Isaiah 26:16-19 – Promise of Resurrection
In verse 16, who is ‘they’? Well, we must look back a verse or two. It is the nation for whom God established peace, the nation that has been increased, or at least has the promise of increase, the nation through whom God is and will be glorified. But the people of God had not gotten to that point yet. If you look at your Bible history, you will see that the people of God were not doing all that great at this point in which Isaiah wrote. There had been, for the people of Israel and for the land of Judah, trouble and chastening. The people of Isaiah’s day would see more of it. In verse 16, the people of God poured out a prayer when God’s discipline was upon them. Their reaction was exactly, by His grace, the proper reaction. God worked in them, so that difficulty did not drive them away and embitter them.
What is the trouble that we see in verses 17 and 18? God uses the picture of a woman whose time has come to have a baby. Isaiah is talking about all the effort that the godly put into trying to be godly. And it did them no good. They’ve been working hard but working in their own strength. And what has happened? They work, they labour, they go through great pains, and they have nothing.
They tried to avoid trouble with all the different nations. They not only made different military and commercial alliances, but they also went after foreign gods. They even burned up some of their own children, burned them alive to make these false gods happy. All their work, all their pain, all their suffering was ultimately vain and useless. So what hope was there for them? Why, the hope is found in verse 19.
Here is the deliverance that Jehovah brings. They were dead in their trespass and sins, dead spiritually, and many of them dead physically. But they who were the true Israel of God, they who were looking forward to the coming of One Who was pictured by the priests, sacrifices, and the temple, they who looked to the One prophesied by the prophets, they who looked to Him had a promise here, a precious promise. God’s people shall live figuratively and literally with a promise here of resurrection for them.
Questions
- How did the people of God react when God’s discipline came upon them?
- What promise is in verse 19?
Prayer Points
- Pray that discipline would make us turn to Christ not away from Him.
- Use prayer points from your congregation.
- Pray for family matters.