57
📚The righteous perishes,and no man takes it to heart;
and merciful men are taken away,
no one understanding that
the righteous is taken away
from evil.
2 📚He will enter into peace 📖.
They will rest 📖 in their beds,
each one having walked
in his uprightness.
57:1-2 God in mercy took away some of the righteous by death before a time of wrath and judgment. But the wicked who remained did not understand what was happening. They may even have thought that their death was God’s judgment on them.⚜
3 📚“But come here,
you sons of the sorceress 📖,
the offspring of the adulterer 📖
and the prostitute.
4 📚At whom do you mock 📖?
At whom do you make a wide mouth,
and stick out the tongue?
Are you not children
of transgression,
descendants of falsehood,
5 📚Inflaming yourselves with idols
under every green tree 📖,
slaying the children 📖 in the valleys,
under the clefts of the rocks?
6 📚Among the smooth stones
of the stream is your portion.
They, they are your lot.
To them you have poured out
a drink offering,
you have offered a grain offering.
Should I relent 📖 concerning
these things?
7 📚On a lofty and high mountain
you have made your bed 📖;
there you went up to offer sacrifice 📖.
8 📚Also behind the doors
and the door posts you have
set up your signs 📖.
Away from me you have uncovered
yourself, and have gone up;
you have made your bed wide,
and made a covenant with
those idols;
you loved 📖 their bed where you saw it.
9 📚And you went to the king 📖
with ointment,
and increased your perfumes,
and sent your messengers far away,
and debased yourself even
to hell 📖.
10 📚You were wearied by the length
of your road,
but you did not say,
‘There is no hope’.
You found your strength revived,
therefore you were not grieved.
57:10 They thought that foreign alliances had brought them strength. They were hopelessly wrong.⚜
11 📚And of whom have you been afraid
or feared,
that you have lied and have not
remembered me,
or taken it to your heart?
Is it because I have kept silent 📖
that you did not fear me 📖?
57:11 They feared foreign powers, and mere men (Isa 51:12-13).⚜
12 📚I will declare your righteousness 📖,
and your works;
but they will not profit you.
13 📚When you cry out,
let your collection of idols
deliver you!
But the wind will carry them all away.
A breath will take them away.
But the one who puts his trust in me
will possess the land 📖,
and will inherit my holy mountain.
57:13 Isa 44:17; Jud 10:13-14. This is the nature of man. He will do what he pleases without God, and when trouble comes cry to God for help.⚜
Comfort for the humble
14 📚And it will be said:
‘Raise it up, raise it up!
Prepare the way 📖!
Take away the stumbling block
from my people’s path.’
15 📚“For thus says the high and lofty 📖
One who inhabits eternity,
whose name is Holy 📖:
I dwell in the high and holy place,
and with him who is contrite 📖
and humble in spirit,
to revive 📖 the spirit of the humble,
and to revive the heart
of the contrite ones.
16 📚For I will not contend forever,
and I will not always be angry;
for the spirit would grow faint
before me,
and the souls which I have made.
57:16 He disputes with men now (Isa 3:13-14; Ps 50:21), and is angry with their sin – John 3:36; Rom 1:18; Eph 5:6; Rev 19:15. Notes on God’s anger at Num 25:3; Ps 90:7-11; Rom 1:18. He will not be angry with every single individual forever. If He were to be, no one could ever have strength to stand before Him (Isa 54:9; Ps 103:9-14; Jer 3:12).⚜
17 📚For the sin of his covetousness
I was angry,
and struck him. I hid myself,
and was angry, and he went on
turning back in the way of his heart.
18 📚I have seen his ways,
and will heal him.
I will also lead 📖 him, and restore comforts
to him 📖 and to his mourners.
19 📚I create the fruit of the lips:
Peace, peace to the one who is
far 📖 away,
and to the one who is near,
says the Lord; and I will heal him.
57:14-19 Again God speaks through the prophet about the future.⚜
57:17-19 These verses look forward to the future restoration of the nation Israel. The nation is viewed as an individual (“his”, “him”, “he”). Compare Isa 41:8-16; 42:19-22; 44:1-2; 48:4-11. In spite of experiencing God’s punishments the nation kept on its own sinful way. The root of Israel’s sin is referred to in v 17. In spite of Israel’s apostasy God says “I will heal him” (see also Deut 32:39; 2 Chron 7:14; Isa 30:26; 32:3-5; 35:5-10).⚜
20 📚But the wicked are like
the troubled sea,
when it cannot rest,
whose waters cast up mire and dirt”.
21 📚“There is no peace”,
says my God, “for the wicked”.