12 Lord , You will establish peace for us, Since You have also performed for us all our works . 13 O Lord our God , other masters besides You have ruled us; But through You alone we confess Your name . 14 The dead will not live , the departed spirits will not rise ; Therefore You have punished and destroyed them, And You have wiped out all remembrance of them. 15 You have increased the nation , O Lord , You have increased the nation , You are glorified ; You have extended all the borders of the land . 16 O Lord , they sought You in distress ; They could only whisper a prayer , Your chastening was upon them. 17 As the pregnant woman approaches the time to give birth , She writhes and cries out in her labor pains , Thus were we before e You, O Lord . 18 We were pregnant , we writhed in labor, We gave birth , as it seems, only to wind . We could not accomplish deliverance for the earth , Nor were inhabitants of the world born . 19 Your dead will live ; Their corpses will rise . You who lie in the dust , awake and shout for joy , For your dew is as the dew of the dawn , And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits .
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.