Add parallel Print Page Options

14 (A)The dead will not live; the [a]departed spirits will not rise;
Therefore You have (B)visited and destroyed them,
And You have made all remembrance of them perish.
15 (C)You have increased the nation, O Yahweh;
You have increased the nation, You are glorified;
You have (D)extended all the borders of the land.
16 O Yahweh, they visited You (E)in distress;
They [b]could only whisper a prayer;
Your chastening was upon them.
17 (F)As the [c]woman with child draws near to the time to give birth,
She writhes and cries out in her pangs of labor,
Thus were we before You, O Yahweh.
18 We were [d]with child, we writhed in labor;
We (G)gave birth, as it seems, only to wind.
We could not accomplish salvation for the earth,
And the (H)inhabitants of the world [e]were not born.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 26:14 Or shades
  2. Isaiah 26:16 Lit sound forth a whisper
  3. Isaiah 26:17 Or pregnant woman
  4. Isaiah 26:18 Or pregnant
  5. Isaiah 26:18 Lit had never fallen

14 The dead do not come back to life,
the spirits of the dead do not rise.[a]
That is because[b] you came in judgment[c] and destroyed them,
you wiped out all memory of them.
15 You have made the nation larger,[d] O Lord;
you have made the nation larger and revealed your splendor;[e]
you have extended all the borders of the land.
16 O Lord, in distress they looked for you;
they uttered incantations because of your discipline.[f]
17 As when a pregnant woman gets ready to deliver
and strains and cries out because of her labor pains,
so were we because of you, O Lord.
18 We were pregnant, we strained,
we gave birth, as it were, to wind.[g]
We cannot produce deliverance on the earth;
no people are born to populate the world.[h]

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 26:14 sn In light of what is said in verse 14b, the “dead” here may be the “masters” mentioned in verse 13.
  2. Isaiah 26:14 tn The Hebrew term לָכֵן (lakhen) normally indicates a cause-effect relationship between what precedes and follows and is translated, “therefore.” Here, however, it infers the cause from the effect and brings out what is implicit in the previous statement. See BDB 487 s.v.
  3. Isaiah 26:14 tn Heb “visited [for harm]” (cf. KJV, ASV); NAB, NRSV “you have punished.”
  4. Isaiah 26:15 tn Heb “you have added to the nation.” The last line of the verse suggests that geographical expansion is in view. “The nation” is Judah.
  5. Isaiah 26:15 tn Or “brought honor to yourself.”
  6. Isaiah 26:16 tn The meaning of this verse is unclear. It appears to read literally, “O Lord, in distress they visit you, they pour out [?] an incantation, your discipline to them.” פָּקַד (paqad) may here carry the sense of “seek with interest” (cf. Ezek 23:21 and BDB 823 s.v.) or “seek in vain” (cf. Isa 34:16), but it is peculiar for the Lord to be the object of this verb. צָקוּן (tsaqun) may be a Qal perfect third plural form from צוּק (tsuq, “pour out, melt”), though the verb is not used of pouring out words in its two other occurrences. Because of the appearance of צַר (tsar, “distress”) in the preceding line, it is tempting to emend the form to a noun and derive it from צוּק (“be in distress”) The term לַחַשׁ (lakhash) elsewhere refers to an incantation (Isa 3:3; Jer 8:17; Eccl 10:11) or amulet (Isa 3:20). Perhaps here it refers to ritualistic prayers or to magical incantations used to ward off evil.
  7. Isaiah 26:18 tn On the use of כְּמוֹ (kemo, “like, as”) here, see BDB 455 s.v. Israel’s distress and suffering, likened here to the pains of childbirth, seemed to be for no purpose. A woman in labor endures pain with the hope that a child will be born; in Israel’s case no such positive outcome was apparent. The nation was like a woman who strains to bring forth a child but cannot push the baby through to daylight. All her effort produces nothing.
  8. Isaiah 26:18 tn Heb “and the inhabitants of the world do not fall.” The term נָפַל (nafal) apparently means here, “be born,” though the Qal form of the verb is not used with this nuance anywhere else in the OT. (The Hiphil appears to be used in the sense of “give birth” in v. 19, however.) The implication of verse 18b seems to be that Israel hoped its suffering would somehow end in deliverance and an increase in population. The phrase “inhabitants of the world” seems to refer to the human race in general, but the next verse, which focuses on Israel’s dead, suggests the referent may be more limited.