12 Jehovah, thou wilt ordain peace for us; for thou also hast wrought all our works for us. 13 Jehovah our God, other lords than thee have had dominion over us; by thee only will we make mention of thy name. 14 [They are] dead, they shall not live; deceased, they shall not rise: for thou hast visited and destroyed them, and made all memory of them to perish. 15 Thou hast increased the nation, Jehovah, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified. Thou hadst removed [it] far [unto] all the ends of the earth. 16 Jehovah, in trouble they sought thee; they poured out [their] whispered prayer when thy chastening was upon them. 17 As a woman with child, that draweth near her delivery, is in travail, [and] crieth out in her pangs; so have we been before thee, Jehovah. 18 We have been with child, we have been in travail, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought the deliverance of the land, neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. 19 Thy dead shall live, my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing in triumph, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is the dew of the morning, and the earth shall cast forth the dead.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 26:12-19
Commentary on Isaiah 26:12-19
(Read Isaiah 26:12-19)
Every creature, every business, any way serviceable to our comfort, God makes to be so; he makes that work for us which seemed to make against us. They had been slaves of sin and Satan; but by the Divine grace they were taught to look to be set free from all former masters. The cause opposed to God and his kingdom will sink at last. See our need of afflictions. Before, prayer came drop by drop; now they pour it out, it comes now like water from a fountain. Afflictions bring us to secret prayer. Consider Christ as the Speaker addressing his church. His resurrection from the dead was an earnest of all the deliverance foretold. The power of his grace, like the dew or rain, which causes the herbs that seem dead to revive, would raise his church from the lowest state. But we may refer to the resurrection of the dead, especially of those united to Christ.