Isaiah 26:12-21

12 ADONAI, you will grant us peace; because all we have done, you have done for us.

13 ADONAI our God, other lords besides you have ruled us, but only you do we invoke by name.

14 The dead will not live again, the ghosts will not rise again; for you punished and destroyed them, wiped out all memory of them.

15 You enlarged the nation, ADONAI, you enlarged the nation; and thus you glorified yourself; you extended all the frontiers of the country.

16 ADONAI, when they were troubled, they sought you. When you chastened them, they poured out a silent prayer.

17 As a pregnant woman about to give birth cries out and writhes in her labor pains, so we have been at your presence, ADONAI

18 we have been pregnant and been in pain. But we, as it were, have given birth to wind; we have not brought salvation to the land, and those inhabiting the world have not come to life.

19 Your dead will live, my corpses will rise; awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the morning dew, and the earth will bring the ghosts to life.

20 Come, my people, enter your rooms, and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourselves for a little while until the wrath is past.

21 For see! ADONAI emerges from his place to punish those on earth for their sin. Then the earth will reveal the blood shed on it and no longer conceal its slain.

Isaiah 26:12-21 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 26

This chapter contains a song of praise for the safety and prosperity of the church, and the destruction of its enemies. The church is represented as a strong city, whose walls and bulwarks are salvation, Isa 26:1 it is said to have gates which are to be opened to a righteous nation, Isa 26:2 its inhabitants, being such who trust in the Lord, are promised perfect peace, Isa 26:3 hence the saints are exhorted to trust in him, Isa 26:4 then follows an account of another city, described as lofty, and its inhabitants as dwelling on high, who are brought down, and trampled on, by the feet of the poor and needy, Isa 26:5,6 when the prophet returns to the righteous, and asserts their way to be uprightness, because their path is weighed or levelled by God the most upright, Isa 26:7 and in the name of the church declares that they had waited for the Lord in the way of his judgments; and that the desire of their souls was to his name, and the remembrance of it; and that they continued, and would continue, to desire him, and seek after him, seeing righteousness was to be learned by his judgments, Isa 26:8,9 and though the wicked would not be brought to repentance and reformation by the goodness of God, nor take notice of his hand, yet they should see and be ashamed, and destroyed at last, Isa 26:10,11 but notwithstanding these judgments of God in the earth, the church professes her faith in the Lord, that he would give her peace and prosperity, from the consideration of what he had wrought for her, and in her, Isa 26:12 and rejects all other lords but him, Isa 26:13 who were dead, and should not live again, but were visited and destroyed, and their memory made to perish, Isa 26:14 but the righteous nation should be increased, though they should meet with trouble, which would cause them to go to the throne of grace, and there pour out their complaints, express their pain and distresses, and the disappointments they had met with, Isa 26:15-18 to which an answer is returned, promising a glorious resurrection, Isa 26:19 and calling upon the people of God to retire to their chambers for protection in the mean while, until the punishment to be inflicted on the inhabitants of the earth for their sins was over, Isa 26:20,21.