Death as a Release in the Bible

Abstract

That the death of the enemy spells deliverance is clear enough. 'Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore' 1). In course of time there are refinements; for example, as the Rabbis tell us 2), God would accept no song of praise from the ministering angels when the Egyptians were drowning. However, the basic reaction to the enemy's ruin is universal and perennial. Death itself is the worst enemy; and in the end death itself will be destroyed and man set free from its bondage 3). What is of greater interest is the notion of one's own death, or the death of one's friends, as salvation. We shall not deal with the case where one person's life is offered for the wellbeing of another Our case is that of a person's death-and we mean real death, not, say, the figurative death in baptism-being felt to be the best thing for himself, that individual's rescue from distress or even his fulfilment. It may be useful at the outset to state that we distinguish this feeling from mere resignation. Certainly, it was a reassuring promise when God told Abraham 4): 'Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, thou shalt be buried in good old age'. But it was reassuring precisely because the inevitable was put off and was going to happen in as mitigated a form as possible. (Throughout this discussion we must bear in mind the low average expectation of life in that period-most people were carried off by disease or some violence before reaching fifty). It would be wrong to read into such passages any wish to die, death as a friend or the like.