Isaiah 26:19

Thy dead men shall live, &c.— Thy dead shall live; my deceased, they shall rise: awake, &c.—But the earth shall cast forth, as an abortion, the deceased tyrants. Lowth. The present period, which closes this confession, is excellent; wherein the pious declare, in the beginning of the deliverance which had happened to them, their certain hopes of perfect deliverance. The argument is manifestly their confession concerning the resurrection of the dead, whom they call thy dead; and the sentence is divided into two parts, an apostrophe being intermixed. In their confession the pious set forth their hope of the present and future state of things, in opposition to the state of the preceding period: which hope, as they declare in free and elegant words, so do they mutually congratulate each other upon it. The words are so conceived, that at the first appearance they seem to treat only of the resurrection of the dead, properly so called; and yet, according to their primary sense, they describe a mystical, metaphorical, or parabolical resurrection. The gradations in the prophet's discourse should be observed; "Thy dead, says he, O God, shall live, or revive; as many as have died in thy communion, and particularly in thy cause, (the confessors and martyrs of the true religion in all times,) shall not perish, though they may seem to do so, but shall revive and live; first, in this land, where the justice of the cause for which they died, their eminent holiness and usefulness, shall be brought forth into light, shall be praised and celebrated with the most honourable remembrance of their names, in the restored, purified, and glorious state of the church; and then, at the end of time, when that first resurrection of their good names shall receive its full completion, they shall live and revive, with a full justification of their name and cause." See Luke 17:33; Luke 20:38. The chorus adds a second gradation, my deceased: In the first sense is understood the church, afflicted, distressed, as it was in the times of the Maccabees; in the mystical sense, the Christian church, oppressed with the most grievous persecutions, so that the hope of its restitution might seem almost desperate; but on this we shall enlarge when we come to the Revelation. It is added thirdly, They shall arise: To rise, is more than to revive. In the Revelation 11:11 the two witnesses, being revived, stood upon their feet: It was so under the Maccabees; the state not only revived, but rose. It re-flourished, and emerged more beautiful than it had hitherto appeared; see on Isaiah 26:15. The prophet subjoins an apostrophe, Awake, and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; which is to be understood as connected with the former part of the verse, and is an extatic rapture, such as our prophet abounds with, wherein the pious confessors express the fulness and assurance of their hope concerning their future deliverance. See Ephesians 5:14. In the second member of the sentence the prophet adds, Thy dew is as the dew of herbs; that is to say, the divine dew (the efficacious word of the divine command and blessing, or the life-giving Spirit of God) is like the dew which brings forth by his secret power the herbs out of the earth, or makes those which appear to be dead to revive; and thus the earth, moistened, as it were, and made fruitful by the dew of the divine blessing, should cast forth the dead, shut up within its bowels; nay, that very earth which used to absorb and swallow up men, should now, in its turn, at the time of the resurrection, as it were bring forth and produce men; for the idea in the last clause is taken from the delivery of women; (see Isaiah 26:17.) and is illustrated by Acts 2:24. The connection of the whole passage will plainly appear from the following sketch of it: "Thy dead, O Lord, shall live, shall rise; nay, even my deceased, who, as it seemed, were in a state perfectly desperate; they shall awake and sing, who dwell in the dust; BECAUSE thy dew is as the dew of herbs. The word and power of thy Spirit is a vivifying power, drawing forth from the bowels of the earth: and that earth, like a mother, bringing forth the dead committed to her for a certain time." This prophesy, in the first place, refers, as we have observed, to the resurrection of the state under the Maccabees; and secondarily, to the resurrection of the Christian church from a state of great oppression; but the expressions in it are too strong to leave us in a moment's doubt, that the prophet's ideas and conceptions were taken from that resurrection whereof all men shall partake, especially from the final resurrection of the saints, which is the secondary but most important sense of all. See Vitringa.