Isaiah 26
MARVELOUS changes are to take place in Israel’s land when God begins the long deferred outpouring of blessing, but greater will be the change in the hearts of His earthly people. When they have owned their crowning sin in putting to death their Messiah, and adopting the language of Psalm 51 (for example) as their confession of blood guiltiness, have been enabled to make Psalm 103 their own, then will they be able to sing (verse 1),
Poor and feeble they will have been, but now, in the time to which the chapter refers, all is changed. The enemy has been vanquished, and Jehovah reigns in Jerusalem; His people are at rest.
Read Psalm 118, and note particularly verses 19 and 20 in connection with verse 2 of our chapter.
Precious to the saint of God in trial or out of it, is verse 3: “Perfect peace” assured, and not for a moment, or during a passing hour, but, “Thou wilt keep in perfect peace the mind stayed on Thee,” and for what reason, upon what ground, is this blessed gift bestowed? “Because he trusteth (or confideth) in Thee.” This cannot be limited to the Israel to come: it is for faith today to lay hold of.
We have before considered the practice of the translators of our common English Bible, of using a title “the LORD,” for Jehovah and Jah, two names of God. In verse 4 these two names occur. We may read the verse thus, as perhaps the best translation known,
“Confide ye in Jehovah forever, for in Jah, Jehovah is the rock of ages.”
Jehovah is God’s name of relationship with Israel, but the Christian knows Him in a nearer way, as Father (See John ‘20:17.) “Jah,” a name which occurs 47 times in Exodus, the Psalms and Isaiah, refers to God as the Absolute Being, supreme, over all.
Verse 9 answers a question raised as to the world’s prospects for getting better. It is stated positively in the Word of God that it will get worse and worse until He deals with it in judgment, and so here we have, “When Thy judgments are in the earth” (not till then) “the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness,” and verse 10 confirms this.
The end of verse 11 may be better understood if read, “Yea, the fire which is for Thine adversaries shall devour them.” God’s infinite patience will have reached its limit, and pent up judgment, richly deserved, will be poured out upon the despisers of His forbearance.
Verse 14 speaks of the enemies and oppressors of the Jews, —death had overtaken them because of their ways. They will reappear at the judgment of the great white throne (Rev. 20:1212And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. (Revelation 20:12)), like all other unrepentant sinners. “They shall not rise’’ means that they shall not return in power to trouble the godly.
In verses 16-18 the believing Israelites are considering their past; they had been in sore distress, and had cried to God, but they had not in all their history carried out God’s purposes (verse 18). “Wrought any deliverance in the land” is better translated, “wrought the deliverance of the land”—indeed, the land of Canaan they had entirely lost because of their sins, and it has for centuries been overrun by the Gentiles without fear of God.
Verse 19 brings the answer to the confession of sinful failure to do the will of God through, Israel’s history: “Thy dead shall live!”—not the physically dead, but the morally, spiritually dead. (See Ezekiel 37: 1-14, and Daniel 12:22And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2) in this connection). In neither case is actual death and resurrection referred to but a national revival of Israel.
Some place of refuge of security (its location is not given), will God provide for His earthly saints when the judgment of the living takes place (verse 20). In this we have an example in Lot, taken out of Sodom just before its judgment fell (Gen. 19:15-2215And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city. 16And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city. 17And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. 18And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord: 19Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast showed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die: 20Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live. 21And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken. 22Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. (Genesis 19:15‑22)).
Abraham’s place, entirely out of the scene (verses 27, 28) is an illustration of the position of the Church of God when the promised storm breaks: we shall be taken up to the scene of heavenly glory, to the Father’s house. Afterward, when the Lord comes to execute judgment, we shall come with Him.
ML 09/03/1933