Isaiah 57:1 - Meaning and Application

At the end of the previous chapter, the prophet had already condemned the watchmen for their ignorance and foolishness. Here he shows that the people as a whole were just as dull and careless. It is no surprise that they were thoughtless when their watchmen, who should have stirred them to think, were themselves so blind.

We can notice, first, the providence of God in taking good people out of this world in great numbers. The righteous perish in relation to this life, they are gone, and the world where they lived knows them no more. True godliness does not keep anyone from death. In times of persecution, the most righteous are often the ones most exposed to violent people. The first man who died died as a martyr. Righteousness delivers from the sting of death, but not from death’s blow.

They are said to perish because they are completely removed from us, and because their loss is so great to the world that remains. Their death is not their ruin, but it often becomes a ruin for the places where they lived and served. Even merciful people are taken away, those good people set apart by kindness, the kind of people for whom someone might even dare to die (Romans 5:7). Often the people who can be least spared are the ones removed first. Death cuts down the fruitful trees and leaves the barren ones standing to crowd the ground. Merciful people are often taken away by human cruelty. They have done many good works, and some are repaid with stones. Before the Babylonian captivity, there may have been an unusual number of deaths among good people, so that hardly any were left (Jeremiah 5:1). The godly disappeared, and the faithful vanished (Psalm 12:1).

Second, the careless world pays little attention to these providences and ignores them. No one lays it to heart, and no one considers it. Very few grieve over it as a public loss, and very few see it as a public warning. The death of good people should be taken to heart and thought about more deeply than ordinary deaths. We should seriously ask why God is dealing with us this way, what lessons we should learn, and how we can help fill the gap left by those who are gone. God is rightly displeased when such events are not taken to heart, when the message of the rod is not heard, and its purpose is not answered. It is even worse when people rejoice in it, as when the witnesses are killed (Revelation 11:10). Some of God’s choicest gifts to humanity are so easily lost that people prove they never valued them. That shows great thoughtlessness. Little children, while still little, grieve least for their parents’ death, because they do not yet know what they have lost.

Third, we see the happiness of the righteous when they are taken away. They are removed from the evil that is coming, just when it is about to arrive. This is done, first, in mercy toward them, so they may not see the evil (2 Kings 22:20), share in it, or be tempted by it. When the flood is coming, they are called into the ark. When there is no hiding place under heaven, they have one in heaven. Second, it is also an act of judgment on the world, as punishment for the wrongs done to the righteous and merciful. Those who stood in the gap to turn away God’s judgments are taken away, and then a flood of judgment may be expected. It is a sign that God intends war when he calls his ambassadors home.

They also go into rest, beyond the reach of that evil. The righteous person, who walked in integrity while alive, enters into peace when he dies and rests in his bed. Death is gain, rest, and blessing only for those who walked uprightly and who can, like Hezekiah, appeal to God on that ground (2 Kings 20:3). Those who practiced upright living and continued in it to the end will find it well with them when they die. Their souls enter into peace, into the world where peace is complete and trouble is gone. They enter into the joy of the Lord. Their bodies rest in their beds.

The grave is a bed of rest for all the Lord’s people. There they rest from all their labor (Revelation 14:13). The more worn out they were, the sweeter that rest will be to them (Job 3:17). The bed is made in darkness, but that makes it quieter. It is a bed from which they will rise refreshed in the morning of the resurrection.