The Understanding of the Song
(Part 3)

Pastor Bill Farrow

Isaiah 26:17-18

¹⁷As a woman with child Is in pain and cries out in her pangs, When she draws near the time of her delivery, So have we been in Your sight, O Lord.  ¹⁸We have been with child, we have been in pain; We have, as it were, brought forth wind; We have not accomplished any deliverance in the earth, Nor have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

Isaiah 26:17

As a woman with child… - This verse is designed to state their griefs and sorrows during the time of their oppression in Babylon. The comparison used here is one that is very frequent in the sacred writings to represent any great suffering (see Ps. 48:6; Jer. 6:24; 13:21; 22:23; 49:24; 50:43; Mic. 4:9-10).

Is in pain and cries out in her pangs, When she draws near the time of her delivery, So have we been in Your sight, O Lord - He complains that their struggles for their own liberty had been very painful and perilous, but that they had not been successful, (17, 18). Notice that they had the throes and pangs they dreaded: "We have been like a woman in labor, that cries out in her pangs; we have with a great deal of anxiety and toil endeavored to help ourselves, and our troubles have been increased by those attempts;” as when Moses came to deliver Israel the tale of bricks was doubled. Their prayers were quickened by the acuteness of their pains, and became as strong and vehement as the cries of a woman in sore travail. So have we been in thy sight, O Lord! It was a comfort and satisfaction to them, in their distress, that God had his eye upon them that all their miseries were in his sight; he was no stranger to their pangs or their prayers. Lord, all my desire is before thee, and my groaning is not hidden from thee, (Ps. 38:9). Whenever they came to present themselves before the Lord with their complaints and petitions they were in agonies like those of a woman in travail.

Isaiah 26:18

We have been… - They came short of the issue and success they desired and hoped for: "We have been with child; we have had great expectation of a speedy and happy deliverance, have been big with hopes, and, when we have been in pain, have comforted ourselves with this, that the joyful birth would make us forget our misery, (Jn. 16:21).  This refers to sorrows and calamities which they had experienced in former times, when they had made great efforts for deliverance, and when those efforts had proved abortive. Perhaps it refers to the efforts of this kind which they had made during their painful captivity of seventy years. There is no direct proof indeed, that during that time they attempted to revolt, or that they organized themselves for resistance to the Babylonian power; but there can be no doubt that they earnestly desired deliverance, and that their condition was one of extreme pain and anguish - a condition that is strikingly represented here by the pains of childbirth. It is not improbable that during that long period there may have been abortive efforts made at deliverance, and that here they refer to those efforts as having accomplished nothing.

We have as it were brought forth wind; We have not accomplished any deliverance in the earth nor have the inhabitants of the world fallen - But, alas! We have as it were brought forth wind; it has proved a false conception; our expectations have been frustrated, and our pains have been rather dying pains than travailing ones; we have had a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. All our efforts have proved abortive: We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth, for ourselves or for our friends and allies, but rather have made our own case and theirs worse; neither have the inhabitants of the world, whom we have been contesting with, fallen before us, either in their power or in their hopes; but they are still as high and arrogant as ever.’’ Note, a righteous cause may be strenuously pleaded both by prayer and endeavor, both with God and man, and yet for a great while may be left under a cloud, and the point may not be gained.

By way of summary, there are two things in particular the prophet here comforts the church with the prospect of: - First, the amazing ruin of her enemies (v. 14): They are dead, those other lords that have had dominion over us; their power is irrecoverably broken; they are quite cut off and extinguished: and they shall not live, shall never be able to hold up the head any more. Being deceased, they shall not rise, but, like Haman, when they have begun to fall before the seed of the Jews they shall sink like a stone. Because they are sentenced to this final ruin, therefore, in pursuance of that sentence, God himself has visited them in wrath, as a righteous Judge, and has cut off both the men themselves (he has destroyed them) and the remembrance of them: they and their names are buried together in the dust. He has made all their memory to perish; they are either forgotten or made mention of with detestation. Note, The cause that is maintained in opposition to God and his kingdom among men, though it may prosper awhile, will certainly sink at last, and all that adhere to it will perish with it. The Jewish doctors, comparing this with v. 19, infer that the resurrection of the dead belong to the Jews only, and that those of other nations shall not rise. But we know better; we know that all who are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and that this speaks of the final destruction of Christ’s enemies, which is the second death.

A second comfort for God’s people is here as well, and that is the surprising resurrection of her friends, v. 19. Though the church rejoices not in the birth of the man-child, of which she travailed in pain, but has as it were brought forth wind (v. 18), yet the disappointment shall be balanced in a way equivalent: Thy dead men shall live; those who were thought to be dead, who had received a sentence of death within themselves, who were cast out as if they had been naturally dead, shall appear again in their former vigor. A spirit of life from God shall enter into the slain witnesses, and they shall prophesy again, (Rev. 11:11). The dry bones shall live, and become an exceedingly great army, (Eze. 37:10). Together with my dead body shall they arise. If we believe the resurrection of the dead, of our dead bodies at the last day, as Job did, and the prophet here, that will facilitate our belief of the promised restoration of the church’s luster and strength in this world. When God’s time shall have come, how ever low she may be brought, they shall arise, even Jerusalem, the city of God, but now lying like a dead body, a carcass to which the eagles are gathered together. God owns it still for his, so does the prophet; but it shall arise, shall be rebuilt, and flourish again. And therefore let the poor, desolate, melancholy remains of its inhabitants, that dwell as in dust, awake and sing; for they shall see Jerusalem, the city of their solemnities, a quiet habitation again, (33:20). The dew of God’s favor shall be to it as the evening dew to the herbs that were parched with the heat of the sun all day, shall revive and refresh them. And as the spring-dews, that water the earth, and make the herbs that lay buried in it to put forth and bud, so shall they flourish again, and the earth shall cast out the dead, as it casts the herbs out of their roots. The earth, in which they seemed to be lost, shall contribute to their revival. When the church and her interests are to be restored neither the dew of heaven nor the fatness of the earth shall be wanting to do their part towards the restoration. Now this (as Ezekiel’s vision, which is a comment upon it) may be fitly accommodated, (1.) To the spiritual resurrection of those that were dead in sin, by the power of Christ’s gospel and grace. So Dr. Lightfoot applies it, Hor. Hebr. in Joh. 12.24. "The Gentiles shall live; with my body shall they arise; that is, they shall be called in after Christ’s resurrection, shall rise with him, and sit with him in heavenly places; nay, they shall arise my body (says he); they shall become the mystical body of Christ, and shall arise as part of him.’’ (2.) To the last resurrection, when dead saints shall live, and rise together with Christ’s dead body; for he arose as the first-fruits, and believers shall arise by virtue of their union with him and their communion in his resurrection.