Isaiah 28:18

Hebrew Bible

17 I will make justice the measuring line, fairness the plumb line; hail will sweep away the unreliable refuge, the floodwaters will overwhelm the hiding place. 18 Your treaty with death will be dissolved; your agreement with Sheol will not last. When the overwhelming judgment sweeps by, you will be overrun by it. 19 Whenever it sweeps by, it will overtake you; indeed, every morning it will sweep by, it will come through during the day and the night.” When this announcement is understood, it will cause nothing but terror. 20 For the bed is too short to stretch out on, and the blanket is too narrow to wrap around oneself.

Wisdom of Solomon 1:16

Deuterocanon

14 For he created all things so that they might exist; the generative forces of the world are wholesome, and there is no destructive poison in them, and the dominion of Hades is not on earth. 15 For righteousness is immortal. 16 But the ungodly by their words and deeds summoned death; considering him a friend, they pined away and made a covenant with him, because they are fit to belong to his company.

 Notes and References

"... The righteous-wicked contrast (the “two worlds”) is dramatized as an encounter between two groups about their beliefs and plans (2:1-9). How will the gang deal with a righteous individual who believes in the very things they reject (Wisdom of Solomon 1:10-16)? They decide to test which way of life is valid, theirs or that of the righteous individual who boasts God is his father who will deliver his “son” from foes (1:17-18). They decide to kill him to see if God will do anything (verse 20). The answer will come in Wisdom 5. Wisdom of Solomon 2 is framed by two verses (1:16 and 2:24) that highlight the words “death” and “possession”. Each of the two ways has its adherents (i.e., those “in possession of” it). The wicked reveal their beliefs and behavior as well as those of the righteous individual (2:12-20). Their irreverence, pleasure seeking, and violence are an allusion to the opening scene in Proverbs 1:8-19. The wicked are said to consider death a friend and to make a covenant with it (Wisdom of Solomon 1:16). “Covenant with death” borrows from Isaiah 28:15, where “death” is a metaphor for Egypt with whom some in Israel allied themselves instead of trusting in the Lord. The father-son language in Wisdom 2 is borrowed from wisdom literature, in particular from Proverbs ..."

Durken, Daniel The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: In One Volume (pp. 1189-1190) Liturgical Press, 2017

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