Isaiah 57:1

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 Isaiah 57:1. 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 τον ἁγιον και δικαιον, 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.