Isaiah 57:1-2 The righteous perishes, and no man lays it to heart: and merciful men are taken away… Why is the young soldier stricken clown just; when the armour of life has been assayed? Wherefore hath God apparently thus made His noblest work in vain? The words of Isaiah give a twofold answer to these questions and mysteries; the one negative, the other positive. I. THE NEGATIVE ANSWER. "The righteous is taken away from the evil to come." It was so in the case of Josiah (2 Kings 22:18-20). II. THE POSITIVE EXPLANATION. "He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness; or rather, as it has been rendered, each one walking straight before him, or as Bishop Lowth translates it, "he that walketh in the straight oath." 1. Josiah, the good, the pious, when he died, "entered into peace." It is a beautiful Old Testament evidence of the immediate blessedness of the departed righteous. His body rested in the tomb, as in a "bed" or couch; his spirit — the spirit that walked so "uprightly on earth, with no divergence from the path of duty and piety — continues, in a loftier state of existence, this elevated "walk." The work cut short in this lower world is not arrested; it is only transferred. In a higher and loftier sphere he still pursues these active ministries of righteousness. There is an evident contrast between these opening words of the chapter and the terrible refrain with which it closes — "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked;" none in life, none in death, none in their limitless future. But "the righteous," thus taken away, "enter into peace." 2. Another thought, too, is brought out in the original which we miss in our translation, and which suggests the same assurance of immediate bliss. It occurs in the words just quoted — "The righteous is taken away," "Merciful men are taken away;" this in the Hebrew is, "The righteous, the merciful, are gathered" — gathered to their fathers. 3. One other thought on early death may be suggested by these words. While the spirit is pursuing its onward path of bliss and glory, it has not, in the truest sense, bid farewell to its earthly sphere. The lips are silenced, the music of the voice is hushed, the blank of the absent is too painfully realized. But "the righteous" survive dissolution even in this world; in their deathless memories of goodness and worth, they continue to "walk." The old promise dictated by the sweet singer of Israel (apparently paradoxical) becomes literally true, regarding those prematurely taken away — "With long life will I satisfy him, and show him My salvation." For what, after all, is long life? Is it measured and computed by formal arithmetic? counted by days, or weeks, or months, or years? No! the fourscore years of a misspent life is no life at all. It is a bankruptcy of being. It may be a life only sowing and perpetuating baneful influences; an untimely birth would be better. Whereas, that is the truest length of days, where, it may be for a brief but bright and consecrated season, some young life has shone gloriously for God, and which, though now a fallen meteor, has left a trail of light behind it, for which parent and brother and sister will for ever bless Him who gave the transient boon! (J. R. Macduff, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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