The Conclusion of the Song (Part 1)

Pastor Bill Farrow

Isaiah 26:19a

 ¹⁹Your dead shall live; Together with my dead body they shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust; For your dew is like the dew of herbs, And the earth shall cast out the dead.

Your dead shall live - Though God’s people rejoice not in the birth of the man-child, of which they 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).  Various interpretations have been given of this verse.  In Isa. 26:14, the prophet is represented as saying of the dead men and tyrants of Babylon that had oppressed the captive Jews, that they should not rise, and should no more oppress the people of God. In contradistinction from this fate of their enemies, the prophet is here introduced as addressing God (compare Isa. 26:16), and saying ‘THY dead shall live;’ that is, thy people shall live again shall be restored to vigor, and strength, and enjoyment. They had been dead; that is, civilly dead in Babylon; they were cut off from their privileges, torn away from their homes, made captives in a foreign land. Their king had been dethroned; their temple demolished; their princes, priests, and people made captive; their name blotted from the list of nations; and to all intents and purposes, as a people, they were deceased. This figure is one that is common, by which the loss of privileges and enjoyments, and especially of civil rights, is represented as death. So we speak now of a man’s being dead in law; dead to his country; spiritually dead; dead in sins. I do not understand this, therefore, as referring primarily to the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead; but to the captives in Babylon, who were civilly dead, and cut off by their oppressors from their rights and enjoyments as a nation.

Shall live - Shall be restored to their country and be reinstated in all their rights and immunities as a people among the nations of the earth. This restoration shall be as striking as would be the resurrection of the dead front their graves. Though, therefore, this does not refer primarily to the resurrection of the dead, yet the illustration is drawn from that doctrine, and implies that that doctrine was one with which they were familiar. An image which is employed for the sake of illustration must be one that is familiar to the mind, and the reference here to this doctrine is a demonstration that the doctrine of the resurrection was well known.

Together with my dead body they shall 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.

The words ‘together with’ are not in the original. The words rendered ‘my dead body’ literally means, ‘my dead body,’ and may be applied to a man, or to a beast (Lev. 5:2; 7:24). It is also applied to the dead in general; to the deceased; to carcasses, or dead bodies (see Lev. 11:11; Ps. 79:2; Jer. 7:33; 9:22; 16:18; 26:23; 34:20). It may, therefore, be rendered, ‘My deceased, my dead;’ and will thus be parallel with the phrase ‘thy dead men,’ and is used with reference to the same species of resurrection. It is not the language of the prophet Isaiah, as if he referred to his own body when it should be dead, but it is the language of the choir that sings and speaks in the name of the Jewish people. “That people” is thus introduced as saying “my” dead, that is, “our” dead, shall rise. Not only in the address to God is this sentiment uttered when it is said ‘thy dead shall rise,’ but when the attention is turned to themselves as a people, they say ‘our dead shall rise;’ those that pertain to our nation shall rise from the dust, and be restored to their own privileges and land.