Isaiah 26:1-19
Judah’s Song of Victory
On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
We have a strong city;
he sets up victory
like walls and bulwarks.
Open the gates,
so that the righteous nation that keeps faith
may enter in.
Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace—
in peace because they trust in you.
Trust in the Lord for ever,
for in the Lord God
you have an everlasting rock.
For he has brought low
the inhabitants of the height;
the lofty city he lays low.
He lays it low to the ground,
casts it to the dust.
The foot tramples it,
the feet of the poor,
the steps of the needy.
The way of the righteous is level;
O Just One, you make smooth the path of the righteous.
In the path of your judgements,
O Lord, we wait for you;
your name and your renown
are the soul’s desire.
My soul yearns for you in the night,
my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
For when your judgements are in the earth,
the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
If favour is shown to the wicked,
they do not learn righteousness;
in the land of uprightness they deal perversely
and do not see the majesty of the Lord.
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.
O Lord, you will ordain peace for us,
for indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us.
O Lord our God,
other lords besides you have ruled over us,
but we acknowledge your name alone.
The dead do not live;
shades do not rise—
because you have punished and destroyed them,
and wiped out all memory of them.
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.
O Lord, in distress they sought you,
they poured out a prayer
when your chastening was on them.
Like a woman with child,
who writhes and cries out in her pangs
when she is near her time,
so were we because of you, O Lord;
we were with child, we writhed,
but we gave birth only to wind.
We have won no victories on earth,
and no one is born to inhabit the world.
Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise.
O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For your dew is a radiant dew,
and the earth will give birth to those long dead.
This section of Isaiah’s prophetic work is likely to be post Exilic. Israelites from Judah are returning to Jerusalem from captivity in Babylon and expecting a glorious restoration, but instead find many challenges. These verses are a communal prayer to call upon God to help Judah overcome their enemies. They sing about how this future will look like, what it will be like to return to Jerusalem.
Verses 1-6 – On these days of return from exile, Judah’s song of victory will celebrate God returning our glorious city of Jerusalem and vindicating our righteousness and our faith in God.
Verse 4 – The Temple was built on rock; the imagery is used as a metaphor to denote how trustworthy is God.
Verses 5-6 – The high and mighty Babylonians who have captured Jerusalem, and destroyed the Temple, are themselves brought low. Trampled on by the poor and needy themselves, the righteous Israelites, who have been trampled on by the Babylonians.
Verse 7 – The way of righteousness ‘good, responsible living’ as outlined in the commandments is a steady path. The name ‘Just One’ is only found here in the Bible and resonates with Jewish belief that God is supremely just, even if this justice is not much in evidence in the present corrupt world. In the end times the cosmos will be destroyed and replaced by a new creation, where God’s justice will be evident.
Verses 8-9 – Waiting upon God’s justice is our soul’s desire.
Verse 10 – If the unrighteous get away with things, they don’t learn the better ways of Israel’s just God.
Verse 11 – Punish them God!
Verse 12 – Give us peace for all we have done, and all you have done for us!
Verse 13 – Others (Assyria and Babylon) have ruled over us, but we are faithful only to you.
Verses 14-15 – Our enemy rulers are now dead, but you have increased our size.
Verses 16-19 – In exile, in distress we called out to you, like a woman in labor, but we gave birth to nothing. But God your dead Israel shall live, will awake with joy. An image of the birth and resurrection of the Israelite community after the disaster of the exile.
Blessings as we remember that our God is a God of restoration; we will be restored from this plague that we all are experiencing. The Lord is Risen! Be safe! Be well!
To Ponder:
- Can you think of a context in which you wrestle with a desire for the coming of God’s justice, and imagine what it will be like when you can see that justice?
- The everlasting rock on which the Temple was built was a visible symbol of the unshakeable reliability of God, which Israelites could remember even in exile. Do you have a visible symbol which reminds you of God near you through thick and thin? Describe it.
- In what ways do you or don’t you have a problem with the Israelites seeing themselves as righteous and their oppressors as the unrighteous?
- What qualities grow in us through adversity, such as for example, our present global crisis and what qualities through good times? How do both teach us about trusting in God?