Isaiah 26:1-19

Memories and Anticipations. The poem, which is a very elaborate composition, seems to have been written in confident expectation of deliverance, though the actual situation is still one of distress. Jerusalem has been made impregnable, let the righteous enter in. The unwavering mind is kept by God in unbroken peace (cf. mg.). He is worthy of trust, for He is an everlasting rock; He has laid low the exalted city, the afflicted Jews trample it under foot. The way of the just is made smooth. The manifestation of Yahweh's judgment has been eagerly awaited, for the world's inhabitants will learn righteousness when Yahweh's judgments are in the land. The unrighteous shall not find favour, for they have not learnt righteousness. Though Yahweh's hand is lifted, they fail to see it. See it they shall, and be confounded and destroyed. He alone has secured their peace. Other masters have ruled them, but they are dead, and will never return to exercise dominion; the nation is multiplied, the land enlarged. They had sought Yahweh in distress, they writhed in pain, but their agony was in vain, the land remained unpeopled. To fill the depleted land, those who died in loyalty to Yahweh shall be raised from the dead. God's dew shall quicken the dead bodies, the shades shall return to the upper world.

Isaiah 26:8. The name of Yahweh in the OT stands for His essential nature as self-revealed.

Isaiah 26:10. Perhaps we should read with Marti, Favour will not be shewed to the wicked, who has not learned righteousness.

Isaiah 26:13. other lords: not false gods (cf. Isaiah 26:14), but earthly lords, i.e. Israel's oppressors.

Isaiah 26:14. deceased: read mg.; cf. Isaiah 14:9.

Isaiah 26:18. fallen: RV means that the enemy has not been overthrown. But we should probably read been born (mg.), and take the meaning to be that Palestine remains thinly peopled.

Isaiah 26:19. An extremely important verse, the earliest mention in the OT of a resurrection. Here it is restricted to the righteous; martyrs may possibly be specially intended. The much later passage, Daniel 12:2 *, adds the resurrection of the apostates. thy dead: Yahweh's worshippers. dew of herbs: render probably dew of light (mg.), i.e. dew from the realm of light; though J. G. Frazer thinks that the evidence he has collected with reference to the customs of bathing in dew may perhaps favour dew of herbs.