Isaiah 26:18

Retaining the figure the prophet dwells on the abortive issue of the nation's prayers and sufferings. In the last clause he seems even to give the figure a closer application. For that sentence is no doubt to be read as in R.V. marg., neither have inhabitants of the world been born; i.e. the mother-nation has brought forth no children to people the world. This sense of the verb "fall" is not found elsewhere in Hebr., but it occurs in Arabic (cf. also the Greek πίπτειν and Latin cadere); and here it is demanded by the last clause of Isaiah 26:19. The complaint (of an insufficient population) seems at first inconsistent with Isaiah 26:15, but the discrepancy belongs to the conflict of feeling which runs through the poem; a certain degree of prosperity has been attained, but not complete and final salvation. It is certainly difficult to imagine such a complaint projected on the ideal horizon of the future. A disappointment so peculiar must be begotten of actual experience. Comp. ch. Isaiah 66:7-9.

we have not wrought any deliverancein the earth Lit. "we do not make the land salvations"; i.e. we cannot with all our exertions bring about a condition of freedom, prosperity, peace, &c.