Komentaryo sa Isaias 57:19: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Rashi & Ibn Ezra

“Heartening, comforting words” [57:19]. The Holy One said: I do not desire sacrifices or much mortification of the body, but the words of the mouth and recognition of the transgression that he did before Me. This is the meaning of “heartening, comforting words” [57:19]. I have created speech of the mouth, therefore speak to Me. The transgressions that are between a person and his friend, when he is angry with his friend, Yom Kippur does not help with this. He must make peace with him. Therefore it says here, “peace, peace to the distant and the near” [57:19]. That is to say, you should make peace with and ask forgiveness of strangers and those close to you.

Our sages learn from the verse that the penitents have a better place in the Garden of Eden than the righteous. Therefore, the verse first says, “to the distant.” This means, the evildoer who was far from the Holy One because of his evil deeds and has repented, the Holy One forgives him first.⁴Yalkut Shimoni, Isaiah, Remez, 488.

What happens with the evildoer who sins and has arrogance in his heart? He forgets the Holy One, as the verse says, “your heart grow haughty and you forget” [Deuteronomy, 8:14]. This means, the haughty heart causes you to forget God. Therefore, it says here, “but the wicked are like the troubled sea” [57:20]. That is to say, the waves of the sea; one is greater than the other one. One wave sees the other wave crash against the barrier and it disappears. Immediately, other waves come and make themselves high, even though they too will disappear. The evildoers are also like this. They say that they will do all evil, even though they will go to Gehenna.⁵Rashi, Isaiah, 57:20.

[I] create the speech of the lips I create for him a new manner of speech. In contrast to the trouble that befell him, and everyone was degrading him, they will call, “Peace, peace.”

to the far and to the near Both are equal; he who aged and was accustomed to My Torah and My worship from his youth, and he who drew near now, just recently to repent of his evil way. Said the Lord, “I will heal him of his malady and of his sins.”