The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous

Psalm 34:15-22
The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry. The face of the LORD is against evildoers, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears, and rescues them from all their troubles. The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD rescues them from them all. He keeps all their bones; not one of them will be broken. Evil brings death to the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. The LORD redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

There is an ancient legend of a great sage, called Akiva ben Joseph, that during the Bar Kokhba revolt in the early 130-ies CE, the Roman empire banned the Bible study, lectures and practices. Breaking the law carried the death sentence.
Rabbi Akiva did not mind the ban, even on pain of death, and was convening assemblies in public and engaging in Bible study. One of his students, Pappos said to him: Akiva, are you not afraid of the empire?

Akiva said that if the fish, being afraid of the net, comes ashore, will die anyway because of the lack of water. So are the Jews. They die without the Bible, as it is exactly written in the fifth Book of Moses, chapter 30, that “For that is your life, and the length of your days”. Thus, Akiva continued to study and to teach the Bible and the Jewish religious philosophy to the public audience.

Not a few days passed until the Romans arrested him. When they took Rabbi Akiva out to be executed, and they were raking his flesh with iron combs, he was reciting the so called Shema prayer, thereby accepting upon himself the yoke of Heaven.

The Shema prayer is actually comprised of the exact Bible verses from Deuteronomy chapter six, from where the shortest recitation is that “4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ”
His students there said to him: Our teacher, even now, as you suffer to death, you recite the Shema? According tho the sages he said to them: “ All my days I have been troubled by the verse: With all your soul, meaning: Even if God takes your soul. I said to myself: When will the opportunity be afforded me to fulfill this verse? Now that it has been afforded me, shall I not fulfill it?” His soul left his body as he uttered his final word: One, which is from the statement that “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

One may ask that this sage spent most of his time in his whole life with studying the Bible, praying, contemplating, teaching the Bible, doing charity and acting kindness, then why he had this bitter end of his life, being cruelly tortured and killed by the Romans? Is this the reward of the righteous to be perished by the hand of the wicked?

From the Psalm 34 we might conclude that although “ many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD rescues them from them all.”
For us it may mean that we can have troubles, but the Lord must rescue us from all of them. However, on Earth it does not look like that this would be the case in general.

Quite the opposite. Many times it looks like that the innocent and the righteous perished, and the wicked prospered.
However, it might be a misconception to think that we should aim rewards, including permanent prosperity on Earth, because our real goal is Heaven and the World to Come ultimately. Just as Jesus taught it to the disciples in the Gospel of Matthew that :

“ Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ”

The sages say that according to the legends, when Akiva died, through suffering agonies, a Divine Voice, the so called Bat Kol emerged and said: “Happy are you, Rabbi Akiva, as you are destined for life in the World-to-Come, as your portion is already in the eternal life.”

Even the Psalm 34 hints that the ultimate rescue happens by the admission into Heaven as it is written that “Evil brings death to the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. The LORD redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. ”

Where condemnation will be the fate of the wicked, but the servants of God will be given refuge and no condemnation, we can see that this ultimate refuge is the eternal life, the ultimate home in Heaven.

In the Americas, North and South, according to the wikipedia and several studies, although the exact pre-colonization population-count of the Americas is unknown, scholars estimate that Indigenous populations diminished by between 80% and 90% within the first centuries of European colonization. The majority of these losses are attributed to the introduction of the new diseases into the Americas, like small pox, typhus, diphtheria, measles, tuberculosis, and many more. The permanent warfare, forced labor, frequent interment, forced migrations, forced relocation, forced marches, unspeakable massacres were also continuous for centuries.

Why did God, the good and almighty One, let these things happen, letting the innocent to suffer, millions, hundred of millions to perish?

God did not commit atrocities, humans did and do. God keeps rescuing us from Earth to Heaven. As it is written in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, chapter 57 that “The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.”

We know that death is not a condition, not a place, not an institution, not even a situation, but just a door to Afterlife, like an escape pod from Spaceship Earth. Either we live or we die, we have to live up to our call from the Lord that may we grow to become godly righteous and may we become the embodiment of the loving kindness of the Lord.

That is the way to Heaven right in time, or even before our supposed time. In the eternity time and death do not have power over us anymore. We can be always rejoicing, that our Brother and Master, Jesus states, that “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me … And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

AMEN .