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From: Wisdom 3:1-9

The death of the righteous

[1] But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
[2] In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be an affliction.
[3] and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace.
[4] For though in the sight of men they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality.
[5] Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;
[6] like gold in the furnace he tried them,
and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them.
[7] In the time of their visitation they will shine forth,
and will run like sparks through the stubble.
[8] They will govern nations and rule over peoples,
and the Lord will reign over them for ever.
[9] Those who trust in him will understand truth,
and the faithful will abide with him in love,
because grace and mercy are upon his elect,
and he watches over his holy ones.

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Commentary:

3:1-4:20. This passage describes at some length the contrasting situations of
the righteous and the ungodly in this life, in death, and beyond the grave. The
author has consoling things to say to the righteous as regards afflictions; they
have every reason to hope. But evildoers he describes as foolish; theirs is a fun-
damental error which will cause them grief now; any suffering they experience
will do them no good; their death is grievous and so is what lies beyond it: “Two
possibilities are laid open to us at the same time: life and death – and each per-
son will come to the end that befits him. Life and death are like type types of
coin, one belongs to God and the other to this world, each with its own hallmark:
unbelievers deal in the currency of this world, and those who have remained faith-
ful through love carry the coin of God the Father, which is marked with Jesus
Christ. If we are not ready to die for him or to imitate his passion, we will not
have his life within us” (St Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Magnesios, 5, 2).

3:1-9. These very poetic lines convey very well the notion of the reward that
awaits the just in the after-life, but they are not very specific about it. The author
uses expressions that correspond to the time in history and Revelation in which
he lives, but they do enable us to get an idea of the state of the blessed: “The
souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, and no torment will ever touch
them” (v. 1); the righteous dead are “at peace” (v. 3), that is, in the sphere proper
to God; they can be sure of immortality, athanasia (v. 4). They will abide in the
Kingdom of God forever and share in God’s power to judge and rule (v. 8; cf. Mt
19:28) – a pointer to their power of intercession. One could say that the most en-
couraging line of all is, “the faithful will abide with him in love” (v. 9). Still to come
is the explicit New Testament revelation which tells us that the blessed “shall
see God as he is” (1 Jn 3:2), not as in a (dull) mirror but “face to face”; they will
know him as he knows them (cf. 1 Cor 13:12) and they will be with Christ forever
in heaven (cf. 1 Thess 4:17).

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.