Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 57-59.
In today’s passage Isaiah addresses a complaint often lodged against God when someone dies young, “But he (or she) was such a good person, why did he (or she) die so young?” Of course, the answer does not just apply to those who die young, it applies to anyone who dies “before their time.” God sometimes takes the devout and the righteous sooner than we would wish in order to spare them evil. Isaiah goes on to show the conceit and arrogance of those who condemn God when someone who was truly good dies young (as opposed to those who merely cry out in grief). God seeks those who are contrite and humble, not those who arrogantly parrot how righteous they are.
Many put on a false front, Isaiah uses the example of fasting here. but there are many ways that people proclaim how they seek to do what is right while in secret (and sometimes not even all that secret) doing what they please at the expense of those less able. God desires that we share our food with the hungry, provide shelter to without, clothe the naked, and aid our relatives.
The Lord looked and was displeased
that there was no justice.
16 He saw that there was no one,
he was appalled that there was no one to intervene;
so his own arm achieved salvation for him,
and his own righteousness sustained him.
17 He put on righteousness as his breastplate,
and the helmet of salvation on his head;
he put on the garments of vengeance
and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak.
18 According to what they have done,
so will he repay
wrath to his enemies
and retribution to his foes;
he will repay the islands their due.
19 From the west, people will fear the name of the Lord,
and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory.
For he will come like a pent-up flood
that the breath of the Lord drives along.[d]
20 “The Redeemer will come to Zion,
to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,”
declares the Lord.
I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.