2 He enters into peace; they rest in their beds, each one who walks in his uprightness.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Peace shall come. The Prophet describes what shall be the condition of believers in death; for the wicked, who think that there is no life but the present, imagine that good men have perished; because in death they see nothing but ruin. For this reason he says that "Peace shall come," which is more desirable than a thousand lives full of trouble; as if he compared them to discharged soldiers, who are and allowed to enjoy case and quietness. They shall rest in their beds. He adds the metaphor of sleep, in order to show that they shall be absolutely free from all the uneasiness of cares, just as if they were safely pleasantly asleep "on their beds." Whosoever walketh before him. [1] I do not think that the verb "walketh" is connected with slvm, (shalom,) "peace," as some do, who suppose the meaning to be this, that peace shall go before believers, so as to be, as it were, the guide of their life. But I am of opinion that believers, on the contrary, are described by it; as if he had said, "Whosoever walketh before God shall enjoy peace." Thus, when righteous men die, and their various labors are finished, and their course is ended, they are called to peace and repose. They "rest in their beds," because they do not yet enjoy perfect blessedness and glory; but they wail; for the last day of the resurrection, when everything shall be perfectly restored; and that, I think, is what Isaiah meant. It will be said, "Do not righteous men enjoy this peace while they live?" for the fruit of faith is, that; "in patience we may possess our souls." (Luke 21:19) Although faith produces peace in our hearts, (Romans 5:3) yet we are tossed about by various storms and tempests; and never in life are we so calm and peaceful as when the Lord takes us to himself. Peaceful and calm, therefore, is the death of the righteous, (Psalm 116:15) for it is "precious in the sight of God;" but stormy is the death of the wicked. [2] Hence also we may learn that souls are immortal; for if souls had no feeling, (as some fanatics have dreamed,) they could not enjoy "peace." Thus they enjoy peace and repose, because they live in Christ.
1 - "Walking in his uprightness, or, before him." (Eng. Ver.) "The phrase denotes, One who walks straight before him,' so as to follow constantly the rule, not turning aside from it to the right hand or the left, and observing and keeping the straight line and road towards the end or mark which the Lord has held out to them, according to the example of the Apostle. (Philippians 3:14)" -- Vitringa.
2 - "Mais celle des meschans est effroyable." "But that of the wicked is frightful."
He shall enter into peace - Lowth, 'He shall go in peace.' So the margin. Vulgate, 'Peace shall come.' Septuagint, 'His sepulture (ἡ ταφὴ αὐτοῦ hē taphē autou) shall be in peace.' The idea is, that by his death the righteous man shall enter into rest. He shall get away from conflict, strife, agitation, and distress. This may either refer to the peaceful rest of the grave, or to that which awaits the just in a better world. The direct meaning here intended is probably the former, since the grave is often spoken of as a place of rest. Thus Job Job 3:17, speaking of the grave, says:
There the wicked cease from troubling; And there the weary be at rest.
The connection here seems also to demand the same sense, as it is immediately added, 'they shall rest in their beds.' The grave is a place of peace:
Nor pain, nor grief, nor anxious fear,
Invade thy bounds; no mortal woes
Can reach the peaceful sleeper here,
While angels watch the soft repose.
- Watts
At the same time it is true that the dying saint 'goes in peace!' He has calmness in his dying, as well as peace in his grave. He forgives all who have injured him; prays for all who have persecuted him; and peacefully and calmly dies. He lies in a peaceful grave - often represented in the Scriptures as a place of repose, where the righteous 'sleep' in the hope of being awakened in the morning of the resurrection. He enters into the rest of heaven - the world of perfect and eternal repose. No persecution comes there; no trial awaits him there; no calamity shall meet him there. Thus, in all respects, the righteous leave the world in peace; and thus death ceases to be a calamity, and this most dreaded of all evils is turned into the highest blessing.
They shall rest in their beds - That is, in their graves.
Each one walking in his uprightness - Margin, 'Before him.' The word נכח nakkoch means "straight, right," and is used of one who walks straight forward. It here means an upright man, who is often represented as walking in a straight path in opposition to sinners, who are represented as walking in crooked ways Psalm 125:5; Proverbs 2:15; Isaiah 59:8; Philippians 2:15. The sense here is, that all who are upright shall leave the world in peace, and rest quietly in their graves.
He shalt enter into peace "He shall go in peace" - יבוא שלום yabo shalom; the expression is elliptical, such as the prophet frequently uses. The same sense is expressed at large and in full terms, Genesis 15:15 : ואתה תבא אל אבותיך בשלום veattah libbo al abotheycha beshalom, "and thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace."
They shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness "He shall rest in his bed; even the perfect man" - This obscure sentence is reduced to a perfectly good sense, and easy construction by an ingenious remark of Dr. Durell. He reads ינוח על משכבו תם yanuach al mishcabo tam, "the perfect man shall rest in his bed." Two MSS. (one of them ancient) have ינוח yanuach, singular; and so the Vulgate renders it, requiescat, "he shall rest." The verb was probably altered to make it plural, and so consistent with what follows after the mistake had been made in the following words, by uniting משכבו mishcabo and תם tam into one word. See Merrick's Annotations on the Psalm, Addenda; where the reader will find that J. S. Moerlius, by the same sort of correction, and by rescuing the adjective תם tam, which had been swallowed up in another word in the same manner, has restored to a clear sense a passage before absolutely unintelligible: -
למו חרצבות אין כי lemo chartsubboth ein ki :אולם ובריא תם ulam ubari tham
"For no distresses happen to them;
Perfect and firm is their strength."
Psalm 73:4.
To follow on my application of this to our Lord: - He, the Just One, shall enter into peace - the peaceable, prosperous possession of the glorious mediatorial kingdom. They shall rest upon their beds - the hand of wrong and oppression can reach these persecuted followers of Christ no more. (But see below.) The perfect man walking in his uprightness. This may be considered as a general declaration. The separated spirit, though disunited from its body walking in conscious existence in the paradise of God, reaping the fruit of righteousness. The word which we render their beds, משכבותם mishkebotham, the learned bishop supposes to be two words; and to be compounded of משכבו mishkabo, his bed, and תם tam, the upright or perfect man. This is the reading both of the Syriac and Vulgate, and it is favored by the Chaldee: and one of De Rossi's MS. has משכבו mishkabo, his bed, without the word תם tam, which has been added by a later hand. Bishop Lowth, as we have seen, adopts this separation of the word and for ינוחו yanuchu, they shall rest, reads ינוה yanuach, he shall rest, which is supported by two of Dr. Kennicott's MSS., and by the Vulgate, Septuagint, and Arabic. The word תם tam, taken from משכבותם mishkebotham, should begin the latter clause of the verse; and then the interpolated words, each one, which our translators supplied, may be very well spared. The verse may be then read and paraphrased thus; -
He shall enter into peace: he shall rest upon his bed;
The perfect man walking in his uprightness.
The bed must signify the grave; the walking in uprightness after death, the conscious existence of the happy spirit, and its eternal progression in happiness and perfection: נכחו nechocho, straight before him; proceeding into the unlimited extent of eternal glory, increasing in happiness, and increasing in perfection.
My old MS. Bible translates very nervously: -
The rigtwise man perishith,
And there is not that bethinke in his herte.
And men of mercy ben gedrid,
For there is not that understonde:
From the face of malice,
Gedreid is the rigtwise.
Cumm pese: reste it in his bed
That geede in his rigt rewlinge.
It has been often remarked that, previously to the execution of God's judgments upon a wicked place, he has removed good men from it, that they might not suffer with the wicked. When great and good men are removed by death, or otherwise, from any place, the remaining inhabitants have much cause to tremble.
(b) He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, [each one] walking [in] his uprightness.
(b) The soul of the righteous will be in joy, and their body will rest in the grave to the time of the resurrection, because they walked before the Lord.
He shall enter into peace,.... Or "shall go in peace" (d); the righteous man goes in peace now; he has peace from his justifying righteousness; he has peace through believing in Christ; he has peace in, though not from, his obedience and holiness of life; and he has peace in the midst of the many trials he is exercised with; and he goes out of the world in peace, with great serenity and tranquillity of mind, as Simeon desired he might, having views of an interest in Christ, and in the glories of another world; and as soon as he is departed from hence he enters into peace, into a state where there is everything that makes for peace; there is the God of peace; there is Christ, the Prince of peace; there is the Spirit, whose fruit is peace; and there are the angels of peace, and good men, the sons of peace: and there is nothing there to disturb their peace, no sin within, nor Satan's temptations without, nor any wicked men to annoy and molest them; and there is everything that can come under the notion of peace and prosperity; for the happiness of this state is signified by riches, by glory and honour, by a kingdom, and by a paradise; and into this state the righteous may be said to enter immediately upon death, which is no other than stepping out of one world into another; and this they enter into as into a house, as it really is, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; and, entering into it, they take possession of it, and for ever enjoy it:
they shall rest in their beds, their souls in the bosom of Abraham, in the arms of Jesus; their bodies in the grave, which is a bed unto them, where they lie down and sleep, till they are awaked at the resurrection; and where they rest from all toil and labour, from all diseases and distempers, pains and tortures, and from all persecuting enemies; see Revelation 14:13,
each one walking in his uprightness; in the righteousness of Christ, and in the shining robes of immortality and glory, and in perfect purity and holiness: or, "before him" (e); before God, in the sight or presence of him, and by sight, and not by faith, as now. Though this is by some considered as the character of the righteous man in life, so Aben Ezra; and then the sense is, that he that walks in his uprightness, in the uprightness or righteousness of Christ, and by faith on him; that walks uprightly in his life and conversation before God, and "before himself"; following the rule before him, and walking according to the rule of the Gospel, and in the ordinances of it blameless, when he comes to die, he enters into peace and rest. And to this sense is the Targum, which paraphrases it,
"that are doers of his law;''
see Romans 2:13. In the Talmud (f) it is interpreted of that peace and happiness righteous men enter into when they die.
(d) "ibit in pace", Gataker. (e) "coram eo", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus, Calvin; "ante se", Cocceius, Vitringa. (f) T. Bab. Cetubot, fol. 104. 1.
Or, "he entereth into peace"; in contrast to the persecutions which he suffered in this world (Job 3:13, Job 3:17). The Margin not so well translates, "he shall go in peace" (Psalm 37:37; Luke 2:29).
rest--the calm rest of their bodies in their graves (called "beds," 2-Chronicles 16:14; compare Isaiah 14:18; because they "sleep" in them, with the certainty of awakening at the resurrection, 1-Thessalonians 4:14) is the emblem of the eternal "rest" (Hebrews 4:9; Revelation 14:13).
each one walking in . . . uprightness--This clause defines the character of those who at death "rest in their beds," namely, all who walk uprightly.
He - This just and merciful man shall enter into a state of rest, where he shall be out of the reach of the approaching miseries. They - just men. Here is a sudden change of the number, which is very frequent in the prophets. Beds - In their graves, which are not unfitly called their beds, as their death is commonly called sleep in scripture.
*More commentary available at chapter level.