Rav Avigdor Miller on When Hashem Takes People Before They Spoil
Q:
Is it better for a rasha to perish more quickly in order to avoid doing more sins, or to be allowed to live in order to repent and change his ways?

A:
Hakodosh Boruch Hu foresees everything. He foresees what’s going to happen and sometimes when He sees that someone is going to go deeper and deeper into sin, so it’s better to put a stop to it. Now, even tzadikim sometimes; it says ימות זכאי ואל ימות חייב —better he die innocent than continue to live and become more wicked. Sometimes tzadikim are taken out of this world in order that they shouldn’t deteriorate. The gemara brings a story about two righteous men who died young and it says there that they were like fruits taken off the tree just when they turn ripe; because the longer they hang on the tree, they’ll begin to rot. Hashem saw they wouldn’t be good later in life, so He took them off. That’s an answer many times – it shouldn’t happen – but when a young person passes away, and we see nothing wrong, it could be Hashem foresaw that he was destined to have circumstances in life that would cause him to deteriorate so Hashem took him out of this world while he was still good. It’s a chesed for that person – in the Next World that man is appreciating what Hashem did to Him.

By the way, I must add, although it’s not on the subject, sometimes people are born only to live a short time. Not everybody is born to live long. It’s part of Hashem’s plan. Sometimes a child is born to live only a day, and that’s Hashem’s plan. What’s His purpose? We can guess some of the purposes; perhaps it’s to test the emunah of the parents. Whatever it is, it will be discovered in the next world. The life in the next world will dispel all the darkness.