Isaiah 26:11-21 - Frederick Brotherton Meyer's Commentary

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Chastened by Suffering

Isaiah 26:11-21

When God ordains our peace, a world in arms cannot disturb us. Our peace results from the conviction that God is going before us and preparing our works. But be careful to make mention of His name, that is, to give Him the glory.

Do not be afraid of your enemies. When God brings you back from the ends of the earth, He will free you from their toils and snares. Let us, as Isaiah 26:16 suggests, pour out our prayers, as a vessel its contents; though, as the Hebrew signifies, those prayers are but whispers. It is true that apart from God we work no deliverance in the earth, Isaiah 26:18, but when He speaks, even the dead live. Jesus, the resurrection and the life, speaks in Isaiah 26:19. What comfort results to those that dwell in the dust of self-abasement and despair to look up to the ever-living Christ, from whom streams of life-giving energy come to believing hearts! Arise and sing, thou broken heart: even now the stone is being rolled from the door of thy sepulcher; the morning dew is distilling upon thee. Cast out by earth, thou shalt be welcomed by heaven, and sheltered in God's secret place till the storm-burst has spent itself.

Related Commentaries of Isaiah 26:11

Isaiah 26:11-21

11 LORD, when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy at the people; yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour them.

12 LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.d

13 O LORD our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name.

14 They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.

15 Thou hast increased the nation, O LORD, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified: thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth.

16 LORD, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayere when thy chastening was upon them.

17 Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD.

18 We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

19 Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.

20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.

21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood,f and shall no more cover her slain.