Isaiah 26:16

in trouble("distress" or "straits," as ch. Isaiah 25:4) have they visited thee i.e. sought after thee. The verb might also mean "missed thee" felt their need of thee. This was no doubt a spiritual gain, but the author's complaint is that so little outward benefit has accrued from the nation's discipline of sorrow.

they poured out … upon them A difficult clause. The rendering of A.V. (and R.V.) is perhaps the best that can be made of the received text, but it can hardly be defended. The root-meaning of the word for "prayer" is "whisper," but in usage it is confined to the sense of "enchantment." It is questionable if it could mean "whispered prayer," although the cognate verb in 2 Samuel 12:19 and Psalms 41:7 might be appealed to in support of this view. Moreover, the verbal form "they poured out" is anomalous, and the syntax of "when thy chastisement was upon them" is at least hard. The only alternative translation that requires notice is that of Koppe (adopted by several good commentators): "the binding of a spell was thy chastisement unto them," i.e. it acted on them with the potency of a spell. The construction there is easy enough and the textual change is only in the vowel-points; but the noun "binding" ("pressure") does not occur, and the simile is perhaps too bold.