ISAIAH 26
26 In that day this song will be sung in the land
of Judah:
“Our city is strong! He will make salvation our walls and our defence. 2 Open the gates and come in, righteous nation that maintains faithfulness. 3 Those with a firm purpose you shelter in complete peace because they trust in you. 4 Trust in Yahweh until eternity – yes, in Yah, Yahweh, the rock through the ages. 5 For he humbles those who live in high places. He brings an exalted city right down – he will level her to the ground and will pound her into the dirt. 6 She will be totally trampled underfoot by the feet of a humble man, and the footsteps of frail men.
7 "The way for the righteous man is straight. You clear a direct path for the righteous one. 8 Yes, Yahweh! We wait expectantly for the path of your judgements. The passion of our soul is for your name and your reputation. 9 My soul longs for you in the night. Yes, my spirit within me pursues you, because when your judgements come upon the earth, those living in the world will learn justice – 10 if the wicked one is shown mercy he will not learn justice. In the land of truths he will still sin and will not see Yahweh’s majesty. 11 Yahweh, your hand is raised but they don’t even notice. But they will take notice and will be ashamed by your passion for your people – yes, fire will consume your enemies. 12 Yahweh, you will establish peace for us, because even all our achievements you have done for us.
13 "O Yahweh, our Godhead, other lords besides you took charge of us, but we will celebrate your name alone. 14 These dead men are no longer living – Rephaim will not rise again – because you went to them and you wiped them out. You destroyed all memory of them. 15 But you have grown the nation, Yahweh – you have grown the nation and you are honoured. You have extended all the boundaries of the land. 16 Yahweh, in the tribulation they have searched for you; they have poured out silent prayers when your discipline was on them. 17 Like when a pregnant woman is close to giving birth she will writhe and cry out in pain. This is how we were before you, Yahweh. 18 We were pregnant. We writhed but were pretty much just giving birth to wind. We will accomplish no salvations on the earth and no one living in the world has fallen.”
19 Your dead will live. My dead body, they will arise. Wake up! Those who wait in the dirt, celebrate! For the dew of first light is your dew and the land of the Rephaim she will cast down. 20 Go, my people! Come in to your inner rooms and shut both doors behind you! Hide yourself in the blink of an eye until the fury has passed.
21 Look! Yahweh is coming out from his place to bring punishment for the sin of the man who is at home on the earth, and to expose the blood shed on her. She will not cover up her slain any longer.
“Our city is strong! He will make salvation our walls and our defence. 2 Open the gates and come in, righteous nation that maintains faithfulness. 3 Those with a firm purpose you shelter in complete peace because they trust in you. 4 Trust in Yahweh until eternity – yes, in Yah, Yahweh, the rock through the ages. 5 For he humbles those who live in high places. He brings an exalted city right down – he will level her to the ground and will pound her into the dirt. 6 She will be totally trampled underfoot by the feet of a humble man, and the footsteps of frail men.
7 "The way for the righteous man is straight. You clear a direct path for the righteous one. 8 Yes, Yahweh! We wait expectantly for the path of your judgements. The passion of our soul is for your name and your reputation. 9 My soul longs for you in the night. Yes, my spirit within me pursues you, because when your judgements come upon the earth, those living in the world will learn justice – 10 if the wicked one is shown mercy he will not learn justice. In the land of truths he will still sin and will not see Yahweh’s majesty. 11 Yahweh, your hand is raised but they don’t even notice. But they will take notice and will be ashamed by your passion for your people – yes, fire will consume your enemies. 12 Yahweh, you will establish peace for us, because even all our achievements you have done for us.
13 "O Yahweh, our Godhead, other lords besides you took charge of us, but we will celebrate your name alone. 14 These dead men are no longer living – Rephaim will not rise again – because you went to them and you wiped them out. You destroyed all memory of them. 15 But you have grown the nation, Yahweh – you have grown the nation and you are honoured. You have extended all the boundaries of the land. 16 Yahweh, in the tribulation they have searched for you; they have poured out silent prayers when your discipline was on them. 17 Like when a pregnant woman is close to giving birth she will writhe and cry out in pain. This is how we were before you, Yahweh. 18 We were pregnant. We writhed but were pretty much just giving birth to wind. We will accomplish no salvations on the earth and no one living in the world has fallen.”
19 Your dead will live. My dead body, they will arise. Wake up! Those who wait in the dirt, celebrate! For the dew of first light is your dew and the land of the Rephaim she will cast down. 20 Go, my people! Come in to your inner rooms and shut both doors behind you! Hide yourself in the blink of an eye until the fury has passed.
21 Look! Yahweh is coming out from his place to bring punishment for the sin of the man who is at home on the earth, and to expose the blood shed on her. She will not cover up her slain any longer.
(1)
It’s hard to tell where this song ends. Some finish at the end of v7, but I’ve taken the whole section down to v18 inclusive as it’s all thematically connected and is from the perspective of Isaiah and the Jewish nation. The key to understanding it is that it’s strongly eschatological (relating to the end times).
(5)
The first strong clue that there is some judgement in mind here.
(6)
A humble man…frail men. I would suggest this may ultimately refer to Jesus and his people as they return at the end of the tribulation to…um…sort things out. (see Rev 19:11 onwards which describes some of what this chapter talks about) Keep that idea in mind and the rest of this chapter makes the best sense. Now Jesus coming to kill people is an understandably tough concept for those of us brought up with the softly spoken (frankly sissy) image of the Messiah. But the fact that the Bible teaches it is unmistakeable.
(7)
righteous man…righteous one. Same word and both masculine singular in the Hebrew. Just varied it for nicer English.
(8)
God has placed his name on the people of Israel (and he’s never removed it). They (still) await the fulfilment of many of his promises, and in that day (v1) when they call on him to return (Hos 5:15) it will begin in earnest.
(12)
Peace is the goal of all this, ushering in the Millennium.
(13)
Godhead. Go here for the explanation.
(14)
The Rephaim (Rephaites) were a race of tall people (Deut 2:11-12) and probably descended from the Nephilim (Gen 6:4). This is hard for modern people to grasp, but I believe that sons of God (angels) did actually produce hybrid offspring with human women in rebellion against God’s plan for them (Jude v6). Thus God’s requirement for destroying them all was essential if he was to have pure humans and a perfectly human Messiah to save them – this helps explain the need for Noah’s Flood (Gen 6-8). The noting of their demise at God’s hand is found in Deut 2:18-21. All that being said, it seems the term ‘Rephaim’ may have come to be the general term for departed spirits in Hebrew thinking in Isaiah’s day, and most translations reflect that thought. I don’t disparage that, but I leave the term Rephaim in there because I’m pedantic.
(15)
you have grown the nation. This could certainly apply to the history of Israel in Isaiah's day, but could also apply just as well to more recent times, in particular the 1948 and 1967 wars (after all, we are talking about 'that day' (v1). The 'Day of the Lord' has not yet begun (2 Thess 2:3), but perhaps 'that day' is a little less specific?) where Israel greatly increased its land area.
(16)
The tribulation = Daniel’s 70th week (Dan 9:27) = a big chunk of Revelation (approx. ch 6 – 18). It is possible it's not referring to the actual Tribulation period, but it's just one of those translation decisions you have to make! I translated it as grammatically definite like this and not generally (e.g. ‘in trouble…’) due to the definite article (‘the’) implicit in the word ‘batzar’, i.e. ‘in the trouble’. Again this makes perfect sense in the context. And again, see Hos 5:15. Notice, too, that Isaiah moves to using the pronoun 'they' - another hint that future Israel is in view here.
The tribulation could, I suppose, alternatively refer to the trouble they have experienced since they have been back in the land. That would make the comments on the previous verse concerning a possible modern interpretation the one to go with. It also fits best with the pre-trib rapture viewpoint, which makes better chronological sense in terms of the coming verse 19 (and overall, to be honest).
(17-18)
Jesus picks up the theme of childbirth in Matt 24:8 in his treatise on the end times (See also 1 Thess 5:3). Jesus ascribes the kinds of things the world has seen in increasing measure during the 20th and 21st centuries as 'the beginning of birthpains', so it is feasible that our day is part of what he is talking about, and the birth pains will continue and increase until the 2nd coming at the end of the tribulation.
All the works of the Jews leave them with no one saved and no one judged.
(19)
Your dead will live. The change in the pronouns leads one to suspect the speaker has changed – to become Yahweh himself (in the person of Jesus). This phrase would then refer to the Jews to whom he is speaking. So there will be a day when they will rise again.
My dead body, they will arise. For a long time I had heard this verse applied to the rapture of the church, but wanted to be convinced, since it is in the Old Testament. I’m more confident now because of the second phrase in this verse - literally: ‘my dead body they will rise’, i.e. singular ‘body’ and plural ‘they’ (the KJV inserts 'together with' before this phrase to try and make sense of this, but that seems unwarranted), which seems to make no sense at first (and indeed many translations just put ‘their dead bodies will rise’ or similar). But if you take it that Jesus is speaking, then it all makes sense according to 1 Cor 12:27 and Eph 1:22-23 where the church is Christ’s body. So one (singular) body is made up of many (plural) people. So what we have in v19-21 is Yahweh’s answer to the cry of the Jews, occurring after his judgement through handing the world over to the brutal control of the Antichrist since they have, on the whole, rejected him. He preserves a group called the church, he prepares them and now comes in person (i.e. Jesus) with his redeemed and now immortal church. Some may argue that Isaiah is talking about the Old Testament (OT) saints as 'the body', but in the framework of the whole of scripture that would seem not to fit at all, especially considering that to resurrect the OT saints after the end of the tribulation and then hide them 'until the fury has passed' makes no sense.
the land of the Rephaim. See comments on v14. Once the last remnants of the Rephaim were driven out by Moses (Josh 12:4-6), the land still was still sometimes associated with them (e.g. 2 Sam 5:18, 1 Chr 11:15). Isaiah may be linking that land in question with that land of old. Or, because Gen 6:4 says that there were Nephilim ('prototype Rephaim') on the earth after the Flood as well, and Jesus said, "as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man" (Luke 17:26), I strongly suspect that they walk among us even today. So the land of the Rephaim may still have them in it, and be much broader in scope than we realize. So this seems to be talking about the destiny of these resurrected ones: to cast down the ones living in this land.
she will cast down. 'She' would be the church, who conquer the land with Jesus.
(20)
Another reason to say this is not national Israel but the church. The church is hidden during the fury – the wrath, anger or indignation of the tribulation judgements (1 Thess 5:9), but Israel is purified. It’s the ‘time of Jacob’s trouble’ (Jer 30:7), not the church’s.
In the blink of an eye. The Hebrew word here tends to have more of a sense of suddenness rather than of duration. ‘Blink of an eye’ is closer to a literal rendering of the word ‘regah’, and of course brings to mind the words of Paul in 1 Cor 15:52. Maybe that’s what he (Paul) has in mind…? Anyway, the point is that it I don’t think Isaiah’s talking about duration of the hiding but the rapidity of its beginning.
(21)
Israel's expectant response to Yahweh's plan. See also Rev 19:11-15.
It’s hard to tell where this song ends. Some finish at the end of v7, but I’ve taken the whole section down to v18 inclusive as it’s all thematically connected and is from the perspective of Isaiah and the Jewish nation. The key to understanding it is that it’s strongly eschatological (relating to the end times).
(5)
The first strong clue that there is some judgement in mind here.
(6)
A humble man…frail men. I would suggest this may ultimately refer to Jesus and his people as they return at the end of the tribulation to…um…sort things out. (see Rev 19:11 onwards which describes some of what this chapter talks about) Keep that idea in mind and the rest of this chapter makes the best sense. Now Jesus coming to kill people is an understandably tough concept for those of us brought up with the softly spoken (frankly sissy) image of the Messiah. But the fact that the Bible teaches it is unmistakeable.
(7)
righteous man…righteous one. Same word and both masculine singular in the Hebrew. Just varied it for nicer English.
(8)
God has placed his name on the people of Israel (and he’s never removed it). They (still) await the fulfilment of many of his promises, and in that day (v1) when they call on him to return (Hos 5:15) it will begin in earnest.
(12)
Peace is the goal of all this, ushering in the Millennium.
(13)
Godhead. Go here for the explanation.
(14)
The Rephaim (Rephaites) were a race of tall people (Deut 2:11-12) and probably descended from the Nephilim (Gen 6:4). This is hard for modern people to grasp, but I believe that sons of God (angels) did actually produce hybrid offspring with human women in rebellion against God’s plan for them (Jude v6). Thus God’s requirement for destroying them all was essential if he was to have pure humans and a perfectly human Messiah to save them – this helps explain the need for Noah’s Flood (Gen 6-8). The noting of their demise at God’s hand is found in Deut 2:18-21. All that being said, it seems the term ‘Rephaim’ may have come to be the general term for departed spirits in Hebrew thinking in Isaiah’s day, and most translations reflect that thought. I don’t disparage that, but I leave the term Rephaim in there because I’m pedantic.
(15)
you have grown the nation. This could certainly apply to the history of Israel in Isaiah's day, but could also apply just as well to more recent times, in particular the 1948 and 1967 wars (after all, we are talking about 'that day' (v1). The 'Day of the Lord' has not yet begun (2 Thess 2:3), but perhaps 'that day' is a little less specific?) where Israel greatly increased its land area.
(16)
The tribulation = Daniel’s 70th week (Dan 9:27) = a big chunk of Revelation (approx. ch 6 – 18). It is possible it's not referring to the actual Tribulation period, but it's just one of those translation decisions you have to make! I translated it as grammatically definite like this and not generally (e.g. ‘in trouble…’) due to the definite article (‘the’) implicit in the word ‘batzar’, i.e. ‘in the trouble’. Again this makes perfect sense in the context. And again, see Hos 5:15. Notice, too, that Isaiah moves to using the pronoun 'they' - another hint that future Israel is in view here.
The tribulation could, I suppose, alternatively refer to the trouble they have experienced since they have been back in the land. That would make the comments on the previous verse concerning a possible modern interpretation the one to go with. It also fits best with the pre-trib rapture viewpoint, which makes better chronological sense in terms of the coming verse 19 (and overall, to be honest).
(17-18)
Jesus picks up the theme of childbirth in Matt 24:8 in his treatise on the end times (See also 1 Thess 5:3). Jesus ascribes the kinds of things the world has seen in increasing measure during the 20th and 21st centuries as 'the beginning of birthpains', so it is feasible that our day is part of what he is talking about, and the birth pains will continue and increase until the 2nd coming at the end of the tribulation.
All the works of the Jews leave them with no one saved and no one judged.
(19)
Your dead will live. The change in the pronouns leads one to suspect the speaker has changed – to become Yahweh himself (in the person of Jesus). This phrase would then refer to the Jews to whom he is speaking. So there will be a day when they will rise again.
My dead body, they will arise. For a long time I had heard this verse applied to the rapture of the church, but wanted to be convinced, since it is in the Old Testament. I’m more confident now because of the second phrase in this verse - literally: ‘my dead body they will rise’, i.e. singular ‘body’ and plural ‘they’ (the KJV inserts 'together with' before this phrase to try and make sense of this, but that seems unwarranted), which seems to make no sense at first (and indeed many translations just put ‘their dead bodies will rise’ or similar). But if you take it that Jesus is speaking, then it all makes sense according to 1 Cor 12:27 and Eph 1:22-23 where the church is Christ’s body. So one (singular) body is made up of many (plural) people. So what we have in v19-21 is Yahweh’s answer to the cry of the Jews, occurring after his judgement through handing the world over to the brutal control of the Antichrist since they have, on the whole, rejected him. He preserves a group called the church, he prepares them and now comes in person (i.e. Jesus) with his redeemed and now immortal church. Some may argue that Isaiah is talking about the Old Testament (OT) saints as 'the body', but in the framework of the whole of scripture that would seem not to fit at all, especially considering that to resurrect the OT saints after the end of the tribulation and then hide them 'until the fury has passed' makes no sense.
the land of the Rephaim. See comments on v14. Once the last remnants of the Rephaim were driven out by Moses (Josh 12:4-6), the land still was still sometimes associated with them (e.g. 2 Sam 5:18, 1 Chr 11:15). Isaiah may be linking that land in question with that land of old. Or, because Gen 6:4 says that there were Nephilim ('prototype Rephaim') on the earth after the Flood as well, and Jesus said, "as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man" (Luke 17:26), I strongly suspect that they walk among us even today. So the land of the Rephaim may still have them in it, and be much broader in scope than we realize. So this seems to be talking about the destiny of these resurrected ones: to cast down the ones living in this land.
she will cast down. 'She' would be the church, who conquer the land with Jesus.
(20)
Another reason to say this is not national Israel but the church. The church is hidden during the fury – the wrath, anger or indignation of the tribulation judgements (1 Thess 5:9), but Israel is purified. It’s the ‘time of Jacob’s trouble’ (Jer 30:7), not the church’s.
In the blink of an eye. The Hebrew word here tends to have more of a sense of suddenness rather than of duration. ‘Blink of an eye’ is closer to a literal rendering of the word ‘regah’, and of course brings to mind the words of Paul in 1 Cor 15:52. Maybe that’s what he (Paul) has in mind…? Anyway, the point is that it I don’t think Isaiah’s talking about duration of the hiding but the rapidity of its beginning.
(21)
Israel's expectant response to Yahweh's plan. See also Rev 19:11-15.