Isaiah 26:19

Thy dead men shall live. The prophet here turneth his speech to God's people, and gives them a cordial to support them in their deep distress, expressed in the foregoing verse. Thy dead men are not like those Isaiah 26:14, for they shall not live, as I there said; but thine shall live. You shall certainly be delivered from all your fears and dangers. Nothing is more frequent, both in Scripture and other authors, than for great calamities to be compared to death, and deliverance from them to life, and reviving, and resurrection; and particularly the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, and their deliverance out of it, is largely expressed by this very similitude, Ezekiel 37:11, &c. Together with my dead body; as I myself, who am one of your number, and of these dead men, shall live again. You shall be delivered together with me. Which he might add, to meet with an objection; for they might think that God would take some special care of this holy prophet, and would preserve him when they should he destroyed. No, saith he, as I am at present like a dead carcass no less than you, so you shall be restored to life no less than I. If the supplement of our translation seems to be too literal, it may be rendered to the same purpose, as my body, the particle as being oft understood, as I have divers times observed: As my dead body shall rise, so shall theirs also; we are equally dead, and shall equally live again. Shall they arise unto life, as appears from the former clause. Awake out of your sleep, even the sleep of death, as it is called, Psalms 13:3; death being oft compared to a sleep, as 1 Thessalonians 11:11 Acts 7:60, and restoration to life unto awaking, as 2 Kings 4:31. Ye that dwell in the dust; you that are dead and buried in the dust, as the dead are said to deep in the dust, Daniel 12:2. Thy dew; the favour and blessing of God upon thee, which is oft compared to the dew, as Hosea 14:5 Micah 5:7. The pronoun thy is here taken not efficiently, but objectively, as thy curse, Genesis 27:13, is the curse coming upon thee. Is as the dew of herbs, which gently refresheth and reviveth them, and maketh them to grow and flourish. The earth shall cast out the dead, as an abortive birth is cast out of the womb, to which the grave is compared. Job 1:21. But because the verb here used doth not signify to cast out, but to cast down, which seems not proper here, these words may be, and are, both by ancient and later interpreters, rendered otherwise, and thou wilt cast down the land of the giants, or of the violent ones, of the proud and potent tyrants of the world. For the word here rendered dead is elsewhere rendered giants, as 2 Samuel 21:16,18. See also Job 26:5 Proverbs 9:18, Proverbs 21:16. But then the words seem to be better rendered, and thou wilt cast the giants down to the ground: either, 1. Thou, O God, who is oft understood in such cases; or rather, 2. Thou, O my people, to whom he speaks in the foregoing clauses of the verse, thy dead body, and thy dew and here continueth his speech, thou wilt or shalt cast, &c., thou shalt subdue even the most giant-like and mighty enemies; which though it be properly God's work, the church is oft said to do, because she by her prayers engageth God to do it. And so as the former clauses of the verse speak of the deliverance and prosperity of God's church and people, so this clause speaks of the destruction of their enemies, which usually accompanieth it.