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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 au-
thor 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 fundamen-
tal 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 possibi-
lities are laid open to us at the same time: life and death – and each person will
come to the end that befits him. Life and death are like two types of coin, one be-
longs 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 faithful 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 ex-
pressions 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 encouraging 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.