom. As men gather flowers, and candy them, and preserve them by them, so doth God his pious ones. No man considering.] None of those debauched ones to be sure of. These are glad to be rid of the righteous, as the Sodomites were of righteous Lot; as the heathen persecutors were of the martyrs, whom they counted καθαρματα, the "sweepings of the world, and the offscourings of all things." That the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.] As was Methuselah a year before the flood; Jeroboam’ s best son, before the downfall of his father’ s family; Josiah before the captivity and first destruction of Jerusalem; James before the second; Augustine a little before the sack of his city Hippo, by the Vandals. Felix Nepotianus qui haec non vidit, saith Jerome. Stilico said, that when Ambrose was dead great changes would follow; and it happened accordingly. Luther was taken away in peace, a little before the calamity of Germany, which he foretold, for contempt of the gospel. Pareus died a little before Heidelberg was taken, futuro malo substractus. Mr Brightman was buried a day or two before the pursuivant was sent for him.

LVII. (1) The righteous perisheth . . .—The words seem written as if in the anticipation or in the actual presence of Manasseh’s persecution of the true prophets. Even before that persecution burst out in its full violence, the “righteous” survivors of Hezekiah’s régime may well have vexed their souls even to death with the evils that were around them. The prophet finds comfort in the thought that their death was a deliverance from yet worse evils. The singular number points to the few conspicuous sufferers.

CHAPTER LVII After mentioning the removal of righteous persons as an awful symptom of the approach of Divine judgments, 1, 2, the prophet goes on to charge the nation in general with idolatry, and with courting the unprofitable alliance of idolatrous kings, 3-12. In opposition to such vain confidence, the prophet enjoins trust in God, with whom the penitent and humble are sure to find acceptance, and from whom they should obtain temporal and spiritual deliverances, 13-19. Awful condition of the wicked and finally impenitent, 20, 21. NOTES ON CHAP. LVII I shall give Bishop Lowth's translation of the two first verses, and give the substance of his criticisms with additional evidence. Isaiah 57:1. The righteous man perisheth, and no one considereth; And pious men are taken away, and no one understandeth, That the righteous man is taken away because of the evil. Isaiah 57:2. He shall go in peace: he shall rest in his bed; Even the perfect man: he that walketh in the straight path. Verse 1. The righteous perisheth] הצדק אבד hatstsadik abad. There is an emphasis here which seems intended to point out a particular person. See below. Perisheth - As the root אבד abad signifies the straying of cattle, their passing away from one pasture to another, I feel inclined to follow the grammatical meaning of the word "perish," pereo. So the Vulgate, justus periit, from per, BY or THROUGH, and eo, to GO. In his death the righteous man may be said to have passed through life, and to have passed by men, i.e., gone or passed before them into the eternal world. A similar mode of speech is used by our Saxon ancestors to express death: [Anglo-Saxon], he went out of sight; and [A.S.], he went away; and [A.S.], to fare forth, to die. There are very few places in Isaiah where Jesus Christ is not intended; and I am inclined to think that He is intended here, THAT Just One; and perhaps Stephen had this place in view, when he thus charged the Jews, "Ye denied τονἁγιονκαιδικαιον, that HOLY and JUST One," Acts 3:14. That his death was not laid to heart by the wicked Jewish people, needs no proof. Merciful men] If the first refers to Christ, this may well refer to the apostles, and to others of the primitive Christians, who were taken away, some by death and martyrdom, and others by a providential escape from the city that they knew was devoted to destruction. The evil to come.] That destruction which was to come upon this disobedient people by the Romans.

Isaiah 57:1-2. The most alarming feature of the situation, though the least noticed, is the gradual removal of the righteous members of the community. Comp. Psalms 12:1. merciful men] lit., men of piety (cf. ch. Isaiah 55:7, Isaiah 28:14). none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come] The idea conveyed by this rendering is that the natural death of many good men was a divine intimation, little heeded by the community, that some great calamity was impending. The translation is perfectly admissible, and the thought is in accordance with the religious sentiment of the O.T. (cf. 2 Kings 22:20); yet it is doubtful if we are entitled to read so much into the prophet’s language. There is nothing to indicate that “the evil” is future, nor is it likely that the prophet has in view a future of terror for the righteous. The clause may be equally well rendered that (or for) the righteous is swept away before the evil; and this is probably all that is meant. The “evil” is the prevailing wickedness and oppression caused by the misgovernment described in Isaiah 56:10-12. The words “none considering” are parallel to “no man layeth it to heart,” and mean that the community takes no note of the fact that its best members are disappearing from its midst.

The righteous perisheth - This refers, as I suppose, to the time of Manasseh (see the Introduction, Section 3). Grotius supposes, that it refers to king Josiah; Vitringa, that it refers to martyrs in general.

1, 2. The righteous perisheth — Under ministrations above described. Moral starvation stares them in their faces. Honest seekers after truth come to disappointment.