Isaiah 57
v.1
The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.
v.10
You were wearied by all your ways, but you would not say, ‘It is hopeless.’ You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint.
The Chaldee renders it, ‘Thou hast amassed wealth, therefore thou didst not repent.’ ‘They had relied on their own plans rather than on God; they had sought the aid of foreign powers; they had obtained that which kept them from absolute despair, and from feeling their need of the assistance of God. Or, if it refers to their idol-worship, as Vitringa supposes, then it means that, not withstanding all the trouble, toil, and expense which they had experienced, they had found so much to gratify them that they continued to serve them, and were unwilling to return to God.
v.11
“Whom have you so dreaded and feared that you have been false to me, and have neither remembered me nor pondered this in your hearts? Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me?”
The idea here seems to be, that God had been silent a long time, and they had, therefore, been emboldened to sin. He had, as it were, connived at their apostasy and infidelity; and they had thus cast off the fear of him, and given themselves wholly to idolatry. Compare Ecclesiastes 8:11.
v.13
When you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you! The wind will carry them off, a mere breath will blow them away. But the man who makes me his refuge will inherit the land and possess my holy mountain”
v.15
For this is what the lofty One says - he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.
The word ‘contrite’ (דכא dakkâ’) means properly that which is broken, crushed, beaten small, trodden down. Here it denotes a soul that is borne down with a sense of sin and unworthiness; a heart that is, as it were, crushed under a superincumbent weight of guilt.
Similar to Psalm 51:17.
v.17-18
I was enraged by his sinful greed; I punished him, and hid my face in anger, yet he kept on in his sinful greed; I punished him, and hid my face in anger, yet he kept on in his willful ways. 18I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him,
God, you are merciful.
v.21
“There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”