Isaiah 26:19

The answer to these utterances of disappointed hopes is the promise of the Resurrection. The speaker throughout is the community, and the words are addressed to God, with the exception of an apostrophe to the buried Israelites in the middle of the verse. There is indeed no decisive argument against the view of those who think that the first half of the verse expresses the longing of the nation for the restoration of its dead ("May thy dead live, &c."), and the second the triumphant assurance of the prophet that the prayer shall be fulfilled. But it is more probable that the language throughout is that of confident belief and hope.

Thy dead … arise Render with R.V., Thy dead shall live, my dead bodies (collect. in Hebr.) shall arise. The dead saints are at once Jehovah's dead and Israel's.

for thy dewis as the dew of herds Better, for a dew of lights is thy dew (O Jehovah). Comp. James 1:17. The word means "herbs" in 2 Kings 4:39, but the idea is too prosaic for this passage. It is a heavenly, supernatural, dew that is meant; as soon as this falls on the dead they awake to life. Duhm refers to a Talmudic representation of a dew kept in the seventh heaven which is to descend on the bones of the dead and quicken them into life. "Light" and "life" are frequently and naturally associated: Psalms 36:9; Psalms 56:13; Job 3:20; Job 33:30; John 1:4.

the earth shall cast out the dead Render: the earth (or the land) shall bring forth shades (Isaiah 26:14). The verb is lit. "cause to fall," but obviously in the sense explained under Isaiah 26:18.

The doctrine of the resurrection here presented is reached through the conviction, gradually produced by the long process of revelation, that the final redemption of Israel could not be accomplished within the limits of nature. It became clear that the hopes and aspirations engendered by the Spirit in believing minds pointed forward to the great miracle here described, and thus the belief in the resurrection was firmly bound up with the indestructible hopes of the future of Israel (cf. Romans 11:15). The idea is exhibited in a form which is immature in the light of New Testament teaching, but it practically represents the highest development of Old Testament revelation on this subject. The only passage which is slightly in advance of this is Daniel 12:2, and even there a universal resurrection is not taught. Here the hope is restricted to Israelites (see Isaiah 26:14) and no doubt to those Israelites who had departed this life in the faith and fear of God. On the other hand, the teaching of this verse is quite different from such passages as Hosea 6:2; Ezekiel 37:1-14. There rising from the dead is but a figurative clothing of the idea of national regeneration, whereas there can be no doubt that here a literal resurrection of individuals is foretold.