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Isaiah 57:1 | Adam Clarke
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 57:1
Source Coverage: 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: he went out of sight; and he went away; and 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," Act 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.
Source Coverage: Isaiah 57:1
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. (Isa. 57:1-21)
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; Isa 57:13). So Ahijah's death is represented as a blessing conferred on him by God for his piety (Kg1 14:10-13; see also Kg2 22:20).
Source Coverage: 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 he cannot perish everlastingly, because he is one that believes in Christ, and is justified by his righteousness, from whence he is denominated righteous; and such shall never perish, but have everlasting life: but the meaning is, that he perisheth as to his outward man, or dies corporeally, which is called perishing, Ecclesiastes 7:15 and so the Targum renders it,
"the righteous die.''
Or it may be rendered, "the righteous man is lost" (b); not to himself, his death is a gain to him; but to the church, and to the world, which yet is not considered:
and no man layeth it to heart; takes any notice of it, thinks at all about it, far from being concerned or grieved; instead of that, rather rejoice, and are pleased that they are rid of such persons; which will be the case when the witnesses are slain, Revelation 11:10. The Targum is,
"and no man lays my fear to heart;''
or on his heart; whereas such providences should lead men to fear the Lord, and seek to him, and serve him, as it did David, Psalm 12:1,
and merciful men are taken away; or "gathered" (c); out of the world, to their own people, to heaven; these are such who obtain mercy of the Lord, and show mercy to others, holy good men: the former character may respect the righteousness of Christ imputed to them, this his grace implanted in them, discovered by acts of mercy and goodness; for one and the same persons are intended:
none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come; that there are evil times coming, great calamities, and sore judgments upon men; and therefore these righteous ones are gathered out of the world, and are gathered home, and safely housed in heaven, that they may escape the evil coming upon a wicked generation; and who yet have no thought about it, nor are they led to observe it as they might, from the removal of good men out of the world; see 2 Kings 22:20. All this may be applied to the martyrs of Jesus in times of Popish persecution; or to the removal of good men by an ordinary death before those times came.
(b) , Sept. (c) "colliguntur", V. L. Munster, Piscator, Cocceius; "congregantur", Pagninus.
Source Coverage: Isaiah 57:1-2
Whilst watchmen and shepherds, prophets and rulers, without troubling themselves about the flock which they have to watch and feed, are thus indulging their own selfish desires, and living in debauchery, the righteous man is saved by early death from the judgment, which cannot fail to come with such corruption as this. "The righteous perisheth, and no man taketh it to heart; and pious men are swept away, without any one considering that the righteous is swept away from misfortune. He entereth into peace: they rest upon their beds, whoever has walked straight before him." With "the righteous" the prophet introduces, in glaring contrast to this luxurious living on the part of the leading men of the nation, the standing figure used to denote the fate of its best men. With this prevailing demoralization and worldliness, the righteous succumbs to the violence of both external and internal sufferings. אבד, he dies before his time (Ecc 7:15); from the midst of the men of his generation he is carried away from this world (Psa 12:2; Mic 7:2), and no one lays it to heart, viz., the divine accusation and threat involved in this early death. Men of piety (chesed, the love of God and man) are swept away, without there being any one to understand or consider that (kı̄ unfolds the object to be considered and laid to heart, viz., what is involved in this carrying away when regarded as a providential event) the righteous is swept away "from the evil," i.e., that he may be saved from the approaching punishment (compare Kg2 22:20). For the prevailing corruption calls for punishment from God; and what is first of all to be expected is severe judgment, through which the coming salvation will force its way. In Isa 57:2 it is intimated that the righteous man and the pious do not lose the blessings of this salvation because they lose this life: for whereas, according to the prophet's watchword, there is no peace to the wicked, it is true, on the other hand, of the departing righteous man, that "he enters into peace" (shâlōm, acc. loci s. status; Ges. 118, 1); "they rest upon their beds," viz., the bottom of the grave, which has become their mishkâb (Job 17:13; Job 21:26), "however has walked in that which lay straight before him," i.e., the one straight plain path which he had set before him (נכחו acc. obj. as in Isa 33:15; Isa 50:10, Ewald, 172, b, from נכח, that which lies straight before a person; whereas נכח with נכח נכחו, signifying probably fixedness, steadiness of look, related to Arab. nkḥ, to pierce, נכה, percutere, is used as a preposition: compare Pro 4:25, לנכח, straight or exactly before him). The grave, when compared with the restlessness of this life, is therefore "peace." He who has died in faith rests in God, to whom he has committed himself and entrusted his future. We have here the glimmering light of the New Testament consolation, that the death of the righteous is better than life in this world, because it is the entrance into peace.
Source Coverage: Isaiah 57:1-2
The prophet, in the close of the foregoing chapter, had condemned the watchmen for their ignorance and sottishness; here he shows the general stupidity and senselessness of the people likewise. No wonder they were inconsiderate when their watchmen were so, who should have awakened them to consideration. We may observe here,
I. The providence of God removing good men apace out of this world. The righteous, as to this world, perish; they are gone and their place knows them no more. Piety exempts none from the arrests of death, nay, in persecuting times, the most righteous are most exposed to the violences of bloody men. The first that died died a martyr. Righteousness delivers from the sting of death, but not from the stroke of it. They are said to perish because they are utterly removed from us, and to express the great loss which this world sustains by the removal of them, not that their death is their undoing, but it often proves an undoing to the places where they lived and were useful. Nay, even merciful men are taken away, those good men that are distinguished from the righteous, for whom some would even dare to die, Rom 5:7. Those are often removed that could be worst spared; the fruitful trees are cut down by death and the barren left still to cumber the ground. Merciful men are often taken away by the hands of men's malice. Many good works they have done, and for some of them they are stoned. Before the captivity in Babylon perhaps there was a more than ordinary mortality of good men, so that there were scarcely any left, Jer 5:1. The godly ceased, and the faithful failed, Psa 12:1.
II. The careless world slighting these providences, and disregarding them: No man lays it to heart, none considers it. There are very few that lament it as a public loss, very few that take notice of it as a public warning. The death of good men is a thing to be laid to heart and considered more than common deaths. Serious enquiries ought to be made, wherefore God contends with us, what good lessons are to be learned by such providences, what we may do to help to make up the breach and to fill up the room of those that are removed. God is justly displeased when such events are not laid to heart, when the voice of the rod is not heard nor the intentions of it answered, much more when it is rejoiced in, as the slaying of the witnesses is, Rev 11:10. Some of God's choicest blessings to mankind, being thus easily parted with, are really undervalued; and it is an evidence of very great incogitancy. Little children, when they are little, least lament the death of their parents, because they know not what a loss it is to them.
III. The happiness of the righteous in their removal.
1. They are taken away from the evil to come, then when it is just coming, (1.) In compassion to them, that they may not see the evil (Kg2 22:20), nor share in it, nor be in temptation by it. When the deluge is coming they are called into the ark, and have a hiding-place and rest in heaven when there was none for them under heaven. (2.) In wrath to the world, to punish them for all the injuries they have done to the righteous and merciful ones; those are taken away that stood in the gap to turn away the judgments of God, and then what can be expected but a deluge of them? It is a sign that God intends war when he calls home his ambassadors.
2. They go to be easy out of the reach of that evil. The righteous man, who while he lived walked in his uprightness, when he dies enters into peace and rests in his bed. Note, (1.) Death is gain, and rest, and bliss, to those only who walked in their uprightness, and who, when they die, can appeal to God concerning it, as Hezekiah (Kg2 20:3). Now, Lord, remember it. (2.) Those that practised uprightness, and persevered in it to the end, shall find it well with them when they die. Their souls then enter into peace, into the world of peace, where peace is in perfection and where there is no trouble. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord. Their bodies rest in their beds. Note, The grave is a bed of rest to all the Lord's people; there they rest from all their labours, Rev 14:13. And the more weary they were the more welcome will that rest be to them, Job 3:17. This bed is made in the darkness, but that makes it the more quiet; it is a bed out of which they shall rise refreshed in the morning of the resurrection.
Source Coverage: Isaiah 57:1
57:1-2 This is a lament for the righteous who suffer in a wicked society.
57:1 the evil to come: Judgment that would come on the wicked nations. • protecting them: At times, God allows the godly to die in order to protect them from harsher times to come.
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Study
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: he went out of sight; and he went away; and 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," Act 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.
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. (Isa. 57:1-21)
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; Isa 57:13). So Ahijah's death is represented as a blessing conferred on him by God for his piety (Kg1 14:10-13; see also Kg2 22:20).
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 he cannot perish everlastingly, because he is one that believes in Christ, and is justified by his righteousness, from whence he is denominated righteous; and such shall never perish, but have everlasting life: but the meaning is, that he perisheth as to his outward man, or dies corporeally, which is called perishing, Ecclesiastes 7:15 and so the Targum renders it,
"the righteous die.''
Or it may be rendered, "the righteous man is lost" (b); not to himself, his death is a gain to him; but to the church, and to the world, which yet is not considered:
and no man layeth it to heart; takes any notice of it, thinks at all about it, far from being concerned or grieved; instead of that, rather rejoice, and are pleased that they are rid of such persons; which will be the case when the witnesses are slain, Revelation 11:10. The Targum is,
"and no man lays my fear to heart;''
or on his heart; whereas such providences should lead men to fear the Lord, and seek to him, and serve him, as it did David, Psalm 12:1,
and merciful men are taken away; or "gathered" (c); out of the world, to their own people, to heaven; these are such who obtain mercy of the Lord, and show mercy to others, holy good men: the former character may respect the righteousness of Christ imputed to them, this his grace implanted in them, discovered by acts of mercy and goodness; for one and the same persons are intended:
none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come; that there are evil times coming, great calamities, and sore judgments upon men; and therefore these righteous ones are gathered out of the world, and are gathered home, and safely housed in heaven, that they may escape the evil coming upon a wicked generation; and who yet have no thought about it, nor are they led to observe it as they might, from the removal of good men out of the world; see 2 Kings 22:20. All this may be applied to the martyrs of Jesus in times of Popish persecution; or to the removal of good men by an ordinary death before those times came.
(b) , Sept. (c) "colliguntur", V. L. Munster, Piscator, Cocceius; "congregantur", Pagninus.
Whilst watchmen and shepherds, prophets and rulers, without troubling themselves about the flock which they have to watch and feed, are thus indulging their own selfish desires, and living in debauchery, the righteous man is saved by early death from the judgment, which cannot fail to come with such corruption as this. "The righteous perisheth, and no man taketh it to heart; and pious men are swept away, without any one considering that the righteous is swept away from misfortune. He entereth into peace: they rest upon their beds, whoever has walked straight before him." With "the righteous" the prophet introduces, in glaring contrast to this luxurious living on the part of the leading men of the nation, the standing figure used to denote the fate of its best men. With this prevailing demoralization and worldliness, the righteous succumbs to the violence of both external and internal sufferings. אבד, he dies before his time (Ecc 7:15); from the midst of the men of his generation he is carried away from this world (Psa 12:2; Mic 7:2), and no one lays it to heart, viz., the divine accusation and threat involved in this early death. Men of piety (chesed, the love of God and man) are swept away, without there being any one to understand or consider that (kı̄ unfolds the object to be considered and laid to heart, viz., what is involved in this carrying away when regarded as a providential event) the righteous is swept away "from the evil," i.e., that he may be saved from the approaching punishment (compare Kg2 22:20). For the prevailing corruption calls for punishment from God; and what is first of all to be expected is severe judgment, through which the coming salvation will force its way. In Isa 57:2 it is intimated that the righteous man and the pious do not lose the blessings of this salvation because they lose this life: for whereas, according to the prophet's watchword, there is no peace to the wicked, it is true, on the other hand, of the departing righteous man, that "he enters into peace" (shâlōm, acc. loci s. status; Ges. 118, 1); "they rest upon their beds," viz., the bottom of the grave, which has become their mishkâb (Job 17:13; Job 21:26), "however has walked in that which lay straight before him," i.e., the one straight plain path which he had set before him (נכחו acc. obj. as in Isa 33:15; Isa 50:10, Ewald, 172, b, from נכח, that which lies straight before a person; whereas נכח with נכח נכחו, signifying probably fixedness, steadiness of look, related to Arab. nkḥ, to pierce, נכה, percutere, is used as a preposition: compare Pro 4:25, לנכח, straight or exactly before him). The grave, when compared with the restlessness of this life, is therefore "peace." He who has died in faith rests in God, to whom he has committed himself and entrusted his future. We have here the glimmering light of the New Testament consolation, that the death of the righteous is better than life in this world, because it is the entrance into peace.
The prophet, in the close of the foregoing chapter, had condemned the watchmen for their ignorance and sottishness; here he shows the general stupidity and senselessness of the people likewise. No wonder they were inconsiderate when their watchmen were so, who should have awakened them to consideration. We may observe here,
I. The providence of God removing good men apace out of this world. The righteous, as to this world, perish; they are gone and their place knows them no more. Piety exempts none from the arrests of death, nay, in persecuting times, the most righteous are most exposed to the violences of bloody men. The first that died died a martyr. Righteousness delivers from the sting of death, but not from the stroke of it. They are said to perish because they are utterly removed from us, and to express the great loss which this world sustains by the removal of them, not that their death is their undoing, but it often proves an undoing to the places where they lived and were useful. Nay, even merciful men are taken away, those good men that are distinguished from the righteous, for whom some would even dare to die, Rom 5:7. Those are often removed that could be worst spared; the fruitful trees are cut down by death and the barren left still to cumber the ground. Merciful men are often taken away by the hands of men's malice. Many good works they have done, and for some of them they are stoned. Before the captivity in Babylon perhaps there was a more than ordinary mortality of good men, so that there were scarcely any left, Jer 5:1. The godly ceased, and the faithful failed, Psa 12:1.
II. The careless world slighting these providences, and disregarding them: No man lays it to heart, none considers it. There are very few that lament it as a public loss, very few that take notice of it as a public warning. The death of good men is a thing to be laid to heart and considered more than common deaths. Serious enquiries ought to be made, wherefore God contends with us, what good lessons are to be learned by such providences, what we may do to help to make up the breach and to fill up the room of those that are removed. God is justly displeased when such events are not laid to heart, when the voice of the rod is not heard nor the intentions of it answered, much more when it is rejoiced in, as the slaying of the witnesses is, Rev 11:10. Some of God's choicest blessings to mankind, being thus easily parted with, are really undervalued; and it is an evidence of very great incogitancy. Little children, when they are little, least lament the death of their parents, because they know not what a loss it is to them.
III. The happiness of the righteous in their removal.
1. They are taken away from the evil to come, then when it is just coming, (1.) In compassion to them, that they may not see the evil (Kg2 22:20), nor share in it, nor be in temptation by it. When the deluge is coming they are called into the ark, and have a hiding-place and rest in heaven when there was none for them under heaven. (2.) In wrath to the world, to punish them for all the injuries they have done to the righteous and merciful ones; those are taken away that stood in the gap to turn away the judgments of God, and then what can be expected but a deluge of them? It is a sign that God intends war when he calls home his ambassadors.
2. They go to be easy out of the reach of that evil. The righteous man, who while he lived walked in his uprightness, when he dies enters into peace and rests in his bed. Note, (1.) Death is gain, and rest, and bliss, to those only who walked in their uprightness, and who, when they die, can appeal to God concerning it, as Hezekiah (Kg2 20:3). Now, Lord, remember it. (2.) Those that practised uprightness, and persevered in it to the end, shall find it well with them when they die. Their souls then enter into peace, into the world of peace, where peace is in perfection and where there is no trouble. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord. Their bodies rest in their beds. Note, The grave is a bed of rest to all the Lord's people; there they rest from all their labours, Rev 14:13. And the more weary they were the more welcome will that rest be to them, Job 3:17. This bed is made in the darkness, but that makes it the more quiet; it is a bed out of which they shall rise refreshed in the morning of the resurrection.
57:1-2 This is a lament for the righteous who suffer in a wicked society.
57:1 the evil to come: Judgment that would come on the wicked nations. • protecting them: At times, God allows the godly to die in order to protect them from harsher times to come.
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