Isaiah57chapter 57

Isaiah 57:1-2

The righteous perisheth: The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart states a plain fact without any explanation offered for it, and the explanation the chapter itself supplies waits until its final line, that there is no peace to the wicked. Merciful men are taken away, and the reason given is mercy rather than punishment: he shall enter into peace, taken from the evil to come, a death that removes a good man before a coming judgment reaches him. Henry reads this verse as answering the standing complaint that the righteous die young and the wicked prosper long, the death itself read as a rescue rather than a loss. Clarke notes the phrase they shall rest in their beds as the Old Testament's own vocabulary of the grave as a resting place, short of full resurrection hope but pointed toward it.

Isaiah 57:3-5

sons of the sorceress: The address turns sharply: draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore. Henry reads the language as covenant infidelity rather than a judgment on birth or blood, Israel herself cast as the sorceress and the adulterous wife who broke a marriage covenant with other gods. Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree and slaying the children in the valleys names child sacrifice directly, and Gill identifies the site as the valley of Hinnom, the Molech rites 2 Kings 16:3 records under Ahaz. The sport made against whom is left for the reader to answer with the same nation already named in verse 1, the righteous perishing while it played.

Isaiah 57:6-10

the smooth stones of the stream: Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy portion names river-worn stones set up as household gods, a portion chosen in place of the Lord who is Israel's true portion elsewhere in Scripture, and to them a drink offering and a meat offering are poured out. Verse 7's lofty and high mountain and enlarged bed carry the same adultery figure forward into the language of an open affair, the bed itself set up where any passerby could see it, the remembrance behind the doors and the posts marking a household given to a rival. Delitzsch reads verses 9 and 10 as the political extension of the same unfaithfulness, the king courted with ointment and messengers sent far off, an alliance-seeking read against the Assyrian and Egyptian embassies of Isaiah's own day. Wearied in the greatness of thy way, yet never saying there is no hope, closes the unit with a nation too invested in its own effort to admit the effort had failed.

Isaiah 57:11-13

hast thou been afraid or feared: Of whom hast thou been afraid or feared puts the real diagnosis on the table: not ignorance of the Lord but a fear of anyone else strong enough to override the fear that should have kept Israel faithful, a fear that produced lying and forgetting rather than trust. I will declare thy righteousness, and thy works, for they shall not profit thee, verse 12, turns Israel's own claimed righteousness against her, the works of verses 6 through 9 named as the exact record that convicts rather than excuses. Verse 13 answers the trust misplaced in idols with an offer: when thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee, but the wind shall carry them all away, set against he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain. Barnes reads the contrast as the chapter's turn, the indictment of verses 3 through 12 answered by an invitation rather than only a sentence.

Isaiah 57:14

Cast ye up, cast ye up: Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way answers verse 13's promise with the vocabulary of chapter 40's highway, the same command given there to level a road repeated here to clear a stumblingblock out of the way of my people. Henry connects the verse forward to 62:10's nearly identical charge, reading the repeated highway language as the book's own recurring figure for the removal of every obstacle between the people and their return. Gill notes the stumblingblock named specifically, not merely difficulty in general, and reads it as the idolatry just catalogued, the very thing that must be cleared before the road can be walked.

Isaiah 57:15-16

the high and lofty One: The high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy answers the chapter's whole argument with a single title: the same God too vast for the sorcery and idols of verses 3 through 13 to reach chooses, in the same breath, to dwell also with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit. Delitzsch reads the verse as Isaiah's clearest statement of the paradox that governs the whole book, transcendence and nearness held in one sentence with no contradiction felt between them, the Holy One of Israel language born in chapter 6 now given its fullest expression. To revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones names the purpose of the nearness, not mere proximity but restoration, the same verb used of Israel's own reviving elsewhere in the prophets. Verse 16 grounds the mercy in creation itself, the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made, the Lord's own workmanship named as the reason his anger will not contend for ever.

Isaiah 57:17-18

the iniquity of his covetousness: The iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth names the specific sin behind the hiding of God's face, covetousness rather than the idolatry catalogued earlier taking the blame for the estrangement, and the chastening did not correct it: he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. Verse 18 turns without transition, I have seen his ways, and will heal him, the same froward walking answered not with further smiting but with healing, leading, and restored comfort to him and to his mourners. Wesley reads the shift as grace overtaking a discipline that had already failed to produce repentance on its own, healing given rather than earned. Barnes notes the mourners named specifically, the healing reaching beyond the sinner himself to those who grieved over him.

Isaiah 57:19-21

I create the fruit of the lips: I create the fruit of the lips gives the healing of verse 18 its content, praise created in a mouth that had none, and the fruit itself is named: Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near. The chapter's opening and closing now meet, the righteous man of verse 1 who entered into peace matched here by a peace offered to near and far alike, which the older commentators read toward Ephesians 2:17's peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh, named as a connection rather than pressed as a quotation. Verse 20 answers the offer with its opposite, the wicked like the troubled sea that cannot rest, its waters casting up mire and dirt of their own motion, restless by nature rather than by circumstance. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked closes the chapter exactly where it began, the peace withheld from the wicked the same peace verse 1 said the righteous had already entered.