'O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?'
Paul now comes back to the present and is so carried away with the glory of the idea that he chides death itself as he considers the resurrection of the dead. So death thought that it had won? Death thought that it would be always victorious, that it had the victory? For had not all died? Ah, yes, that was true until the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But now all is different. There is now One Who has defeated death. Death has not finally won, for in Christ life has triumphed. Death has lost its sting. The one thing that gave it invincible power has been dealt with. The victory no longer goes to death, it belongs to Him.
There is an echo here of Hosea 13:14, but the general ideas expressed are dissimilar. It is the form, ringing in his mind, and some of the ideas, rather than the basic meaning that Paul has utilised, just as we sometimes may use Biblical wording to express something different from its original meaning. Note that he does not say, ‘it is written'.