Avram,
Thank you for pointing out your response. I don’t think it was “up” for viewing when I wrote mine.
It wasn’t; I just wanted to reference your comment to my earlier addressing it.
I understand this point in theory, but isn’t it presumptuous for a human being to say whether another man died at his proper time?
The commenter didn’t implicate whether it was or wasn’t his proper time to die. All he indicated was that he was zoche to die al kiddush Hashem.
Or to assert with certitude what was in the Divine calculus when a gadol was murdered?
Everything that happens is a result of the Divine calculus. This assertion is no different than asserting Rabi Akiva (or any Jew murdered for being a Jew) died al kiddush Hashem.
…did Rabbi Yishmael exclaim what a marvelous zechus it was that Rabbi Shimon received, or did he weep?
Rabi Akiva exclaimed, before he was killed, what a zechus it was for him to die al kiddush Hashem. There’s no difficulty pointing out that someone died al kiddush Hashem or that it is a zchus to leave this world that way.