For In Contrast To The Leaders of the Nations God's People Will Live and Rise Again While before This The World Must Face Its Judgment (Isaiah 26:16-21).
Isaiah now makes the context of what he is saying quite clear. He is referring to the time of the consummation of all things when all who are His will be resurrected, when death will be no more (Isaiah 25:7-8), and when God will have triumphed over all. But it is not yet. His people having suffered must wait a little while more for the troubles to pass and for God to carry out His judgments before they enter into their own (Isaiah 26:20).
These words must have come as a wonderful new revelation to his hearers. We have had revealed to us so much about the resurrection that we cannot even begin to conceive of what the impact of Isaiah's words must have been. For while there had been hints about the possibility in the Psalms, never before had the idea of a future life for all those who had died faithful to God been so clearly proclaimed. And yet as with all prophecy at this time it was in terms of a resurrection to life on earth. Any other portrayal would have been to involve people's thoughts in the mythical world of the gods.
Analysis.
a O Yahweh, in trouble have they visited you, they poured out a whisper (choked plea?) when your chastening was on them. Just as a woman with child, who draws near the time of her delivery, is in pain and cries out in her agonies, so have we been before you, O Yahweh. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were produced wind. We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth, nor have the inhabitants of the world fallen.'
b Your dead will live, my dead bodies will arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust.
b For your dew is as the dew of lights, and the earth will cast forth the shades.
a Come, my people, enter into your chambers and shut your doors about you. Hide yourself for a little moment until the indignation is gone by. For behold Yahweh comes forth out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth also will disclose her blood, and will not cover her slain
In ‘a' God's people have been through a great time of trouble and pain but are aware that they have produced nothing and have accomplished nothing. They have not been able to deliver themselves, nor to bring down the inhabitants of the inhabited world. In the parallel they must hide themselves for Yahweh will now do what they have failed to do. The inhabitants of the earth will now be punished for their iniquity, with the spilling of their blood being clear for all to see. Meanwhile in ‘b' His people have the assurance that those of them who have died faithful to Him will live again. They will arise and sing for joy. And in the parallel the dew that will fall on them will be a shining light, and the earth will cast them forth (to live again).
‘Yahweh, in trouble have they visited you, they poured out a whisper (choked plea?) when your chastening was on them. Just as a woman with child, who draws near the time of her delivery, is in pain and cries out in her agonies, so have we been before you, O Yahweh. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were produced wind. We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth, nor have the inhabitants of the world fallen.'
Isaiah has no false illusions about his people. Any such illusions had been removed in chapter 6. But he looks back at their history and feels their pain. The ‘they' (in contrast with ‘we') has in mind the people of the past. Possibly he has especially in mind Exodus 2:23 and the book of Judges (see Judges 3:9; Judges 3:15; Judges 4:3; Judges 6:6) when again and again His people had cried to Him in their bondage and pleaded for deliverance, and when He had had to chasten them again and again for forgetting Him and seeking other gods. Then they had truly suffered like a woman in childbirth, and they had ‘visited' Him. The verb ‘visited' is appropriate. It was not a permanent seeking, but a temporary one. Each time it was only a visit, not a long stay. That was the problem. And that was why they had never got to the point of producing anything worthwhile.
The word for ‘whisper' is an unusual one, usually used of whispering enchantments. Perhaps Isaiah was trying to convey his view of the unspiritual nature of their cries. They treated God as though He was merely a magical response to their needs. Or perhaps it was to bring out the strangled nature of their prayers. Compare Isaiah 29:4.
But the same situation is still true. The people now are just like the people then, and Isaiah reverts to ‘we'. The picture is vivid. They have suffered as in childbirth, but they have only produced wind. It has been a phantom pregnancy. They have not accomplished anything. They have wrought no deliverance for themselves, and none of the inhabitants of the world have fallen. They have failed in Yahweh's purposes. They are still enduring pain and anxiety without any fruit. Their condition is hopeless. No wonder he had described them as a people of unclean lips, for they had broken His covenant (Isaiah 6:5). So if God enlarges the nation it will not be because they have somehow deserved it. And yet, remarkably He will do so. It will be all of His undeserved favour, His grace.
‘Nor have the inhabitants of the world fallen.' The root for the word ‘fallen' is elsewhere used in the form of a noun (nephel) to indicate a miscarriage, and ‘untimely birth' (Job 3:16; Ecclesiastes 6:3). Thus ‘to fall' may well indicate childbirth, which would admirably fit the context of birthpangs. This would then be a confession that they had produced none of the fruit among the inhabitants of the world that they should have. They had not brought any of them to spiritual birth.
But more likely the thought is simply that Israel's rise could only result from the ‘fall' of their adversaries into the grave, and they have failed in that too. They have been powerless to deliver themselves or inflict injury on their enemies.
We can compare for this use of ‘fallen' how the king of Babylon is described as having fallen into the grave (Isaiah 14:11-12; Isaiah 14:15; Isaiah 14:19), and Babylon is described forcibly as having ‘fallen' along with her gods, broken into the ground (Isaiah 21:9), and thus becoming dust, a dual contrast to the next verse.
‘Your dead will live, my dead bodies will arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust. For your dew is as the dew of lights, and the earth will cast forth the shades.'
Yahweh gives His reply to Isaiah's confession of the people's guilt and unworthiness. And what a reply. They may have failed, but their God will not fail. Like a bolt from the blue comes the promise of the bodily resurrection of the true people of God. This is in direct contrast with Isaiah 26:14 where the dead leaders of the nations would not live, and would not rise, but would remain in the grave, something which is stressed. It cannot therefore be seen as anything but literal, and a literal meaning is in fact required. Here the earth casts forth ‘the shades' of His people because the dew of light has fallen on them. Such shades cannot be held back in the grave.
A figurative ‘national resurrection' simply meaning that Israel came back to God and were restored would be a poor contrast to Isaiah 26:14, which did not simply mean that the lords of the nations would subside into anonymity. There the great stress was on the fact that they had literally died and would not live again. Life had been taken from them. Here therefore in startling contrast is the opposite situation. Physical death is contrasted with physical life. God's people truly will live again.
This stark contrast is in line with Isaiah's emphasis on such stark contrasts. The mountain of Yahweh would attract many nations and would result in worldwide peace (Isaiah 2:2-4), while the day of Yahweh would come with dreadful intensity and result in terror and the shaking of the earth (Isaiah 2:10-21). Ahaz had refused a miraculous and marvellous sign, and so God would give him an even more miraculous and marvellous sign (chapter Isaiah 7:11-14). The strong city would arise and prosper permanently, the city of wastedness would fall into the dust (Isaiah 26:1; Isaiah 26:5). Thus here there is the contrast that the leaders of the nations would die and would not live or rise again, but that God's people will live and rise again, receiving new life.
Previously Isaiah had spoken of victory over death (Isaiah 25:8) in preparation for this, but that could have referred to those living, with the suggestion that they would no more die. Here, however, the promise is unequivocally that the faithful who are already dead will live bodily, for ‘the earth will cast forth the shades'. And it was contextually necessary, otherwise the counter-argument could have been that the dead people of God had also permanently become shades. The force of the whole passage comes from the fact that they did not do so.
So the failure of His people will be countermanded. In spite of their failure they will be raised from the dead. Even while they admitted that they were totally undeserving, God breaks in with the promise of their resurrection. For this was not something that they could deserve. It would be all of God's mercy.
It was only because it was so stupendous a thought that it had never risen before. Psalmists could not believe that death was the end for those who truly knew God, but they never articulated it in detail (see Psalms 16:10-11; Psalms 17:15; Psalms 23:6; etc). Enoch and Elijah were also seen as men who had never died, but they were not seen as rising from the dead. This is different. It builds on those examples but with new significance. All the righteous will live again.
‘Your dead will live, my dead bodies will arise.' This is in direct contrast with ‘dead they will not live, shades they will not arise' (Isaiah 26:14). There they were shades, but here in the parallel phrases they are not described as shades but as dead bodies. There is a reality about them that survives. So these dead will live. They are awaiting the resurrection. ‘Your' refers to Isaiah and Israel, ‘my' refers to God. The dead belong to Israel, but their dead bodies are His, He retains control over them. Those who belong to Him, but only those who are His, will arise.
‘Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust.' The lofty city was brought down to the dust (Isaiah 26:5), but those brought down to the dust in death as a result of the activities of those from the lofty city will be raised from the dust. Their enemies could gloat in the fact that they had become just dust, no more to have any meaningful existence, but instead they can awake and sing, for new life is to be theirs. The original warning to man was that he was dust and because of his sin he would return to dust (Genesis 3:19). Thus for these who will rise again the curse has been removed.
‘For your dew is as the dew of lights, and the earth will cast forth the shades.' Note the contrast between ‘lights' and ‘shades'. Where light comes there can be no more shade. So just as the falling dew brings life to the earth, so does the dew of God's light fall to bring life to His dead bodies, so that the earth casts them out. There is no place for that which is alive in the grave, or for shining lights among the shades. It wants nothing to do with life or light. The grave is for the shades of what men were.
‘The dew of lights'. The plural is probably a plural of intensity referring to intense light and divine light (compare Psalms 104:2). Thus we may see this as signifying ‘divine dew', the dew of God's pure light. Or it may especially refer to the light of life seen as dew (Job 3:16; Psalms 56:13). The Psalmist said that those who are dead will not see light (Psalms 49:19), but that is not true in this case, for the dew of God's intense light will ensure that these men live again. Alternately there may be in mind the idea of the dew of morning (lights) as connected with the lifegiving manna (Exodus 16:14), but the former seems more likely as a contrast to the shades. However whichever way we take it the central thought is of lifegiving dew falling on the deceased chosen of God, as on dead vegetation, so that they live again (compare Hosea 14:5).
As we consider this marvellous revelation we soon see that from the context it was required. Yahweh was calling His own to a great feast, where He would swallow up death for ever (Isaiah 25:6-8), resulting in entry into the strong city (Isaiah 26:1-2). But of what benefit the strong city for those who had died in God? Had they not gone the way of the leaders of the nations without hope (Isaiah 26:13-14)? Were they not lost to it? No, replies Isaiah, for they will rise again. It had to be. It was the final triumph. It was a doctrine waiting to happen.
The Coming Indignation (Isaiah 26:20-21).
Yahweh's people have suffered pain and anxiety and failure. They admit to having achieved nothing. Now they have been promised resurrection. But it can only be when God has fulfilled His purposes. Thus now for a little while they are to hide themselves away while Yahweh does what they have been unable to do and finalises His work and judgment on the inhabited earth. What their pain has not achieved, Yahweh will now accomplish, the establishment of justice.
We must not just transfer this warning to what we see as ‘the end of the age' some time in the future. It was a word spoken to the faithful remnant in Isaiah's day. It is a word spoken to Christians whenever they find themselves in a position where God's judgments are being revealed in the world. Always His protecting hand will be with them. It is a reminder that as the world again and again faces its judgments God will be watching over His own. And each judgment and series of judgments will be ‘for a little while'. We can compare here Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 4:17. ‘Our light affliction which is but for a moment works for us more and more abundantly an eternal weight of glory'. ‘For the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be rvealed towards us' (Romans 8:18). And yet it will apply even more as the end approaches.
‘Come, my people, enter into your chambers and shut your doors about you. Hide yourself for a little moment until the indignation is gone by. For behold Yahweh comes forth out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth also will disclose her blood, and will not cover her slain.'
His people must hide themselves whenever His judgments are in the world, because what He will bring on the world in judgments because of His anger against sin is not for them. The glorious resurrection is coming, but before that final resurrection takes place the world must experience judgment. For ‘the wrath of God is continually revealed from Heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold down the truth by unrighteousness' (Romans 1:18). Thus the resurrection of the righteous cannot come until the time of indignation is over, before God's anger has been sufficiently revealed in His judgment on the world. Because His people have not brought home to the world His power and His judgment, He will do it Himself. And in the light of this God's people are to enter their rooms and close the doors. They are to keep out of it. They are not to race into testing but to be prudent and sensible. There is no thought of cultivating martyrdom. For these will be times when God ‘comes from His place' and punishes the world for their sinfulness and their evil behaviour, and God's people have no part in it. No murder, whether judicial or private, will go unpunished. The earth that has received the blood of the murder victims will no longer hide it, nor cover up the murders. Rather it will disclose them. As with Abel the blood will cry to God for vengeance from the ground (see Genesis 4:8-12), and the earth itself will cooperate in drawing attention to the crimes. We can be sure that men's sins will find them out. For when the holy Creator and judge of all men approaches, creation itself is ashamed of the sinfulness of man, and gladly plays its part in making it known. ‘Iniquity' is the inward sinfulness of a man, the blood shed is the outward evidence of it.
‘Shut your doors.' Compare here ‘open the gates' (Isaiah 26:2). There is a time for opening and a time for shutting, a time for marching and a time for hiding. There may be a hint here of Noah entering the Ark to hide from the indignation of the flood, when God shut them in.
This is specifically not a time of tribulation for the people of God, for they are to take cover from it. It is a time when God's wrath is poured out on the world. The Bible constantly anticipates tribulation for the world right up to the time of the end. Each generation experiences in one way or another the judgments of God, and each generation of Christians receives His protection. And it will so continue to the end. And once Yahweh has punished the world sufficiently for its iniquity, and given it sufficient time to repent (2 Peter 3:9), the resurrection can take place.