Isaiah 26 - ESV - Bible Reading / Study Notes

Isaiah 26

You Keep Him in Perfect Peace

26:1 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

  “We have a strong city;
    he sets up salvation
    as walls and bulwarks.
2   Open the gates,
    that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.
3   You keep him in perfect peace
    whose mind is stayed on you,
    because he trusts in you.
4   Trust in the LORD forever,
    for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.
5   For he has humbled
    the inhabitants of the height,
    the lofty city.
  He lays it low, lays it low to the ground,
    casts it to the dust.
6   The foot tramples it,
    the feet of the poor,
    the steps of the needy.”
7   The path of the righteous is level;
    you make level the way of the righteous.
8   In the path of your judgments,
    O LORD, we wait for you;
  your name and remembrance
    are the desire of our soul.
9   My soul yearns for you in the night;
    my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
  For when your judgments are in the earth,
    the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
10   If favor is shown to the wicked,
    he does not learn righteousness;
  in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly
    and does not see the majesty of the LORD.
11   O LORD, your hand is lifted up,
    but they do not see it.
  Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.
    Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.
12   O LORD, you will ordain peace for us,
    for you have indeed done for us all our works.
13   O LORD our God,
    other lords besides you have ruled over us,
    but your name alone we bring to remembrance.
14   They are dead, they will not live;
    they are shades, they will not arise;
  to that end you have visited them with destruction
    and wiped out all remembrance of them.
15   But you have increased the nation, O LORD,
    you have increased the nation; you are glorified;
    you have enlarged all the borders of the land.
16   O LORD, in distress they sought you;
    they poured out a whispered prayer
    when your discipline was upon them.
17   Like a pregnant woman
    who writhes and cries out in her pangs
    when she is near to giving birth,
  so were we because of you, O LORD;
18     we were pregnant, we writhed,
    but we have given birth to wind.
  We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,
    and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.
19   Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.
    You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
  For your dew is a dew of light,
    and the earth will give birth to the dead.
20   Come, my people, enter your chambers,
    and shut your doors behind you;
  hide yourselves for a little while
    until the fury has passed by.
21   For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place
    to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,
  and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,
    and will no more cover its slain.

Commentary

v1: Judah will sing the song of salvation. God’s salvation is our walls and bulwarks; for we no longer rely on a physical fortress. Here is our security. This contrasts with the walls of Moab, which are destroyed (25.10-12). The image of walls is that they are our protection and salvation, and from God.

v2: In God the nation can be righteous, and can enter the fullness of His blessings. First Christ opened the gate of the righteous, Ps 118.19-20, and now those who follow Him.

v3-4: Our experience of God’s security; the objective fact becomes reality in our lives, as perfect peace. Our part is a mind fixed (or leaning, depending, as in 36.5) on Him. This is to do with simple trust in God, and is an essential part of our lives. We have confidence in the everlasting strength of God.

v5-6: See 25.12; we should not identify with those whom God has promised to bring down. Victory is seen not primarily as something military, but something moral, where the proud are brought low.

v7-9: God is just, therefore we must be just also; His justice will be made manifest amongst the nations. We should seek Him, Ps 63.1; Prov 8.17; seek Him early, meaning making a costly effort to know Him.

v10-11: Even though God shows grace to the wicked, they will not repent. This may refer to ungodly Jews living amongst the righteous; Matt 8.10-12; 11.20-24. The fire prepared for His enemies will consume them. When God blesses His own people, He gives opportunity for the ungodly to repent.

v12-15: Gratitude to God for His faithfulness; all the good in our lives is His work of grace. In the light of God’s grace, we recognise our own folly and sins, and shown proper remorse and repentance; now we honour only Him.

Those who do not know God have a destiny apart from Him. We must learn this lesson well, and put our trust in the eternal one.

v16-18: Israel’s sorrow and pain, but by disobedience and unfaithfulness they brought forth nothing; Hag 1.6. There was the pain of childbirth, but no child. The people of God were supposed to be a blessing to the world, but failed.

v19: Hope in dark days. The Jewish people held a hope in the resurrection from the dead; Job 19.25-27. There are many who claim to have power over life and death, such as witchdoctors and sorcerers, but God’s people must not fear them.

v20-21: People of God commanded to avoid the judgment about to fall, as in 24.1-20; Matt 24.15-21. We should not be judged with the ungodly, and we must therefore not live like them.